re: #278 zombie

Thanks for the explanations.

However, I’m still not so sure this applies to piles of plastic floating in the ocean. Mercury, arsenic, drugs and shampoo (in your examples) are all basically in liquid form, and thus can be ingested and become toxic. But if a person (or a fish) swallowed a nonbiodegradable plastic chunk, it wouldn’t be close enough to be so small that it could “enter the system” i.e. be absorbed through the intestinal wall or whatever. It would just pass through. And if there are chemicals that could leach out — well, they’ve already been in the oceans for years or decades, so whatever leaching there was to be done, it’s already happened. By the time the fish swallowed the piece, it’s pretty much inert.

Honestly- I have no problem with this particular bit of plastic, as I don’t know enough about. I simply disagreed with the used of the term biodegradable.

I do know that one of the more common problems with bits of plastic like this isn’t the toxicity that sharmuta was worried about, but more of a choking/clogging/tangling issue, which does hit a few at risk species, but thats something else entirely.