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On Thursday, April 18, 2019 at 12:18:41 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
"Nutritious" means that there is something in the plastic that the bacteria can extract and turn into something useful to them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodegradable_plastic
Some plastics are made to be biodegradable. High density polyethylene and polypropylene aren't, and polytetrafluoethene (TEFLON or PTFE) clearly isn't.
> Doomsday predictions are always plentiful and popular.
Which doesn't make all of them wrong. You choose to ignore doomsday predictions about climate change - or at least are a gullible consumer of denialist propaganda on the subject - which isn't exactly wise.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 21:42:30 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tuesday, April 16, 2019 at 9:11:41 AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 09:09:57 -0700 (PDT),
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, April 16, 2019 at 11:10:11 AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 03:43:50 -0700 (PDT),
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:
Scientists discover large amounts of tiny plastic particles falling out of the air...
At micron radii, the volume is insignificant. Critters will happily
eat them. The bacteria outnumber the plastic particles by billions to
1.
Maybe you missed the part about these particles being nano scale with a completely different surface chemistry that results in all kinds of hazardous atmospheric pollutants binding to them.
That makes them even tastier. Like that big oil spill in the Gulf:
bacteria love this stuff.
Taste is largely irrelevant. Filter feeders (from baleen whales down to corals) can clog
and die at a variety of scale sizes. They aren't picky about flavors.
Bacteria in the Gulf of Mexico have had megayears of oil-seepage to adapt to. Baleen whales
aren't so fast to evolve as regards modern polymers.
They have adapted to millions of years of particulates: sand, dust,
soot, bits of various living and dead critters. Those things probably
outnumber plastic particles by a billion to one.
If we have nutritious amounts of micro-plastics in the sea (which we
don't yet) bacteria will quickly adapt to eating them.
"Nutritious" means that there is something in the plastic that the bacteria can extract and turn into something useful to them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodegradable_plastic
Some plastics are made to be biodegradable. High density polyethylene and polypropylene aren't, and polytetrafluoethene (TEFLON or PTFE) clearly isn't.
> Doomsday predictions are always plentiful and popular.
Which doesn't make all of them wrong. You choose to ignore doomsday predictions about climate change - or at least are a gullible consumer of denialist propaganda on the subject - which isn't exactly wise.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney