Plastic Micro-Particle Patch Bigger Than Mexico Found in Pacific

Re:Plastic Micro-Particle Patch Bigger Than Mexico Found in ... by flavor8 on Monday July 31, 2017 @04:59PM (#14895843)

So how _does_ the plastic get into the ocean? Clearly litter washes into rivers during storms and thus ends up in the ocean, but that seems like it must be a relatively insignificant source. Are there countries who are dumping barges full of trash out at sea? Which ones?

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Re:Plastic Micro-Particle Patch Bigger Than Mexico Found in ... by soperj on Monday July 31, 2017 @05:04PM (#14895888)

Victoria BC actually pipes all sewage right out to sea currently. So anything w/ micro plastic beads gets sent right into the ocean. This is also the case with the storm drainage system, so anything left on the road also right into the ocean.

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Re:Plastic Micro-Particle Patch Bigger Than Mexico Found in ... by irrational on Monday July 31, 2017 @05:20PM (#14895991)

Source? That's crazy if true. I assumed only poor 3rd world countries still did stupid stuff like that.

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Re:Plastic Micro-Particle Patch Bigger Than Mexico Found in ... by soperj on Monday July 31, 2017 @06:13PM (#14896339)

https://thetyee.ca/News/2015/01/26/Victoria-Raw-Sewage-Dumpi...

There's one for you. People here actively protest against building a tertiary system for tax reasons and because they think they don't need it (there's actually a lot of people who even think that it's less environmentally friendly to have it dealt with on land). It's been an on going debate for over 30 years.

These people also see themselves as "green".

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Re:Plastic Micro-Particle Patch Bigger Than Mexico Found in ... by DanBC on Monday July 31, 2017 @06:23PM (#14896405)

(What other people said, plus)

When you wash clothing that contains artificial fibres you dump a load into the water system, and depending where you live some will end up in the sea. All those acrylic fleeces and blankets shed thousands of particles each wash.

Some cosmetics contain plastic microbeads, and when you use those and wash them off you dump the microbeads into the water system.

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Re:Plastic Micro-Particle Patch Bigger Than Mexico Found in ... by dflock on Monday July 31, 2017 @05:25PM (#14896011)

There is a lot of macroscale dumping of garbage - and the plastic stuff just accumulates over a time, until sunlight and wave action break it down.

However, a lot of this plastic _starts_ as micro-plastic particles: microbeads from cosmetics and polyester fibres from clothes (water from washing machines is full of this) - these are in household waste water and often end up in the ocean.

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Re:Plastic Micro-Particle Patch Bigger Than Mexico Found in ... by kpil on Monday July 31, 2017 @06:47PM (#14896542)

Probably mostly from clothes and possibly from ropes, but I'm just guessing that plastic microbeads haven't been around that long. It seems as such a fantastically stupid idea.

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