Study finds stony corals eat plastic!

[tkeracer619]

Was looking at some of sanjays old reflector data... and saw this.

Interesting

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/study-finds-stony-corals-eat-plastic

 

[r-balljunkie]

I find it disturbing the article is more concerned with the effects of plastic on ones aquarium, and not the bigger impact on reefs. I see so many flip flops, tooth brushes, disposable lighters washed up on remote islands. A lot of the plastics i see originate from Asia, but im sure the whole world is has some skin in the game. I for one would love to see more glass and wood products replace the everyday plastics. It's amazingly convenient to buy a bottle of water, and not realize the implications.

 

[tripdad]

I find it disturbing the article is more concerned with the effects of plastic on ones aquarium, and not the bigger impact on reefs. I see so many flip flops, tooth brushes, disposable lighters washed up on remote islands. A lot of the plastics i see originate from Asia, but im sure the whole world is has some skin in the game. I for one would love to see more glass and wood products replace the everyday plastics. It's amazingly convenient to buy a bottle of water, and not realize the implications.

Well said.

 

[billsreef]

I find it disturbing the article is more concerned with the effects of plastic on ones aquarium, and not the bigger impact on reefs. I see so many flip flops, tooth brushes, disposable lighters washed up on remote islands. A lot of the plastics i see originate from Asia, but im sure the whole world is has some skin in the game. I for one would love to see more glass and wood products replace the everyday plastics. It's amazingly convenient to buy a bottle of water, and not realize the implications.

Back on LI, most of the identifiable stuff I'd find washed up on the North Shore was from CT...all the junk coming down the rivers on that side of the pond. Lot's of plastic in windrows Few years ago a friend of mine received a sample from a plankton tow done in the Sargasso Sea, crazy amounts of plastic bits ranging from just barely visible to the naked eye to about 1 inch in size. A similar sample I took myself about 20 or so years earlier (before the proliferation of plastic bottles and such), no plastic bits.

Yup, R-balljunkie has it right, go back to glass and wood. At least glass is nothing more than fused melted quartz sand, and wood will make the teredo worms happy.

 

[tkeracer619]

Yup. When I dive or snorkel I make it a point to come back with at least 1 piece of trash. So far I haven't ever come back with 1 piece, its been like 10-15+.

I went on a shore dive and the guide asked "what do you guys feel like doing on this dive?" I said "clean up the reef" everyone looked at me completely surprised and then started nodding in approval. We removed 42 lbs of trash that day and about 200ft of fishing line. He said nobody ever said that before, which makes me .

 

[MondoBongo]

Yup. When I dive or snorkel I make it a point to come back with at least 1 piece of trash. So far I haven't ever come back with 1 piece, its been like 10-15+.

I went on a shore dive and the guide asked "what do you guys feel like doing on this dive?" I said "clean up the reef" everyone looked at me completely surprised and then started nodding in approval. We removed 42 lbs of trash that day and about 200ft of fishing line. He said nobody ever said that before, which makes me .

i don't dive or snorkel, but i do canoe and kayak, and it is a similar sad story. last year the girlfriend and i took a 4 hour canoe float trip down a local river. i had brought 3 regular sized trash bags, sadly we filled them all to the brim, and had to leave a bunch of stuff behind because we simply ran out of room.

people at the end where they recover the canoes looked at me like i was nuts, hauling a bunch of soggy trash bags up the berm. it's really unfortunate that more people don't just clean up after themselves.

 

[Scorpius]

Sorry tl:dr too busy updating my facebook and drooling over the new Iphone coming out in 2019. The Kardashians are on....brb.....

 

[FraggledRock]

Sorry tl:dr too busy updating my facebook and drooling over the new Iphone coming out in 2019. The Kardashians are on....brb.....

but kanye west dissed beck!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL8HP1WzbDk

Humans purpose was for making plastic. we are done here.

 

[tkeracer619]

people at the end where they recover the canoes looked at me like i was nuts, hauling a bunch of soggy trash bags up the berm.

I've been in the exact situation, even got yelled at. My fraternity used to participate in a yearly river cleanup. We would man a few rafts and try to clean up a large portion of the river. It was always a competition between newer guys and older guys who could get more trash.

The new guys got to the finish line first with all of their trash bags full. Us older guys show up an hour late with a telephone pole transformer, a set of tires, all of our trash bags full. First we got yelled at for pulling something that weighed that much. Then we got yelled at for pulling something that hazardous to our health. Lastly I think we bested our in house competition by about 50 fold if you went by weight. Rookies

 

[sean357]

The problem plastic is not what you see but what gets broken up into tiny pellets in the ocean. The density of these micro pellets in some of the ocean gyres is insane, and this stuff gets ingested by the whole marine food chain. Plastic being food for coral sounds like it is a study brought to you by the plastic industry. "Plastic it's what coral crave"

 

[tkeracer619]

That's the point, the study shows it could potentially choke the coral if enough is ingested.

