There is a lot of plastic trash floating in the Pacific Ocean, but claims that the “Great Garbage Patch” between California and Japan is twice the size of Texas are grossly exaggerated, according to an analysis by an Oregon State University scientist.
I’m shocked, shocked that an environmental issue has been overhyped by the media. This part had me scratching my head, though:
Calculations show that the amount of energy it would take to remove plastics from the ocean is roughly 250 times the mass of the plastic itself;
Huh? If they’re talking about the mass equivalence of the energy in an Einsteinian sense, that’s obviously nonsense, but I’m sure that’s not what they mean. But what do they mean?
Maybe 250 times the energy liberated by combustion of the plastic. That would make sense, though I’m not sure I believe it – especially if nature has done us the favor of collecting it in one place.
Maybe the mean the energy required to manufacture the plastic in the first place? That would be a reasonable number, though probably a bit on the low side.
Yeah, when I first heard about this a few years back, I figured there would be lots of pictures of this terrible sign of mankind’s wanton waste and evil. Imagine my surprise when I found literally nothing except some images of isolated plastic (certainly not the great tangled mass of garbage forming something almost island-like, as the more breathless sites reported). From then on I just assumed it was a bunch of exaggerated hooey.
Great, more wingnut Great Pacific Garbage Patch Deniers!
Great Plastic Cthulhu will destroy us all!
On a completely unrelated note, I happen to sell Plastic
IndulgencesOffset Credits in case you’re interested in clearing your consciences.I couldn’t figure out that statement either: “Calculations show that the amount of energy it would take to remove plastics from the ocean is roughly 250 times the mass of the plastic itself”
My guess is that they would use trawlers and nets to sweep the stuff up, similar to how they conducted their tests to arrive at their current conclusions…maybe they mean that recovering one ton of plastic will require expending 250 tons of trawler fuel. Still doesn’t make sense because I am guessing that 250 tons of diesel fuel would be around 72,000 gallons?
Jiminator-
In that case, if you need to expend 72,000 gallons of diesel before you collect even 1 ton of trash, I humbly submit that there isn’t enough trash to bother trying to collect.
Granted, I don’t know how many nautical miles one can get from a gallon of diesel on a trawler, but that sounds like an awful lot of trawling to gather not very much trash, even at the lower densities of plastics.
It’s the energy required to drive the huge vacuum cleaner needed for the job, obviously.
Calculations show that the amount of energy it would take to remove plastics from the ocean is roughly 250 times the mass of the plastic
We should demand they show their work.
E=mc^2
Plastic=Evil, Energy=Evil
Energy = Plastic * c^2
/Evil
1=c^2
I think c^2 is about 250.
Cthulhu fhtagn, Ken. Cthulhu fhtagn…
But for whom does it wait?
Do not ask for whom Cthulhu waits — it waits for thee.