WEBVTT - Recycling and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.600 It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know? 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:11.720 From House Stuff Works dot com. This episode is sponsored 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:14.200 by go daddy dot com, the world's largest web host 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:16.599 and domain name registrart with domains as low as a 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:18.960 dollar ninety nine and hosting for less than five dollars 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:21.840 a month. In a promo code stuff ten at checkout 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:24.640 and save ten percent off your entire order. Get your 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:27.760 piece of the Internet at go daddy dot com. Hey, 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:30.520 and welcome to the podcast. It's called Stuff you Should 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:34.559 Know appropriately enough, I'm Josh Clark with me as always 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:37.640 is who it's Chuck. That's right, Chuck. It's good to 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:39.600 be back. I know it feels like it's been a 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:43.120 well Christmas holidays, right. I know that listeners think, through 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:46.519 the magic of iTunes, that we never leave the studio 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:48.440 at all, but in fact we've been off for a 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:50.440 couple of weeks and now we're back. Yeah. Do you 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:54.680 know we've actually gotten um offers to be rescued from 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:58.560 a couple of our listeners because from Studio one A yeah. 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:00.959 On our Facebook page, I think I said that we're 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:04.959 not allowed to leave. I got a pretty good response. Nice. Yeah, okay, 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:08.280 so you asked for pizza or cash, Oh it's coming, Yeah, 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:12.759 I'm buttering them up. Or shrimp cocktail, your favorite cocktail? Exactly. 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:16.360 I can finally get the shrimp cocktail. Um, Chuck. Yes, 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:19.440 do you remember back in the nineties? Maybe a haze 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:23.440 for you. No, you don't remember the nineties. No, it's 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:25.399 not a haze. I do, right, Oh, that was a 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:30.839 weird response college I was studying and such. Okay, so 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:34.279 so you do remember the nineties. Okay, So, Chuck, you 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:39.000 are a child of the recycling generation. Do you remember 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:41.320 when that thing just blew up? It came out of nowhere? 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:43.600 I do. My brother and I were talking about this 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:46.679 the other day with the initial Yeah, we were with 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:50.560 the Crying Indian in the seventies, which was just about littering, 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:52.360 right when the good old days when you would just 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:56.200 start trashing like an anchorman. They're walking through the parking 0:01:56.280 --> 0:02:00.440 but just so nuts. Do you ever see anybody in 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.560 their car just throwing something out occasionally and it's just 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:06.120 boil your blood and it's like, what are you doing? 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:08.639 How can I be that unaware? You know? I hit 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:11.280 them with my car. Okay, so you're talking about the 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:14.600 the Amerindian who is crying because of the trash, right. 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:17.600 And then later on recycling became like newspapers kind of 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:19.880 where I remember it starting. It did. As a matter 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.760 of fact, the first curb side newspaper recycling program started 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:27.799 in nineteen seventy three in University City, Missouri, I believe, 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:31.600 or Missouri as my mom would say. But it took 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:34.880 a little while for it to take off, from nineteen 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:37.400 seventy three to the nineties. But in the nineties it 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:41.359 really gained traction and gain ground. And if you remember correctly, 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:43.920 you used to have to have like all these different 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:47.720 bins for you know, this colored glass, right, this kind 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:50.799 of plastic or paper, you know, and then then all 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:54.240 of a sudden it just went away. They're like, just 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:58.480 throw it all in one bin. And because recycling seems 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:01.560 so important, I know, I always wondered, like, is this 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.720 stuff really getting recycled. And then when when they went 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:09.320 to this whole you know, just single bin hodgepodge of everything, 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:11.240 I was like, well, that's it. I mean, they're not 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:15.040 even trying to keep it that they're that they're not 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:19.600 dumping this stuff, right, so UM, it turns out that 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:23.760 they actually are that you can pretty much guarantee that 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:26.919 almost all of what you are putting in your recycling 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:30.200 bin is getting recycled. And the thing that threw us 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:32.959 off where all of a sudden, we're just throwing everything 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:37.040 in one bin. It's called single stream recycling. That's a 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.960 result of UM recycling technology, which is awesome because it 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:43.840 made it a lot easier for people that maybe wouldn't 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:47.880 be prone to recycle because they didn't want to separate everything. Yeah, 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:49.800 so yeah, it was awesome. It was a pain, it 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:51.480 was definite pain. And now you just throw it all 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:53.600 in one bin. They come and get it. And back 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:55.680 in the day there there used to be a lot 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:59.040 of human contact with your garbage that was being recycled. 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:04.360 But these technological advances, so imagine that's okay. There's like 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:08.360 a uh, this conveyor belt that your recyclables are dumped 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:11.480 onto and they go through this weird gauntlet where there's 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:15.640 like magnets that attract like tin cans and then drop 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:19.560 them into into bins. Lasers lasers always you know, a 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:23.159 personal favorite of mine. They they're they're infrared lasers that 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:27.320 are used to scan the wavelength that's emitted by um 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:30.920 different types of plastic, and then they're appropriately taken off 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:34.479 the conveyor belt. And then there's there's others that have 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:38.040 puffs of air that can only get like, um, like cardboard, 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:41.560 like a toilet, paper, paper towel roll, just puffs it off. 