Junk Island

[Meson]

It's made of plastic, and growing!

http://www.newsdaily.com/Science/UPI-1-20071019-19300300-bc-us-trash.xml

An enormous island of trash twice the size of Texas is floating in the Pacific Ocean somewhere between San Francisco and Hawaii.

Chris Parry with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco said the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, has been growing a brisk rate since the 1950s, The San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday.

The trash stew is 80 percent plastic and weighs more than 3.5 million tons.

"At this point, cleaning it up isn't an option," Parry said. "It's just going to get bigger as our reliance on plastics continues."

Parry said using canvas bags to cart groceries instead of using plastic bags is a good first step to reducing reliance on plastics, the newspaper said.

[ANIMEJUNKY]

Well maybe it will become an island oneday to live on, who knows. Yet I feel that society as a whole went down on the chain a bit.

[Tom Servo]

Thought this thread was going to be about the golden countries from the title there,,, be wary not to chase your own tail.

I'd be interested to know when plastics came into wide use, sometime after WWII I imagine?

[ANIMEJUNKY]

I think you might be righ to counter the expense of all the metal used during the war.

[Tom Servo]

A lot of really dodgy technology was introduced after the Philadelphia Ex-I mean, WWII.

There were huge advances in nitrogen technologies made during the WWI for use in munitions, after the war all those factories had to be used for something so they started to produce more and more nitrogen-based artificial fertilisers for farmers -

there was a huge resistance to artificial fertilisers both by farmers and the public, when WWII came along tho' they were used, by law, to increase production of crops and it's been the same ever since - if WWII had never happened I doubt these fertilisers would even be used today, you wouldn’t have loads of cancers and folks with rubbish immune systems either.

I bet what were weapons factories were turned over to producing all the machinery that powered these new technologies after the war too.

It's almost as-if we're in a completely different timeline that's all wrong, and WWII was never in "The Real Timeline" at all! Who changed the tracks back then to the railroad to hell?

[ZeroRyoko1974]

i thought this thread would be about an island full of Suigintou's:lol:

[animeotaku99]

Links dead, and I doubt there is actually a large tezas sized pile of plastic garbage in the ocean....
But it is the Republic of Kalifornia after all. WHere plastic bags are now illegal to use in grocery stores and related places, People can go to places and legally shot up heroin, and only criminals can carry guns with more then 5 bullets

[GreatNekoKoneko]

i thought this thread would be about an island full of Suigintou's:lol:

...eerily, i was thinking the same thing...

[Leader Desslock]

Nobody's questioning the idea that an area of ANY substance that's twice the size of Texas somehow only weighs around 3.5 million tons?

Anyone care to work out the average density of the island from that? Did you get anything realistic?

Anyone bother to check the SF Chronicle, as quoted in the article? Funny that they don't seem to have published any such information.

I don't know how some internet hoaxes even get started...

[dothacker5]

Links dead, and I doubt there is actually a large tezas sized pile of plastic garbage in the ocean....
But it is the Republic of Kalifornia after all.
Spell it right and you don't reek of ignorance. If real this "trash island" is interesting but just sounds so bad for the environment.

[Old Ape Face]

if there was an artificial land mass that large in the pacific ocean, don't you think that would explain the ocean water depth increase?

and considering the size of that mass, twice the size of Texas would be about half of the longitudinal dimensions of the United States. I wanna see that from space please.

I can't find Junk Island on Google Maps.http://209.85.48.12/6144/52/emo/bigeyes.gif

Nice liberal excuse to get us to stop using plastic.

[Meson]

I fixed my link.

Appearantly this is real. There seems to be a large circular current out there that is just funnneling the garbage to that one spot.

[KatayokuのTenshi]

Yeah I've heard of it before, but noe I can't seem to find any useful links. Except for that one.

Edit: That one and a wiki link North Pacific Gyre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Pacific_Gyre)

[animeotaku99]

pics or I don't believe it.

[Caster13]

Links dead, and I doubt there is actually a large tezas sized pile of plastic garbage in the ocean....
But it is the Republic of Kalifornia after all. WHere plastic bags are now illegal to use in grocery stores and related places, People can go to places and legally shot up heroin, and only criminals can carry guns with more then 5 bullets

California is crazy, its been known for quite some time. but plastic bags!? safety reasons for kids and the environment no doubt. frickin liberals.

[animeotaku99]

Maybe this Trash island is infact California itself? ehh... Think about.

[Animematt55]

This reminds me of that Futurama episode, but in the ocean, and not space.

[Old Ape Face]

Still twice the size of Texas? in the middle of the pacific? between Hawaii and California? Please, I'd believe a highway connection between Hana loo loo and San Fransisco more then that.

[Haro!]

Staten Island isn't twice the size of Texas and nowhere near the Pacific.

[Tuna]

Here's a link to a recent article in the weekly paper here:
http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/issues/Issue.06-14-2007/cover/Article.cover_story

As for plastic bags being illegal in Cali...wha? I live there, and I bagged my groceries in a nice, shiny plastic bag just today...
O.o

[MaliceDR]

The island isn't as large as Texas, but the area that the flotsam covers certainly seems to be. And since the article I read this in dates to November 2003, I certainly doubt it's gotten any smaller.