How Might Plastics be Eliminated from the Food Chain?

I think you should eliminate chemicals, not just plastics.

What, and put burger chains out of business? Seriously?

Well seriously I suppose keeping plastics out of the oceans is one thing we ought to be for, and then I wonder if were the big plastic gyres are might be "skimmed" as these ships have been used to skim oil from spills and blow outs?

Course the problem is right huge and sometimes we just give up in the face of big numbers. And of course we recognize bad habits are hard to break.

Still technically it may well be possible to cut back the threats posed to the food chain by plastics in the food chain, and the sort of thing worth a serious discussion here.

I agree - eliminate all chemicals. What BS - what things out there are not made up of chemicals?

Stop swiping your plastic card at the food chain store.

Maybe we should return to the old trusted ways of tin cans with lead.

Timmy likes paint chips... tastes like... YUMMY!

I know just the thing you need:

Paradise - No Plastics

Well maybe somebody on Globalspec has a new paradigm for this drug problem in the water. I do have my doubts as far as the oceans are concerned.

Possibly another thread on the question of how to get Birth Control contaminated pee out of the water supply. Might be an easier question to answer than how to get plastics out of the food chain.

I mean what I was thinking about was all the plastic out there in the oceans that water creatures like fish were eating, and then we got when we ate fish. Knew that the drugs given to cows were a problem too.

Sure enough Water Wars are a rising problem overall, and all over simple solutions to the needs of the people for clean pure water are great.

Not a case where I asked the thread question with all the answers.

The BPA leaching out of plastic in the oceans, except for perhaps in the great plastic island area, is quite literally a drop in the bucket. Most instances of chemical feminization occur near shore and inland and that means it is in the freshwater runoff. And BPA isn't used in all plastics anyway.

tooo much information....aaaggghhh

Interesting that this appears only in French, in Quebec, I had always tought that Quebec was bilingual! Obviously wrong.

The promised translation of para 6.3 does not appear and I so wanted to read more about Ozone disinfection, especially as it seemsto be used extensivley in Swimming pool cleanliness thee days.

Anybody know of a source of translated reports, materials such as these? It would be very useful!

Sleepy

The US EPA has a very detailed document dealing with alternative disinfectant approaches that, in Chapter 3 of that document, goes in to great detail as to the chemical reactions involved, and detailed testing that demonstrates that ozone is more effective against certain biological contaminants than chlorine, and far more effective than UV exposure. Ozone is the most effective oxidant in current use. Ozone has been used in potable water systems in Europe much longer than in the US. This particular document does not deal with waste water treatment (my primary interests are potable water treatment), but I suspect that a search of the EPA public web site could turn up some significant references that go well beyond marketing hype.

Unfortunately, I am currently away from the computer where I have these references stored. If you would like more information on ozone, send me a PM and I will e-mail you a copy of Chapter 3 of the referenced document.

Thanks very much, that wopuld be appreciated but I do not know how to PM you (Personal Message?).

If you have a moment and can send me a message then let us go for it

Sleepy

To send a PM

Click on the user name & click where it says to send a Private Message in the top right

Sleepy-

Check your CR4 mailbox. I just sent you a PM.

c warner7_11

received a very short time ago, was puzzled about how to send you a private message but if I send you an email to the address indicated that should work?

CR4 Admin - email removed
From the Site FAQ: Do not post phone numbers or email addresses. The CR4 Admin will delete all phone numbers posted in threads or comments, and we strongly urge you not to put up email addresses.

Thanks very much there was a slight confusion in that garthh sent me a similar message which told me how to send you a message, I thought, I hope that I have not compromised you as I sent it through CR4.

Whoops!

Thanks

Brian

Plse let me know if I have failed the system in some way.

(a PM (private message) from the PM (prime minister) in the PM. (post meridiem) to discuss PM (Political Mayhem) in the PM (Panamanian Money) PM

Ozone is a highly reactive form of oxygen that can oxidize a variety of compounds, and there is no ozone residual in the treated water after a few seconds. Once ozone reacts with some other compound, you are left with oxygen and an oxidized remnant of the more destructive compound. A very good choice.

But it won't get plastics out of the food chain...

How about ozone treatment, or some other destructive oxidation?

Can you come up with a business model to pay to clean the oceans?

