A New Blend of Rock and Plastic Is Forming on a Portuguese Island | Hacker News Reader

A New Blend of Rock and Plastic Is Forming on a Portuguese Island

earther.gizmodo.com

108 pointsEndXA54 comments

Original study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896971...

Abstract:

> Plastic debris is one of the most extensive pollution problems our planet is facing today and a particular concern for marine environment conservation. The dimension of the problem is so large that it is possible our current era will generate an anthropogenic marker horizon of plastic in earth's sedimentary record. Here we present a new type of plastic pollution, the ‘plasticrusts’, plastic debris encrusting the rocky surface, recently discovered in the intertidal rocky shores of a volcanic Atlantic island. The potential impact that these new ‘plasticrusts’ may have needs to be further explored, as e.g. potential ingestion by intertidal organisms could suppose a new pathway for entrance of plastics into marine food webs. Consequently, its inclusion as a potential new marine debris category in management and monitoring actions should be pondered.

The abstract mentions "a volcanic Atlantic island", so it's the Azores; some of the authors are from there. Not sure why this was elided.

The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?”

“Plastic… asshole.” -- George Carlin

I wonder if at any point, given the quantity of plastic available, organisms will evolve to consume it as food since it would be an advantage.

I think this will definitely occur. In the same way that organisms could not work with wood fiber's lignin during the carboniferous period, we're seeing it play out in a plastic period of our own construction. The Earth will win, but whether we will see that happen depends on all of us.

We just need to wait 300 million years and nature will adapt!

It would be cool seeing plastics things rot, though. We're used to them being impervious.

I believe I saw a reference recently saying it only took 40million years before cellulose became widespread biodegradable. I can't find a source for that number, though it looks like it might have been an MS mycology student circa 2014.

http://hn.premii.com/#/article/15977640

I suspect plastic will take significantly less time than cellulose though. It's an amazing material, and the biodiversity of the planet (though shrinking) is still much higher than it was when cellulose began proliferating.

I think the coolness would wear off mighty quickly when your laptop starts to rot

That explains why wood furniture begins to rot immediately instead of lasting hundreds of years and passing down through families as heirloom items...

Oh wait! They use protective finishes to seal out the environment and bacteria that would eat the wood, so it doesn't go bad.

They do the same with aluminum and titanium. Hell, they even do this with steel.

The concept of applying a protective finish has been a solved issue for literally centuries...

We will almost certainly crisper such beasts into existence and all be replaced with organisms with plastic infrastructure which existing live can't metabolize but thinks our collections of atoms are yummy building blocks.

Think about how often you replace your current laptop.

Even if you are an outlier in terms of keeping tech a long time, upgrading internal components etc, there is very little chance rotting plastic will be the reason you laptop fails.

I've been wondering if wood or some kind of injection molded cellulose product might make a comeback. Decomposing plastics would probably help spur that along.

If we really hit the end of Moore’s law, I see manufacturers embracing this. “No, that isn’t planned obsolescence; we try to be as green as possible”

Maybe eventually https://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6278/1196

Probably not soon enough to help all the creatures that don't benefit from ingesting plastic.

It happened with things like lignin after their evolution in the carboniferous, but it took hundreds of millions of years. In the meantime we got a significant fraction of the Earth's fossil fuels as indigestible plant fibers were deposited and turned into rock.

We're in the early anthropocene. After a few hundred million years there might be bacteria eating away at plastic waste in the abandoned basement layers of the cybernetic hybrid post-human/AI city-organism that covers most of the planet. DNA importation from off-world organisms exposed to cosmic rays might help.

In the meantime there will be layers of anthropocene-specific minerals deposited just as the carboniferous left its own unique signature.

They will be able to estimate the era by drilling garbage disposal sites and checking the layers of iphones.

"You can see this layer of IPhone 2's here"

There actually is such an organism, but it only breaks down PET. (aka polyester, which is the 4th most common type of plastic) https://www.sciencealert.com/new-plastic-munching-bacteria-c...

I wonder what potential by-products of said organism would be. ex. gases released

IANAC(hemist), but plastic is a carbohydrate, so I would guess CO2, maybe methane or something like that.

