Facial scrubs polluting Great Lakes with plastic

Re:Facial scrubs polluting Great Lakes with plastic by yread on Friday August 02, 2013 @09:11AM (#6146675)

If plastics absorb PCBs and pesticides, couldn't we use big (so they can't be swallowed), porous (to increase the surface) pieces of plastic to clean the water?

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Re:Facial scrubs polluting Great Lakes with plastic by eksith on Friday August 02, 2013 @11:05AM (#6147342)

I think maybe this idea has floated around (no pun intended). There's a nice demo for teachers here : http://www.cmu.edu/gelfand/k12-teachers/polymers/polymer-and...

Ironically the plastic was polypropylene there too.

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Re:Facial scrubs polluting Great Lakes with plastic by astrodust on Friday August 02, 2013 @12:49PM (#6148072)

Don't use one toxin to clean up another.

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Re:Facial scrubs polluting Great Lakes with plastic by Houshalter on Friday August 02, 2013 @01:49PM (#6148475)

Why not? The things can be removed from the water, and even if they weren't, there could still be a net benefit in having one toxin over another.

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Re:Facial scrubs polluting Great Lakes with plastic by astrodust on Friday August 02, 2013 @02:43PM (#6148807)

History is filled with examples of well-intentioned solutions like this going horribly awry.

Talk to an Australian about cane toads, for example. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toads_in_Australia).

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Re:Facial scrubs polluting Great Lakes with plastic by Houshalter on Friday August 02, 2013 @06:13PM (#6150003)

Maybe so, however that is a fully general counterargument that applies to any attempt to solve any problem ever.

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Re:Facial scrubs polluting Great Lakes with plastic by astrodust on Wednesday August 07, 2013 @11:22AM (#6173390)

Let's say you run a barber shop. You could always set the hair on the floor on fire, right? That'll clean it up! What could possibly go wrong?

...or maybe you could just sweep it up.

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