Floating Plastic Island

Dear god.

http://www.vice.com/toxic/toxic-garbage-island-1-of-3

Reports of it being twice the size of Texas are evidently accurate.

I see this as one of the signs of the apocalypse. At some point in our lifetime you will be able to walk from Cali to china on trash. The plastic NEVER goes away.

Billions of tons of plastic are produced each year that are NOT recyclable.

So does that mean that I'll be able to get my hands on a zombie panda now?

Whattawort said:

So does that mean that I'll be able to get my hands on a zombie panda now?

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Bastard.

Yes, but it will be SO toxically full of plastic **** that it will never fully zombify.

cheezydemon3 said:

Bastard.

Yes, but it will be SO toxically full of plastic **** that it will never fully zombify.

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That's good from a preservative perspective. I only need the limbs to be fully infected.

That's disturbing to say the least..

CoalCracker said:

That's disturbing to say the least..

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Yeah, the part where they are still miles from the island, but are dragging bits of plastic up in surprising concentrations was particularly unsettling.

The ocean which we imagine is full of fish excrement, but otherwise clean and self sustaining has all of that **** floating in it? Dear GOD, how can humans be so stupid?

cheezydemon3 said:

Yeah, the part where they are still miles from the island, but are dragging bits of plastic up in surprising concentrations was particularly unsettling.

The ocean which we imagine is full of fish excrement, but otherwise clean and self sustaining has all of that **** floating in it? Dear GOD, how can humans be so stupid?

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Ummmm, have you not looked at any 'normal' humans in the past few decades?? People are, basically, stupid animals. Sure, there are exceptions, like many on these boards. But that's a tiny fraction of the rest.

cheezydemon3 said:

Dear GOD, how can humans be so stupid?

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Wasn't it George Carlin who said, "Think of how stupid the average person is. Half the population that is even more stupid."

Ya, when I 1st heard about this, I thought "Just send some ships out there & scoop it up." Problem is, the bulk of the plastic breaks down into small bits that pass through nets & swirl around when you try to scoop it up, think duck weed with a positive charge & a coffee can scoop, also with a positive charge.
This stuff is a boil on the ass of the planet & we have no mirror, no needle, and no doctor to deal with it.
I'll get down off my soapbox now.
Regards, GF.

Damn, at sea for 3 weeks on a dry boat? How did these people survive without rum or beer?

landshark said:

Damn, at sea for 3 weeks on a dry boat? How did these people survive without rum or beer?

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They didn't...

They had 1 drunk day. They drop anchor and get "pissed" as the captain says.

cheezydemon3 said:

Dear god.

At some point in our lifetime you will be able to walk from Cali to china on trash.

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Don't worry. The oil will run out a long time before the petrochemical industry makes that much plastic. It's natures way of regulating how much we can smurf the system up.

mcspanner said:

Don't worry. The oil will run out a long time before the petrochemical industry makes that much plastic. It's natures way of regulating how much we can smurf the system up.

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Maybe we should start pressing smurfs and refining that for fuel... :rockin:

Golddiggie said:

Maybe we should start pressing smurfs and refining that for fuel... :rockin:

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Crushed smurfs are great as a fuel, but far too volatile to make distribution and storage practical.

There were a lot of edible looking critters living on the big chunks...just trying to be positive

mcspanner said:

Crushed smurfs are great as a fuel, but far too volatile to make distribution and storage practical.

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Well then get on it damnit... Maybe BobbiLynn (or her hubby) can make something to help it along.

They stated in the movie that most of the plastic is non recyclable.

The closer they got to the thing, the more plastic bits were in the water, even miles from the island.

Eventually that thing might decide to park next to california, like cheerios in a bowl.

cheezydemon3 said:

They stated in the movie that most of the plastic is non recyclable.

The closer they got to the thing, the more plastic bits were in the water, even miles from the island.

Eventually that thing might decide to park next to california, like cheerios in a bowl.

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Good place for it. Might help keep the place from going into the ocean.

Golddiggie said:

Good place for it. Might help keep the place from going into the ocean.

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Could you imagine?

3.5 million dollar homes suddenly not worth ****.

Bet there would be a movement to clean it up then!

cheezydemon3 said:

Could you imagine?

3.5 million dollar homes suddenly not worth ****.

Bet there would be a movement to clean it up then!

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Yup... Sad but true... Of course, no-one in those homes will get their hands dirty. The government will be called in to take care of the cleanup. So all of US will pay for this, even more so than we probably already are.

Here's something else to obsess about: the CO2 that the yeast gives off when you are home-brewing is adding to the problem of global warming. You could somewhat offset it though, by bubbling the gas through a tank of algae and using that to make spirulina smoothies. Or vent the gas into your indoor hop grow-op.

RobertRGeorge said:

Here's something else to obsess about: the CO2 that the yeast gives off when you are home-brewing is adding to the problem of global warming. You could somewhat offset it though, by bubbling the gas through a tank of algae and using that to make spirulina smoothies. Or vent the gas into your indoor hop grow-op.

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Smurf off...

Cows produce more greenhouse gasses, in a day, than we produce CO2 from fermenting in a year. So, in the interest of the planet, convert as many vegans as you can. Get them to eat meat again so that we can reduce the livestock carbon contribution. Let us have our rifles so that we can go out and thin the wild herds, reducing that carbon contribution too.

RobertRGeorge said:

Here's something else to obsess about: the CO2 that the yeast gives off when you are home-brewing is adding to the problem of global warming. You could somewhat offset it though, by bubbling the gas through a tank of algae and using that to make spirulina smoothies. Or vent the gas into your indoor hop grow-op.