Already happening. There's a bacterium that's already good at living in the interface between the aluminum foil and plastic in a CD.

But we can't count on it to undo the damage within our lifetimes.

So I wonder how much of a backlash against plastic will bring about other issues like bacteria.

Plastic has had a big advantage in ensure consumables and devices are clean but granted the cost has been high in the sense of pollution.

Would there maybe be a middle ground like what happens with plastic bottles in Germany and Norway where they give money back to the person who recycles the bottle,can,glass bottle etc.

We may see some grocery store chains lead the way with a uniform set of washable recyclables that people can bring back for deposit money. This also works well for city cleanliness, i.e. you seldom see a beer can sitting around for long in any area with foot traffic, because there's always someone who occupies the niche of bottle gatherer for deposit money.

I have seen this in Germany, people usually scavenge the rubbish at airports and stations for plastic bottles.

I've also seen rubbish bins that have a special place where you put bottles, so scavengers don't have to dig through all the other trash. It feels like a very nice gesture.

I went to a soccer game in Vienna years back, at the end children were collecting plastic cups from those that were too lazy to return them to the beer stand for the 20 cent Euro piece.

It actually exists in many more countries, including some US states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container-deposit_legislation#...

I wonder how long the plastic would last on geologic time scales. I supposed after enough pressure and heat it would turn back into oil?

"To the left you will see a rock formation made of organic polymers. Recent research shows that it might be a sedimentary layer left by a species of sapient mammals..."

Wait what? Thinking meat? That's crazy talk!

Please show some respect... do you know what that oxygen level would do to your servos?

Doesn't have enough hydrogen atoms for that. If it decomposes due to pressure and heat in a closed space, probably it turns into polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

Which incidentally is what a lot of interstellar dust is made from. Hmmm...

I find it interesting that the interpretation is that this is a tragedy, rather than it being fortunate that a geological process is capturing plastic into the lithosphere, where it will be removed from the biosphere.

The point was that it isn't removing it from the biosphere - molluscs that feed on algae-covered rock are now setting up on this plasticrust stuff and consuming it along with the algae.

> it isn't removing it from the biosphere

This doesn't make sense to me. While some plastic is eroded or eaten from the rock's surface, all of it originated from the ocean where it was available to enter the biosphere anyway.

From their appearance, it seems the surface of these rocks is continually buried by sedimentation, which would capture at least some proportion of the plastic.

Conversely to the biological interaction being detrimental, I wonder whether it could be beneficial. Conceivably the biofilm may adhesively capture plastic, binding it to the rock and facilitating its capture beneath sediment. Additionally, in biochemical sedimentary rock formation, molluscs contribute to the growth of the rock by forming shells which adhere to the rock.

You're making the same mistake again: the rocky coastline of a volcanic island in the middle of an ocean does not become sedimentary. It is constantly being eroded. The plasticrust that is not ingested/incorporated by molluscs and seaweed will be eroded by more waves and be redistributed as molecules in the ocean water.

If the island is tropical, a small amount of plastic may get stuck long enough in or to the rocks for coral to grow around it and trap it. But this is probably an insignificant amount compared to all the plastic that is being released and broken down in the ecosystem.

Why is that bad? Actual question - I'm a programmer, not a doctor (biologist :-))

Toxins and other foreign non-food things (heavy metals, plastics, etc.) tend to get quite highly concentrated as you go up a food chain. So a little tiny dose of e.g. mercury absorbed by, say, some krill that are then eaten by fish, who are in turn eaten by bigger fish, that are finally caught by fishermen, can result in quite high concentrations by the time we humans eat it. Same with plastics consumed by these molluscs - they feed things which feed things which feed things which feed us, and we end up taking in really quite a lot of plastic as a result.

The Gizmondo article provides two links to the observed effects of plastic in the ecosystem in the paragraph where it's mentioned that the animal life feeding near the Plasticrust maybe be consuming said plastic.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/06/plastic-...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/from-fish-to-huma...

Hmm now I'm confused. The articles you sent are about microplastics in fishes, I thought the comment I replied to was about microbes which should (I really don't know though) break the plastic down...?

