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The Ship Sinking Off Sri Lanka Looks Like A Lasting Environmental Disaster
A sinking cargo ship off the coast of Sri Lanka is causing an environmental disaster for the country that looks set to have long-term effects.
The X-Press Pearl caught fire on May 20 and burned for two weeks, but the fire appears to have mostly burned out. The crew was evacuated. The ship is now partially sitting on the seabed with its front settling down slowly.
Its cargo is the concern: The ship was carrying dangerous chemicals, including 25 tons of nitric acid and 350 tons of fuel oil. The ship's operator says oil has not spilled so far. But what's already having an impact on beaches nearby are the 78 metric tons of plastic called nurdles — the raw material used to make most types of plastic products.
Wave after wave of plastic pellets are washing ashore. The ship is about 5 miles from the nearest beach.
Also at The Guardian.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday June 07 2021, @12:58AM (3 children)
It's the rat-farm problem.
If Sri Lankans beach-combers can make a profit selling 'reclaimed enviro-nurdle crafty things' to western hippies then the total plastic that will be 'recovered' and processed will far exceed what was originally dropped in the sea.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Monday June 07 2021, @07:39AM (2 children)
Is that really the case? I mean, in this context, the main reason that scraping pellets turns a profit is because the pellets are free (except for the labour to scavenge them). If people could just buy plastic pellets and re-sell them on for the same profit, they would be doing it already.
I mean sure, some people may start raiding garbage dumps in order to scavenge other plastic to reprocess and sell on, especially when the amount of pellets on the beaches goes down, but from my point of view, that is a win anyway (better to scavenge and recycle the plastic, wherever it is dumped).
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday June 07 2021, @08:31AM
I was replying to VLM saying they could turn a profit selling "reclaimed plastic crap" to hippies because of enviro-feelz. If so, pretty soon you'd have shipments of the stuff coming from China to Sri Lanka, to be on-sold to the hippies at Eco markups.
Sure they'd clean out the dumps too, but the stuff on the beach is much higher quality.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 1, Touché) by VLM on Monday June 07 2021, @12:15PM
Well, they do, just visit a walmart, especially the toy aisle ....
I guess the point was it could be greenwashed at an even higher profit.