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I knew the weather in my neighborhood has been unusually warm, or unusually cold.......whichever one is being blamed on global warming this week.
Oh, and I just mail Al Gore a check every time I ferment a batch so I'm covered.

RobertRGeorge said:

Here's something else to obsess about: the CO2 that the yeast gives off when you are home-brewing is adding to the problem of global warming. You could somewhat offset it though, by bubbling the gas through a tank of algae and using that to make spirulina smoothies. Or vent the gas into your indoor hop grow-op.

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Lol. I think this was a humorous comment but on the off chance that your tongue wasn't firmly in cheek:

Your mind can rest easy as the CO2 produced by our wonderful fermentations is more than offset (many times over) by the growth of barley, wheat, oats, rice, barley and, of course, hops. This doesn't even touch on sugar products or fruit additions.

As far as producing CO2 goes we can all RDWHAHB

I'm mad as hell and I've decided to do something about it. I'm going to hijack an oil tanker and pilot it to the great pacific garbage patch. Then I'll jettison the cargo, and light it on fire. Light the whole mess on fire, and it will all burn away. Sure, there'll be some fallout, but the junk will be gone. GONE! Thank you.

I'm mad as hell that cheezy started a thread without capitalizing all of the letters in at least one word in the post title.

I'd think the constant UV from the sun would break down the plastic relatively quickly.

bottlebomber said:

I'm mad as hell and I've decided to do something about it. I'm going to hijack an oil tanker and pilot it to the great pacific garbage patch. Then I'll jettison the cargo, and light it on fire. Light the whole mess on fire, and it will all burn away. Sure, there'll be some fallout, but the junk will be gone. GONE! Thank you.

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There are programs that collect a lot of this plastic and incinerate it at high temperatures with little pollution.

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/15/a-second-life-for-discarded-fishing-nets/

There's a NOAA site that says one ton of fishing nets produces 25 days of power to a single home.

RobertRGeorge said:

Here's something else to obsess about: the CO2 that the yeast gives off when you are home-brewing is adding to the problem of global warming. You could somewhat offset it though, by bubbling the gas through a tank of algae and using that to make spirulina smoothies. Or vent the gas into your indoor hop grow-op.

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There is a ethanol plant in my town I blame my carbon emissions on them

WesleyS said:

I knew the weather in my neighborhood has been unusually warm, or unusually cold.......whichever one is being blamed on global warming this week.
Oh, and I just mail Al Gore a check every time I ferment a batch so I'm covered.

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So you come into a thread about a factual pile of **** in the ocean to try to make it partisan?

the words INTENTIONALLY BRAINWASHED come to mind.

(happy AZIPA?)

cheezydemon3 said:

So you come into a thread about a factual pile of **** in the ocean to try to make it partisan?

the words INTENTIONALLY BRAINWASHED come to mind.

(happy AZIPA?)

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My post was a joke in response to the post I had quoted and was not a response to all the floating trash in the ocean. Yes, that is a major problem and I'm not denying that. Unwad your panties now and move on.

WesleyS said:

My post was a joke in response to the post I had quoted and was not a response to all the floating trash in the ocean. Yes, that is a major problem and I'm not denying that. Unwad your panties now and move on.

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Make me!

Golddiggie said:

Smurf off...

Cows produce more greenhouse gasses, in a day, than we produce CO2 from fermenting in a year. So, in the interest of the planet, convert as many vegans as you can. Get them to eat meat again so that we can reduce the livestock carbon contribution. Let us have our rifles so that we can go out and thin the wild herds, reducing that carbon contribution too.

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umm, how is that supposed to work? if the vegans start eating cows, that will just lead to more people raising more cows, thus increasing the cow farts. what we need is somone to put a hose in each cows butt to capture the methane they release when they fart, and use that to generate power. someone besides me can do the actual hose insertion, I did my part by thinking of the plan....

Hogarthe said:

umm, how is that supposed to work? if the vegans start eating cows, that will just lead to more people raising more cows, thus increasing the cow farts. what we need is somone to put a hose in each cows butt to capture the methane they release when they fart, and use that to generate power. someone besides me can do the actual hose insertion, I did my part by thinking of the plan....

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Lol, I am with you. Convert everyone to vegan and grainyards go bye bye.

And sorry, butt tubes would get clogged with crap in no time. They would have to live in tents where the crasp would fall to the floor and methane somehow gets captured.

Now, I would LOVE to capture the CO2 from my homebrewing.

Airplanedoc said:

There is a ethanol plant in my town I blame my carbon emissions on them

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I thought you just blamed the dog.

As for converting the vegans over, that's partially to get some of them off their high horse (and eat a cow man) and partially just for giggles and grins.

You could just use the system they did in Mad Max Thunderdome...

cheezydemon3 said:

Make me!

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Lol

cheezydemon3 said:

Make me!

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No-one, and I do mean absolutely NO ONE, wants to get anywhere even remotely near your panties.

cheezydemon3 said:

Now, I would LOVE to capture the CO2 from my homebrewing.

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I was thinking about this the other day and I think its very doable. The thing is do you really generate enough CO2 during fermentation to make the whole thing worth my time...

I have a chemist buddy who is going to help me capture the CO2 to try and recycle it. I will let you know how that goes...

birdroad said:

I was thinking about this the other day and I think its very doable. The thing is do you really generate enough CO2 during fermentation to make the whole thing worth my time...

I have a chemist buddy who is going to help me capture the CO2 to try and recycle it. I will let you know how that goes...

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You need to capture it, then pressurize it for storage. Might be better off using a ferment under pressure method.