I'm reminded of a story I heard on NPR about how economic incentives were changed in order that criminals deported to Australia by the British arrived alive. Story is that while the English wanted to get rid of their criminals, they didn't really want to starve them to death on the boat ride.

What they finally did was pay sea captains and their companies only for delivery of living criminals delivered, instead of for how many were first put on the ship. This change greatly increased live delivery of the criminals to Australia.

Prior to the change the captains had an incentive to withhold food from their captive passengers, and then sell the food for additional profit.

In my past studies I determined that fantasy accounting practices had a lot to do with bad practices. There was and is in the US a tradition of Off Book accounting. Corporations and individuals for much of US history only paid what they wanted, not really for all of the real costs associated with their businesses.

Once all real costs of production, and clean up must be paid, individuals and companies tend to be much more inclined to respect the commons.

What really ought to be the base price of steel internationally when figured on all real costs long and short term as if all iron was really owned by everyone on the planet?

What if China had to pay for air quality impacts to the air in LA, of the US?

Sometimes I think the failures of the WTO, and World Bank revolve around true valuations of labor, and resources and their enabling of continued accounting practices that take for themselves, more than they give.

Where the money goes, and who gets it, for what, can be changed, though sometimes violent fights happen to change that, if only temporarily before the newly empowered become as corrupt as their predecessors.

Everyone doesn't own everything on the planet. If they did, nothing would ever be done.

The simple truth of the matter is that none of us actually own anything, ownership is a fantasy of the human mind. Almost everything you 'own' will become someone else's the day you die, which you will undoubtedly do no matter how much you 'own', the rest of it will wind up in the trash. More to the point, the planet was here millennium before we started claiming it as ours and at the rate we are going it will likely be here millennia after the last of the 'owners' has loosed the mortal coil.

It is interesting to note that Native Americans had no concept of land ownership until Europeans came on the scene, and the Celts had no word for give... if they wanted something they simply claimed it as their own (instead of 'give me the cow please Seamus' you could expect to hear 'that's my cow Seamus' and if Seamus didn't like it too bad so sad try and do something about it...)

The concept of "ownership" most definitely is associated with an agrarian social order- one needs some assurance that, after all the hard work of clearing the land and tilling the soil and protecting the crop from human and non human marauders, one would be able to enjoy the product of one's labors at some future date. "Ownership" as considered in "modern" (say, the last 12,000 years or so) really has very little bearing on survivability for a foraging social order, or even for a pastoral social order, where one moves one's flocks from pasture to pasture...

Some evidence that the Native American Indians tried the agrarian lifestyle, but didn't like it and returned to, or started running buffalo off cliffs.

We may need to address another modern conflict that flows from border issues related to nomadic ways of life incompatible with the agrarian social order.

Only the dual citizenship model really addresses this for the nomads. Currently again Roma in France are targets.

The impediments put up against free movement of laboring individuals while capital goes wherever it wants in pursuit of cheap labor, trapped labor, are impediments to more and better for all.

GA

Quote, 'Currently again Roma in France are targets.'

Come on - it is the instant slums the gypsies manufacturer that they are after. The useless ones that want to live on the fringe of society.

I don't want them and their ghettos in my neighborhood either.

Or 'hunter-gatherer' such as the American Indians were for the most part.

Dear 34, Please rewrite this so I fully grasp it.

I'm frankly not sure if you are agreeing with me, or not.

As all are to know all engineering and science knowledge I glean here on CR4 is intended to make Transcendia a nation desirable to be a part of.

My educational path is very influenced by that of Frank Zappa.

Apparently Mr. Zappa during his career had significant legal problems, and was early in his life entrapped, and robbed by police.

So my interests are in Energy abundance because that enables civilization, and then legitimate infrastructure expenditures wisely spent. Clean perfect wholesome water is a big deal, and justifies expense.

We are likely wise to look to Corning Glass for bottling and packaging, if not pipes. I don't work for Corning, but over the years have come to respect it as far as glass is concerned.

If it does take more energy to make it, but it lasts longer and produces less problems, then it may well turn out it is more cost effective.

Now I did get my nose broken when I was hit in the face with a glass bottle, so I am not all over glass like that in a bar. What you need is glass cans, that act like cans, but are made of glass! The long neck standard beer bottle has a too perfect shape for nightclub fights over crazy women.

Where was I?

Dear 34, Please rewrite this so I fully grasp it.