 

[billsreef]

Out in the ocean, it's not just a matter of choking, or filling a belly with non edibles preventing enough nutritional food from being eaten, but also the plastics affinity for a number of pollutants to accumulate on the plastic...getting those pollutants into the food chain.

 

[Azedenkae]

This is why I have a problem with this AA article... and those similar. I don't understand why they didn't report the specifics of the original study, especially when there is some really important points.

For example, whilst what eventually would happen after a while isn't clear (so fair enough, can't conclude conclusively either way), the researchers did find the plastic localized deep in the polyp and outlining it as a potential problem as the plastic is wrapped up by mesenterial tissue, the same tissue that is the main coral tissue responsible for digestion of real food. This poses a potential problem in terms of possibly limiting the coral's digestive abilities, especially over time if more microplastic is ingested.

And a bunch of other stuff. Why the AA author just ignored all that is beyond me.

 

[Mishri]

I find it disturbing the article is more concerned with the effects of plastic on ones aquarium, and not the bigger impact on reefs. I see so many flip flops, tooth brushes, disposable lighters washed up on remote islands. A lot of the plastics i see originate from Asia, but im sure the whole world is has some skin in the game. I for one would love to see more glass and wood products replace the everyday plastics. It's amazingly convenient to buy a bottle of water, and not realize the implications.

Good thing my plastic just goes to a local landfill-no water for miles, no ocean for thousands of miles. I can live guilt free buying all the plastic I want. Woohoo!


azedenkae, As far as article ignoring it, the only thing he could do is make guesses, he said more research needed to be conducted. It's like saying, look what I found! I don't know what it does.. but.. it's something... can't really do anything until you know what it does. If it turns out to be harmless to them after you make a big deal out of something, you look worse.

 

[Azedenkae]

azedenkae, As far as article ignoring it, the only thing he could do is make guesses, he said more research needed to be conducted. It's like saying, look what I found! I don't know what it does.. but.. it's something... can't really do anything until you know what it does. If it turns out to be harmless to them after you make a big deal out of something, you look worse.

I'm sorry I don't quite follow. Are you talking about the AA author, or the original author of the original study/article?

 

[laga77]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch

We`re gonna need a lot of coral. Scroll down to size in the article, it is the size of Texas.

 

[tkeracer619]

Plastic is fine, throwing it away isn't. The patch is disgusting. We are for the most part all to blame. I know most of us here try to conserve what we can but the supply chain is a huge user of plastic.

 

[FraggledRock]

if the SPS eats plastic, wouldn't it strengthen their branches?

earth plus plastic =P

 

[Grandlotus]

Yup. When I dive or snorkel I make it a point to come back with at least 1 piece of trash. So far I haven't ever come back with 1 piece, its been like 10-15+.

I went on a shore dive and the guide asked "what do you guys feel like doing on this dive?" I said "clean up the reef" everyone looked at me completely surprised and then started nodding in approval. We removed 42 lbs of trash that day and about 200ft of fishing line. He said nobody ever said that before, which makes me .

Very honorable.

Well done.

 

[CStrickland]

This is an interesting little movie about the pacific gyre where a lot of our waste finds its ultimate home [Toxic: Garbage Island, Vice] what used to be a fertile area of poop and wood is now... Not. But it's tricky cause what you expect to be this dramatic floating island of bottles the size of Texas is in fact a much more pernicious concentration of tiny bits of busted down bottles. So at the surface it looks like pristine ocean, but underwater is like a snow globe of bits that are indistinguishable from filter feeder food, or jellyfish.

Back on LI, most of the identifiable stuff I'd find washed up on the North Shore was from CT...all the junk coming down the rivers on that side of the pond. Lot's of plastic in windrows Few years ago a friend of mine received a sample from a plankton tow done in the Sargasso Sea, crazy amounts of plastic bits ranging from just barely visible to the naked eye to about 1 inch in size. A similar sample I took myself about 20 or so years earlier (before the proliferation of plastic bottles and such), no plastic bits.

Yup, R-balljunkie has it right, go back to glass and wood. At least glass is nothing more than fused melted quartz sand, and wood will make the teredo worms happy.

do you still dive off LI? I grew up putting the boat in at Branford, and remember when everryone thought the new rules about just throwing your beer cans off the side were a big annoyance, but we totes accepted the idea that you had to wear goggles and not swallow the water if you your mom even let you swim in it. I've heard they really turned it around in the last ten years or so, but haven't been back so I'm curious if it would be noticable.