yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Are Microplastics in Our Water Becoming a Macroproblem? | National Geographic


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

[Music] It was completely legal to dump plastic in the ocean until the '90s, and a lot of that plastic is still there because plastic lasts out there for a very long time. It just breaks down into smaller and smaller [Music] pieces. We know that over 300 species of wildlife have ingested this material. It's been reported in animals, and so as it is eaten by animals, it actually can move up the food web.

As the scientific literature on this issue increases, literally almost every habitat they've gone to — sea mounts, Arctic Ice, coral reefs, deep sea — it's become ubiquitous. I don't think anybody would fight anyone on an argument that plastic debris has not become a contaminant of concern. We're collecting the samples by using a manta troll. It's basically a big metal box with wings; it looks like a manta with a very long, about 12T mesh net off the back.

1, 2, 3, Splat! At the end is a piece we can take off that has collected all of the solids. You rinse it all out, filter it through another strainer, and then put it into a jar. This caught a lot of other stuff. If you want to take a look at what we're rinsing out of the screen, it's more tiny [Music] plastic.

What we're concerned about ultimately is what are the implications of trash going into the water, getting into the food we harvest, and we're still connecting the dots there a bit. We know that lots of trash goes out into the water. We know that the sun and waves break it down into small pieces. We know that many, many, many species of animals eat it, and we also know that bigger animals eat smaller animals.

We also know that we eat those big trophy fish, and so what we're really trying to figure out is how big a vector plastic is for transporting chemicals into the tissues of the animals that we eat every day. That's a big problem, much bigger than big chunks floating out into the ocean. We don't know exactly what that plastic is; we don't know where exactly it's coming from.

If we're trying to find policy and educational solutions to it, we need to know what we're targeting. We can't just ban plastic; that's not going to work. What kind of plastic is it, and what's the best policy route to reduce it? Is it a ban? Is it a fee? Is it market change? Is it education and behavior change work? What's the best way to tackle it? Until we know exactly what we're dealing with, we're not going to be able to design the right programs to address it.

More Articles

View All
Warren Buffett: The Upcoming Stock Market Crash (Warren Buffett Indicator)
It’s no secret that stock prices are at all-time highs. This has people asking the literally trillion-dollar question: Are we in a stock market bubble? According to what is referred to as the Warren Buffett indicator, the answer to that question is a reso…
Differentiability at a point: algebraic (function is differentiable) | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy
Is the function given below continuous differentiable at x = 3? And they’ve defined it piecewise, and we have some choices: continuous, not differentiable, differentiable, not continuous, both continuous and differentiable, neither continuous nor differen…
Multiple points of influence due to separation of powers and checks and balances | Khan Academy
In several videos, we have touched on the idea of separation of powers between three branches of government in the United States. You have the legislative branch that writes laws and decides on the budget for the government. You have the executive branch …
🌍 Which Planet is the Closest?
My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming… Planets. Every Physics classroom has a Solar System line like this. Or… like this. (Sorry, Pluto.) Looking at the line, which planet is closest to Earth: Venus or Mars? To answer, you need first know that, like …
These Tiny, Stunning Moths Are Only Found in One Place on Earth | National Geographic
A lot of people will think moth, and they’ll think dark gray fuzzy thing that they don’t want flying around their lights at night. These things don’t look like that at all, and in fact, most moths don’t. You say to anybody “microscopic moth,” they’re some…
Conventional current
When we start to study electricity, we need to get an idea of what is current and what is voltage. In two earlier videos, I talked about the idea of current and voltage, current and voltage, and what they meant. When we talked about current, it’s easiest …