Edit: Now I see that I have misread the comment and confused molluscs for microbes.

It's a bit misleading/sensational to call this a "blend." Not that it's a good thing, but plastic is merely sticking onto the surface of rocks.

this is not new, i think it is just that these researchers are naming it

Maybe it's a new formal scientific observation as an entry for plastic in to the food chain; or you have an early citation for it?

Meta: is it just me or is there an unusually high amount of pollution/plastic related articles on HN recently?

There have been a number of major reports published in the last few months that detail just how much environmental damage we have caused since industrialization. I believe the uptick in articles is a result of people becoming aware of the extent of the problem.

>>I believe the uptick in articles is a result of people becoming aware of the extent of the problem.

Totally agreed, That encourage me to stop buying/using plastic bottles. Quite challenging in Dublin where Everywhere you go water comes with plastic bottles/glasses, Ireland #1 plastic generator in Europe per person 61kg/yr [1].

[1]: https://www.thejournal.ie/ireland-plastic-waste-3786393-Jan2...

I've been enjoying seeing the gradual proliferation of water-bottle refill stations being installed by the city here in Toronto. They should be bloody everywhere.

I used to refill my stainless-steel canteen from faucets and drinking fountains. The container was round, and the hole was on an edge of the circular side, rather than poking out of the cylinder wall, so it could fit almost anywhere that water was available, including a stream 15cm (6") across and 5cm (2") deep (filtered with bandana, made potable by iodine). It even had a canvas case, so that you could wet the outside with non-potable water to swamp-cool the drinkable water inside.

Unfortunately, everything you can find close to the same form factor today is shoddily constructed and near-worthless.

We wouldn't need water-bottle refill stations everywhere, if the water containers themselves were more easily refilled. All the bottles are tall cylinders. Where did all the short, wide cylinders go?

There are a wide variety of taller bottle designs used. Nalgene-style plastic bottles, blender bottles, and other flip-lid bottles are very popular here. The new refill stations accommodate all of those.

I'm not sure I've ever seen the design you're referring to. And "canteen" style bottles are impractically shaped for existing infrastructure like cup-holders, etc. Maybe not crucial things, but definitely finicky.

The idea being keeping the barrier of entry as low as possible for people who are otherwise probably more resistant to the conditions you outlined.

It was probably constructed in the 1960s, as it originally belonged to my father. Not a canteen-style bottle, but a bona-fide canteen. Imagine two pie pans, one inverted over the other, and welded together at their rims, with the cap hole drilled through the bottom of one pan. That's the basic shape. Smooth out the edges to be more like spherical sections, and put the result in a snap-shut canvas holder, with a shoulder strap.

You have likely never seen the shape I am referring to.

At some point, someone decided to move the caps to the cylindrical sides, rather than keep them on one of the round faces, and then you couldn't fit the thing under a bathroom sink faucet any more, and a drinking fountain needed a bit more arc to fill it. Difficult fill locations might only fill those up halfway. This was likely done to accommodate blow-molded plastic canteens, and to manufacture from flat and rolled sheet metal, rather than pressed.

So now, even if you buy a "real" canteen, the cap is pointing in the wrong direction, and you might as well just have a large, awkward bottle.

> I'm not sure I've ever seen the design you're referring to

I think this style is what was being referred to: https://www.amazon.com/Stansport-Aluminum-Scout-Canteen-1-Qu...

This particular item does not appear to be well made, which lends credence to the difficulty of finding a high quality product.

I always upvote them, I even tried to post a recent finding on global warming after seeing the other submissions die. Much as I enjoyed reading about how Flamin' Hot Cheetos were made, our effects on the world we live in and how it's going to affect the future are the articles I upvote.

If only we could come up with a way to turn plastic into Flamin' Hot Cheetos.. (startup idea!)...

(You'll probably downvote me..)

We might as well try. Everyone probably laughed at the guy that first ate old, soggy grains, now it's a multi-billion dollar industry.

I wish the concerns about plastic pollution were overblown. But wherever I go in the world, you can see how much litter plastic has caused.

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