Anthony Andrady: Plastics have been around for less than 100 years. So in the short time span, there has not been a group of microorganisms who have evolved who are capable of biodegrading plastics.
Anthony Andrady is a plastics researcher at RTI International, which offers research and technical expertise to governments and businesses. Dr. Andrady pointed out that traditional plastics, such as those in food containers and water bottles, are a new material in the ecosystem of the whole Earth.
Anthony Andrady: This is my concern, we are placing all these plastics in the ocean, and eventually they will reach the deep ocean environment.
His special interest is the increasing quantity of plastic now known to be in the oceans. He said plastic lasts a long time there, because cold sea water slows down the chemical reactions that cause a plastic bottle lying on a beach to break down.
Anthony Andrady: If you define biodegradation as the complete conversion of plastics into carbon dioxide and water, all the plastics that we ever put into the ocean – which is over the past 50 to 60 years – would still be there in the ocean. And we keep adding more and more to it. And we do not know what the ecological consequences of this are. They might be very serious.
Andrady said government incentives are needed if plastic recycling is to become more sustainable. Meanwhile, plastics in landfills also biodegrade only slowly.
Anthony Andrady: It does not see much oxygen because the depth of the landfill is a very anoxic environment, so it does not biodegrade – it’s like a large tomb where we save all these plastics for posterity.
Andrady said there’s another type of recycling that should be encouraged:
Anthony Andrady: And that is use of plastics to generate the raw material that went into making it. This is called pyrolysis. We take the plastics and heat it at very high temperatures in the absence of oxygen and you chemically break it down to valuable raw materials. Some of it can be used directly as fuel: gasoline. This has a lot of potential but not been promoted as well as it should be, I think.
That is an excellent idea. The next excellent idea would be to figure out way to harvest the plastic already in the water and add that to the fire. Maybe we could invent a plastic magnet?
In a flood all the plastic stuff we have buried in landfills will float to the surface?
I am sadly disappointed with the bias of this article. It seems to suggest plastics can and eventually will be a perfectly natural part of the workings of the world, if only that pesky mother nature would just keep up and evolve a way to handle it! What?! Plastic is, and always will be, poison. That is it. Bottom line. Even if you refine it into “valuable raw materials.” GASOLINE?! Come on folks. Plastic does not break down! Even in landfills, it is chemically proven that it doesn’t “biodegrade,” it merely breaks down into smaller and smaller and smaller pieces. To the extent that now, every human on the face of this planet has it in their bodies. It’s in our water. In our food and soil. It’s not going away and claiming it is any less of a crisis than it actually is will not help the matter. Suggesting we find some way to adapt the system, so we can go ahead and keep producing more and more of it, is extremely short sighted and ignorant.
Thank you all for your comments. Love the plastic magnet idea, Lisa! :)
Sharon, I don’t believe it’s the plastic that’s buried deep in landfills that presents the major problem for oceans (and, as far as I know, it does not float to the surface).
Julia, you might be interested in looking at this article:
http://earthsky.org/interviewpost/water/pacific-ocean-gyre-filled-with-plastic-trash
Sometimes our pieces do contain bias – that’s probably inevitable for any news organization. So you might view this other article as counterpoint to the one you commented on.
However, the gasoline idea isn’t that preposterous. Most plastic is made from petroleum. Conceivably, when you break it down, you get – along with other possibly nasty bi-products – petroleum.
Best,
Beth
Mr. Andrady talked about microbes that have evolved to eat crude oil spills, or the naturally occurring spillage. He thinks in given time they will also evolve so they can eat the plastic. Andrady is in the top of his field and to call his ideas far fetched or ignorant, well, one should do a little better research and they will understand what he has stated. Also, look up Alan Weisman, Charles Moore ( Algalita Research).
If we continue to pollute the oceans, will this will eventually lead to fish that we can’t eat ?