Quote of the day -
Except for the tiny amount that's been
incinerated ... every bit of plastic ever made still exists.
Charles Moore |
Paper or Plastic? - despite conflicts, only one is a killerWhich is energetically more expensive to make? Which can be recycled more efficiently? Which one kills hundreds of thousands of animals a year? more... |
What's in your dumpster?A 1994 study of dumpsters at Columbia University found that 19% of all waste was packaging, especially food packaging, and nearly 15% was cups and plates from cafeterias (pdf report). Of the 10 million pounds of waste generated annually at UIUC, about 5 million are recycled. For more on the campus environment... |
Out of sight is not out of existenceEven if plastic doesn't decompose, at least it disintegrates into particles too small to worry about. Right? Wrong.As small as 20 microns in diameter, they can be ingested by even small animals, ones that are then eaten by bigger animals, who are eaten... At 100,000 per sq km of sea bed or 300,000 per sq km of surface, the effect can be multiplied in a way similar to that of DTT or PCBs. more... |
Is one piece of trash per meter of beach a lot?What about 43 plastic bags per km? How much trash does it take before beach goers perceive a problem? A clean-up effort last September resulted in some interesting observations. more.... |
 |
|
Travel with me to the ends of the earth, and there we will find true... plastic. |
 |
| Necropsy of a Laysan Albatross prefledge chick, 13 July 2004, Kure Atoll. Photo by David Liittschwager from Archipelago, by David Liittschwager and Susan Middleton. more... |
|
No one with any awareness at all of the media can have failed to hear about the dangers of rising atmospheric CO2 and global warming. But while these specters loom large in our future, they do not release us from our obligations to take care of the rest of what we have. Is this notion radically liberal? Or is it ultraconservative? For too many of us, the concept of "object permanence" that we learned before we were two is lost when we discard our trash. As Lester Brown put it, any number, multiplied by a billions, becomes very large. It is almost incredible how far distant the adverse effects of our daily activities can reach. Indeed, to the spatial and temporal ends of the earth. |
Jobs, Internships & Scholarships - Improving your c.v.A slowly updated list of jobs known to be available and potentially interesting to students in IB Honors Biology. |
AnnouncementsGood luck on your exams, enjoy your break, and we'll see you in September. |
Forget the Songs?The whole field of material science seems almost totally devoid of musical creativity. For more diatribe, and one measly suggestion, go on... |
Advertisement!Course
opportunity! Curious? Click the figure... |
