OT: What damage do micro-particles of plastic do?

[Chris Green]

I don't say anything of the sort, I asked what harm it does.

So, what harm does it do?

[Vir Campestris]

They've got to be urban.

If the thing is shoving out a couple of hundred megawatts of low-grade heat WTF will you do with that in a village? In a town you can give everyone free central heating.

Andy

[Vir Campestris]

Another problem is that quite a lot of pollutants are adsorbed onto the surface of plastics. Which means that they concentrate the dose for those creatures unfortunate enough to eat them.

Andy

[dennis]

Grow stuff.

At what infrastructure costs?

[Tim Streater]

Which problems would those be then, Den?

[Tim Streater]

These are proteins and can therefore be broken down if your body produces suitable enzymes.

a long chain carbohydrate which some micro-organisms can break down (often to be found in the gut of termites). A shorter chain carbohydrate is starch for which humans have the appropriate enzymes (one of which is in your saliva).

The body consists *only* of chemicals. Chew on that.

[dennis]

Traffic, noise, air pollution, etc. Are you so dumb as to not know that happens?

[newshound]

And, of course, it is only a prosperous society that can do conservation and remediation. Whilst it is true that mankind has been responsible for the extinction of many species, this was almost all accomplished in the days of flint tools.

[newshound]

I do hope that Proc Roy Soc required them to say a bit more than "plastic".

At least the Telegraph didn't say "chemicals".

[whisky-dave]

Try eating it to find out.

[whisky-dave]

Well I heard about it via a podcast, the person that had discovered that fish were eating plastic because it gave of a smell similar to krill was being interviewed, I didn't get this info from a newspaper or a reporter but a scientist.

[newshound]

My *point* is that the Telegraph seems to be blaming all plastics. I think it is most unlikely to be PE, PP, PS or PET. PVC, perhaps.

So no reason to declare war on all plastics. If there is an issue for certain types, then they could be controlled more tightly or even banned: plenty of precedent for this. But who cares about facts these days. The scarier the scare story, the better.

[whisky-dave]

But few know which plastics are OK and which aren't, and even fewer can itentify them by sight. There; might even be plastics that are good for the enviroment but I doubt many know of them either.

which there is. But overall Id say any plastic disposed of in the sea or land isnlt good.

No one will bother until the scare stories emerge from the depths of theory. A bit like smoking, drinking or anything else.

The only good news I've heard is that if some plastics are added to concrete (about 15% by volume IIRC) will strenghen concrete by upto 25%.

[Andy Burns]

It's OK, science has developed an enzyme to eat plastics, or rather science has copied nature where a bacteria made the enzyme

I wonder whether discarded plastics or super-bugs that eat things made of plastic will be the bigger problem in the long run?

[The Other John]

Does anyone remember a BBC drama in the Doomwatch series in the '70s I think? It featured plastic eating bugs that escaped in an aircraft and started disolving all the plastic bits. Be careful what you wish for! :)

[alan_m]

My thoughts exactly when I watched the news last night. I do remember watching that episode although if I watched it today I may notice more the poor acting, cardboard sets and all the old junk being discarded by the BBC engineering department being passed of as modern electronics.

[Johnny B Good]

The very first thing that came to my mind (except I couldn't remember its title off the top of my head)!

[Johnny B Good]

That wasn't my take away of that episode other than perhaps "Shades of 'The Andromeda Strain'".

[Martin]

and it depends on what else they eat. :-)

[Cynic]

You know that degraded plastic smells like krill? How?