There's some beauty on it. Nature incorporates our garbage, and it becomes part of nature.<p>It might kill us, but then new creatures will evolve and grow, with plastic being part of their ecosystem, perhaps even desirable. In million years the future civilization of these creatures might have "plastic preservation programs" because the old plastic rocks are a finite resource upon witch their culture was built.<p>They might even gaze upon their plastic-filled oceans in awe, with some quasi-religious gratitude for the ancient race that gracefully filled the world with plastic that they might thrive.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the "this is fine" comments here, but I am. Geological changes happen in geological time (outside of massive disruptive events). This change happened in 100 years. Also, comparing this to clay pots is simply not understanding the scale of modern production and waste. It's like saying a forest fire doesn't pose any problem to my house because I lit a match one time.
I think this counts against the Silurian Hypothesis. If a previous technical civilization existed on earth millions of years ago, by now we would have already found its plastic rocks. Those appears ours.<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silurian_hypothesis" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silurian_hypothesis</a>
This is one of the better outcomes for plastics floating around in the oceans that I can think of. Melted and lumped into rocks it won't tangle living organisms, and it should be more inert than if it were ground into micro-particles due to far less surface area.<p>It's even more beautiful than tangled nets and other plastic debris.<p>I'm not trying to defend it mind you, we really really need to do a better job of keeping plastic out of the oceans.
the effect of having plastic merged with rocks is unknown, its bewildering to see comments romanticizing it, akin to those staring in awe of the green sky during chernobyl
I sometimes help an organizations that monitors the health of a river, a couple of years ago they started buying plastic buoys because the ones made from metal were a bit more expensive.
Not saying this is good news, but given the current amount of plastic floating around in the oceans, isn't aggregating as a big chunk better for the environment[1] than disintegrating into micro-plastics or small debris?<p>[1] excluding the "no plastics in the ocean" choice, of course
Does this article deserve some skepticism? Will fishing nets really melt like that? It looks like they took some oven waste and put it in the oven. If plastics were melting like this in nature, wouldn’t we have seen a lot of it, all over the warm parts of the planet, by now?
Aside from fire hazard probability, are there any studies done about whether plastics fused with rocks (cement) could be a good material for building houses that are resistant to earthquakes? (Not discarding the use of steel)
This shouldn’t be surprising. We as a society really like plastic stuff and <i>really</i> like pretending our actions as individuals don’t have consequences.<p>It’s like the hotdog meme guy.<p><a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/were-all-trying-to-find-the-guy-who-did-this" rel="nofollow">https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/were-all-trying-to-find-the-g...</a>
If this plastic didn't decompose due to salty water and sunrays into smaller parts, isn't that actually convenient for us, since it is unlikely to get out of the rocks and cause harm?
Zzz...<p>If a modern chemical plant is sloppy with $Stable_Chemical, then it's no surprise to find that chemical in the ground under it, in the groundwater, etc.<p>The bottom of the Mediterranean is littered with thousands-of-years-old pottery fragments from ancient shipwrecks and such.<p>Coal mining is a thing, all over the world, because microorganisms mostly couldn't break down dead trees back during the Carboniferous Era - ~300 million years ago.<p>The sedimentary process how the Earth deals with ~anything that water doesn't dissolve, and microorganisms & such can't break down. That has not been news since 4 or so billion years ago.