It is Just Karma.

My pleasure. I think you're saying; you like glass - and though a beer bottle is a perfect design, they aren't really a match against a Glenlivet style which "lasts longer", due to weight and better grip, in a bar fight - over ....... "rights to resources"

And, for the record; I mostly agree.

Just not with the going to a nightclub blinded by some usury chicks blown up agenda on the other guy's motives, which one's attitude then 'fulfills', to her gain alone.

This reminds me of the greatest advantage of Bio-fuels over mined, or drilled fuels. The carbon in the atmosphere is increasing because we are releasing trapped carbon from deep in the earth. When we use Bio-fuels, we use carbon that has very recently been scrubbed from the atmosphere by the plant we started with, a net release of ZERO!

Right - and what percentage of the world's fuel requirement can we get from biofuels?

At present the net? Kind of like multiplying by zero - a little better but not much.

Well scotch is basically a bio fuel.

Odd isn't it that the alcohol industries, which are are almost totally 'renewable' based are so heavily taxed, that it presents a conundrum for authorities, to allow it's use/cost to be 'competitive' with non renewable fuel.

Brazil doesn't seem to have a problem with running on alcohol. Some of the pacific islands are running diesels on coconut oil. Quite a few people are running on filtered used 'deep fryer oil' (vegetable oil). It really seems more about the will to it, than the practicality.

Sugar cane is a best case biofuel feed and is grown in areas (the tropics) that allow great growth rates. Palm oil in certain areas as well.

The waste vegetable oil works but is used by a handful of people around the world - if they had to pay for the oil I expect that would change quickly.

You certainly are right about the tax on alcohol creating a problem for the authorities!

I think you'll find that palm oil is much more common as bio fuel, than coconut

using WVO for biofuel, still takes it out of the food supply, the most common use for Waste vegetable oil being used for animal feed

Also don't forget about the energy it takes to make the "renewable" biofuel sugar beets could have a place, extracting the last 20% of the food grade whitesugar takes as much energy as the 1st 80%. sugar beets can be grown on marginal land, beet sugar can't compete with cane as food, for various reasons

I'm really not ok with my food being fed my waste as this is tantamount to eating my own waste, so if making fuel out of it removes it from MY food chain, then I am totally in favor! Besides which, vegetable oil really is not food, not for us and not for anything I want to eat. I grant you it's properties in assisting with the preperation of food is a special treat (mmm french fries), but none of us should really be consuming that garbage and almost anything you would use vegetable oil for you can substitute lard (better for you than you think), clarified butter, peanut oil or any of a number of less evil lubricants...

Using beet sugar for fuel sounds ok to me; cane is far superior for my palate's dollar. Corn too (don't give me any hooey about depleting the food supply where corn is concerned, last I checked we are still paying farmers in the corn belt to lie fallow for no other reason than to keep supply limited so demand will garner a higher price; not to mention travesty that is high fructose corn syrup).

Really the only thing that truly makes sense to me is to throw out the current Global Market Theory book, recognize that local markets need local diversity and stop trying to create one central supplier for the '4 food items consumers really want' (pardon my rabid sarcasm) because it's a bunch of malarky and stop expecting summer food in winter and winter food in summer to be the standard: Shipping issues dissolve, preservation issues shrink, packaging concerns become more finely tuned and sure, we can't all run out to the store and buy exotic fruits from around the world at 3am, so what.

At the beginning of the current economic situation I read that it was unique in the states for moving was not this time of any particular hopeful benefit.

At 57 with bad arthritis and a 10 year younger wife, with her mom to take care about, not moving anytime soon; and sortah late.

Fixed Base Operator...

Columbia may be a good destination, and commitment is the key to life. Orson Welles had something very interesting to say about his career. I consider Theater an exercise in low self esteem myself, and preferred movie or tv or industrial production work.

Film and theater are areas where I can at least share some experienced insights.

Far as plastic in the water, and other drugs and Ethinylestriadiol in the food chain it is obvious nothing will right be quick done, unless there is money to be made from the base recovery of it, that doesn't call for some new tax.

Pirates trained to run plastic recovery vessels that make oil might be a fun experiment.

It is about now that digital cameras have reached such maturity that one could buy a good one that would be of professional standard for a good while.

Then again a good lease agreement for the life of your career in images with Panavision is recommended, as their cameras are so good, they never sell them.

