01-06-2019, 12:19 PM
quote:Aint that a bit short sighted terracore?
Originally posted by terracore
"No plastic, no tapping aquifer: Residents continue push back against proposed Hilo bottling operation"
Here, I'll fix it for you:
"No jobs, no profiting, no tax revenues from something that falls from the sky for free: Residents continue push back against progress, self sufficiency, smaller taxes, and personal responsibility"
ETA: clarity
I agree.. water is a cool product.. but why would you support the start of a business that will make trash that is harming the planet, especially now that it is becoming so apparent?
Great Pacific garbage patch
From... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Paci...bage_patch
The Great Pacific garbage patch, also described as the Pacific trash vortex, is a gyre of marine debris particles in the north central Pacific Ocean. It is located roughly from 135°W to 155°W and 35°N to 42°N. The collection of plastic and floating trash, which comes primarily from countries in Asia, lies halfway between Hawaii and California and extends over an indeterminate area of widely varying range, depending on the degree of plastic concentration used to define it.
The patch is characterized by exceptionally high relative pelagic concentrations of plastic, chemical sludge, and other debris that have been trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre. Despite the common public image of islands of floating rubbish, its low density (4 particles per cubic meter) prevents detection by satellite imagery, or even by casual boaters or divers in the area. It consists primarily of an increase in suspended, often microscopic, particles in the upper water column.
And that even on the Big Island it is a real reason for concern.. and we are TRYING to stop it???
Pioneer in plastic pickup: Group aims to bring unique beach cleaner to Big Island
From... http://www.westhawaiitoday.com/2019/01/0...ig-island/
The Hawaii Wildlife Fund is seeking donations to transport a prototype machine to the Big Island that can sort microplastics from beach sand.
A group of 12 engineering students from the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada, have worked in conjunction with the Wildlife Fund for two years to design a machine that can help remove small pieces of plastic marine debris from beaches.
A completed prototype of the machine, called the HoolaOne, will be tested on Hawaii beaches next month to determine its efficacy.
“The machine will be operated by the students initially, but the machine will belong to us,” said Bill Gilmartin, research director for the Hawaii Wildlife Fund.
Megan Lamson, program director for the Wildlife Fund, said extricating microplastics — plastic fragments 5 millimeters or less in diameter — from sand is a very slow process. Workers take a sample of beach sand into a mixing tray, add seawater, and wait as the less dense plastic waste rises to the top of the water.
The machine operates by the same principle, but much more efficiently. The HoolaOne uses vacuums and pumps to gather sand and seawater more quickly and expel the clean sand back to the beach free of plastic contaminants.
Microplastics are an especially insidious form of plastic pollution due to their extremely small size. The tiny plastic fragments — which can be pieces of larger plastic debris or items like microbeads that are engineered to be extremely small — are consumed unwittingly by sea life, and can become trapped in their digestive systems, leading to health problems not only in the animals that eat the plastic, but in any animals that eat them as well.
So, what's up with that terracore?