"Pirates"

I've been casually reading on the issues and it would appear it needs be clandestine under UK (so most of the world) and now US laws - but it also turns out there are 5 or more such 'deposits' to pillage - just that the north Atlantic one is the 'richest and best quality trash' due to (now banned) dumping at sea, mostly from NY.

We could start on the ones where getting caught is less likely?

Perhaps I missed a turn in that conversation, but why exactly would it need to be pirates? What would be illegal about harvesting the Gyres? They are all in international waters so nobody "owns" them so harvesting them should not be an issue, it would come under international salvage law I would expect. Whoever tossed it overboard would technically retain a claim on it, but of course they'd be admitting to illegal activity to do so, so I really can't see anyone complaining.

I shouldn't be taking to you - given I am so depressed - but the laws require 'found property' to be returned to the original owner.

It may not be as 'fussy' as to Mrs Hilda Housewife the trasher, but default is to the State or Nation of origin. I.e as soon as you turn up with a ship load of 'value' - expect the usual garbage.

In 117 I was joking a bit about pirates stealing plastics out the oceans and turning it into oil to sell- sortah.

Otherwise thanks to 34 for the gyres map.

Wonder if the gyres are so located as to be in the shipping lanes, giving ships an incentive to tow something that would capture the plastics and whatnot, and make it profitable to do such a thing?

What we need is a plastic magnet that makes money for those that tow it in the course of normal events? I'm thinking of something round, or circular that towed would collect bits and let living things out. The problem is nearly insurmountable now that it exists and making a mechanism that could separate the living from the dead where the dead look so much like fish food that fish eat it, would be a real trick.

Yah know one of my problems around CR4 is that at best it is a think tank, and some of the ideas come from the exchanges have value in the world we live in.

What is Uncle Sam all about? Why is Troy New York the official home of Uncle Sam?

What if Einstein had wanted to stay in Nazi Germany? If I live another decade Transcendia has some hiring to do.

Trans you raise a good point on getting the man-made garbage only.

It's been a while since I was all keen and active in the marine research sector, and I don't feel like looking up all the facts, but gyres are a bit like the bio-digester's of natural oceanic garbage, (weed and bodies) and so support an eco system for a number of species and phases in life cycles of others.

I remember reading in the days of sail they were avoided due to unpleasantness and likelihood of becoming becalmed.

I agree that just dragging a net through may do a lot more harm than is at first apparent.

I imagine these days ships just plow on through, but maybe not, as such junk tends to block water inlets, or tangle props, or catch and increase drag. They're likely a home for miles of floating rope, nets and fishing line.

Of interest not all junk is useless

It could be done, but maybe not as a cost neutral process. Whether the magic plastic to oil machine that people have been talking about really works or not there is another way of skinning the cat (sorry Del, it's a turn of phrase.). Anything that can burn can be turned into synthesis gas. (a mix of water vapor, CO, Hydrogen and CO2) by incompletely burning it in a restricted oxygen atmosphere. The heat can be used to generate steam to turn a propeller. the synthesis gas can be used in the Fischer-Topsch process to generate synthetic hydrocarbons which can in turn be used to help generate steam for the propulsion system. The beauty of that method is that it does not have to just be plastic and it doesn't have to be specific KINDS of plastic or even clean. Seaweed, driftwood, paper based trash, Kemps-Ridley sea turtles, fish, oysters, anything that'll burn will work. I seriously doubt that the "plastic as fuel" would be enough energy on it's own but it could supplement conventional bunker oil. The bow of the vessel could be fitted with a simple conveyor to collect the plastic as the ship circled the gyre. Sort of a giant sized version of this puppy. Perhaps the UN would throw some money at the problem, or perhaps carbon credits could be generated and sold if some means of capturing the CO2 could be found. Or maybe the upper deck could be covered with PV cells and the resulting electricity could be used to hydrolyze seawater to generate hydrogen and oxygen to help generate steam. Or for that matter you could talk to Obama, he threw $800K+ at a project to teach African men to wash themselves after sex, I'm sure the plastic gyres problem is worth much more than that....

Have the ship built in India or China by laborers working for a buck a day.... Gotta keep costs down donchaknow....

Africa is a continent. The UN does somethings alright as long as the status quo is maintained. Only Transcendia is new and improved, and it aint perfect either.

Interesting symbol design.

_{(plastic I guess)}

Actually the plastic to oil gizmos produce syn gas

Add a full on plastic sorter rig as you say

I really doubt that even if the R/D was paid for the whole operation would come close to a break even proposition.

What is there to research? at this point it is just a matter of engineering and naval architecture and bolting existing equipment and processes together in the right order.

But agreed, it would need a subsidy of some sort, but perhaps not as large of one as one might imagine. The ship could be Liberian flagged and crewed by third world crewmen paid a relative pittance.

You're right no real research involved

some one would have to cough up the initial investment for the equipment

maybe some of the tastier animals harvested to help offset the cost of operation

can up some cat food maybe?

a fishing vessel with a plastic problem :)

some of the polymers could be reclaimed after gravity separation & used for lograde fillers

On second thought, it might be more efficient to simply burn the plastic in a boiler than to try to go the syn gas route since ultimately it gets burned anyway to turn the prop.

Another possibility is perhaps a small US Navy type nuclear teakettle as the primary steam generator and utilize the waste heat to drive the Syn gas/Fischer-Tropsch conversion, that way you can claim CO2 credits as well. A standard US Navy reactor will run for decades on a single fuel load and very little maintenance and the safety record is impeccable. The Russian ones... eh not so much, they've had a number of problems with their designs and a whole bunch of sailors have died and ships and subs badly contaminated. But the downside is that because these puppies run on weapons grade EU, you won't be able to build the ship in China, flag it in Liberia, nor would you be able to crew it with third world manual labor, so the operating costs just went through the roof, so this might be the better technical answer but not so good from an economic POV.

Just get it on the military budget, no one will even notice a few billion one way or the other

I saw some talk about a military research project to convert garbage into diesel not long ago, a small nuke is the obvious choice for a heat source...

Garthh, the US military budget is actually far smaller than SS, Welfare, Medicare, medicaid, or any of the other "entitlement" programs.

Not by much http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget Doesn't matter the military budget has a pretty favorable ratio of R/D largess to oversight.

if you want to hide a questionable program, say defense or homeland security, suddenly any questions becomes a threat to national security. Military contractors have effective lobbyists & certainly get plenty...

Thanks for the link to the budget. I need to look it over some more. Heard of a challenge.gov program similar to Innocentive. I've long struggled with what R&D the government ought to pay for and facilitate, and what private businesses ought to pay?

Then I grapple with University R&D and how that really ought to be funded in the mix of State Universities, as opposed to Private Universities. Possibly here in my backyard I need to look to see how R&D is done by Duke, and otherwise done at NC State, or A&T, the two main engineering schools in the State University System.

This issue has been popping up in other threads, as if it is an across the board influence on all being done these days.

How this impacts plastics in the food chain comes from a lack of profit making for getting it out of the food chain. It is implied that some R&D is needed to make getting the plastic bits and trash to become such a profitable thing to do, as it will be done, is key.

Since I do not know of a "Plastics Magnet", there are problems very hard to overcome since I just want to get the trash, and leave the fish and other creatures better food than plastic. (I am also aware that some plastics are better than other plastics.) The plastics that do not breakdown in dangerous ways are to be encouraged.

You may also work out from the center getting ahold of better quality trash first to finance the pursuit of more and more marginal trash. In the US people typically pay water bills to municipalities so they get clean water. Preventing water from being bad in the first place is a legitimate place for some of the water bill money to go.

It is not out of the question that municipal water treatment plants as professionals would band together to make their jobs easier, and do a better job, with an international organization of water people.

What does the International Organization of Water Workers envision as the Perfect All Water Plan?

The International Organization of Water Workers - a branch of the UN!

Clean water guaranteed - never to come with some international organization involved.

This http://challenge.gov/search

is interesting, real money compared to those other sites.

I'll post more after I've looked around some

What we need is a plastic magnet........

Well you never know.........we have magnetic bacteria, algae, etc in diesel fuel, why not magnetic plastic!!!!

And can't we make free energy from magnets? I'm sure I saw a plan for that on CR4 just recently?

Now you're talkin'

free energy from plastic magnets, to remove the humidity from the air, the excess energy used to power overunity hydrolysis

we can power the whole planet off these gyer's

Must also consume CO2 from the atmosphere - but should be reversible just in case!