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:44.760 All your stuff going through this is being assaulted. And 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:46.920 you know the way it reacts to these assaults, they're 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:48.880 gonna end up in the right kind of bin. So 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:52.159 you need very little human contact, or much less than 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:56.200 you did before. So um that that should put the 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:00.440 single stream fear to rest, right. Sure, I I've heard 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:03.960 well I never really doubted it too much, but I 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.960 do know people that think it's a liberal conspiracy and 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:10.039 that nothing is being recycled. So well, actually, there's a 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:13.279 there's an economist I can't remember his name, but he 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:16.400 went to the trouble of proving that recycling is actually 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:21.120 more harmful than good. Yeah, um, as far as like 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:24.800 an environmental cost benefit, it's actually more harmful because I 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:28.280 think he took into account like all the gas that 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:32.000 the trucks burn, that kind of thing, uh, and in 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:35.000 the electricity used in the recycling plants, and he came 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:38.279 to the conclusion that's actually more harmful than good. I 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:41.200 I don't necessarily subscribe to that, right was I'm sure 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:43.800 he was contradicted by more than one person. Yeah, but 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:46.800 he was a respected economist. He wasn't just you know, 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:52.040 some crack potter Joe Schmoy economists. No, right, exactly. But 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:56.080 he he may have very well been a conservative economist because, 0:05:56.520 --> 0:06:00.480 as you said, recycling is a big liberal conspiracy in 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:04.320 some people's eyes. Exactly. Few, I would say, probably a 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:06.159 lot of people on board now and in the two 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.640 thousand's exactly. But I was having a conversation with my 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:13.560 father the other day, and he is the herbal Elvis exactly. 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:16.880 He was down, actually was he was kind of you know, 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:20.120 at the at the equilibrium point, which is good. So 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:23.720 he's very lucid. Um. And he uh, he and I 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:27.880 were talking. He said that the people at his recycling center, uh, 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:29.880 they don't have curbside pickup where he lives out in 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:34.039 the sticks. Um, they take their their stuff to the center, 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:36.320 and that they were told by one of the employees 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:40.720 that works there, um that there they don't recycling or 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:43.680 they just take all the stuff to the dump. Yes, 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:47.240 and I told him that the man at the recycling 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:51.920 center was a total idiot, and uh, basically Dad wanted 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:54.960 to know why, as is his one um, and I 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:58.080 told him that that's just an awful business model. So 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:00.760 think about this. There's this thing called it tipping fee. 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:03.840 And in two thousand eight, the tipping fee is what 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:08.520 you pay to dump your stuff at a landfill, and 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:11.440 it's usually per ton. In the US, in two thousand eight, 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:15.480 it was about forty two bucks on average for per 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:19.440 ton of everything anything you wanted to come dump. They 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:21.360 weigh it by ton and then you pay forty two 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:23.640 bucks to Have you ever been to a landfill? Yeah? 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:27.360 I know they actually have been to some that are 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:30.560 kind of tranquil, quite nice. Yeah, they have like ponds 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:32.800 and stuff, so you would never ever want to swim in. 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:36.320 But there's like rolling hills filled with garbage, but it's 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:39.040 grass over it. I've been to somewhere they're actually going 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:41.840 to the effort to make it look decent. But yeah, 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:44.160 and then you turn around there's like some rest of 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:47.400 refrigerator with like a corpse in it or something. So 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:51.560 they can be depressing places. Okay, but there's there's that 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:53.760 tipping fee. Right, So you drive up and there's a 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:56.520 scale that's embedded into the ground. It weighs you, and 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:59.440 you pay appropriately. Some states are are more than others. 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:02.200 I think ver Months tipping fee. The average tipping fee 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:04.720 in the state's nineties six bucks a ton, and then 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:06.760 I think Oklahoma is on the low end, it's like 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:10.720 fourteen or seventeen bucks a ton. So clearly, the more 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:12.480 you charge and tipping fees, the more people are going 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:15.760 to recycle exactly. But the point is is that there 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:20.720 because you have to pay too dump this stuff. Sure, 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:24.040 and you're not charging anybody money to come drop off 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:26.560 their recyclables. All you're doing is throwing your money out 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:28.720 the window. You might as well empty out your bank 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:31.880 account into a dump truck and back it into a landfill. 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:34.240 Did you explain this to your father? I did. Yeah, 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:36.640 this is actually you don't know this, but you are 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:38.720 trapped right in the middle of a recreation of this 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:43.200 conversation we had, um. So that's number one. The other 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:46.959 thing is that you you can actually get money from 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.280 recyclables their commodity. So what I mean, what happens when 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:54.040 you take your recyclables to uh to a recycling center 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:57.079 and they're they're diverted from the dump, thank god, to 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:00.720 you know, a recycling plant. What happened? I mean, what 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:03.760 do they get turned into? Well, they get turned eventually 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:07.400 back into the original raw material, which is a commodity. 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:10.320 It's worth money, like you said, so they have every 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:13.480 incentive to recycle. So like that mixed office paper is 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:18.679 being turned into um cardboard maybe you're old newspapers Actually 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:23.040 are really very commonly used for cardboards, stuff like that. UM. 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:27.120 Or you know, plastic bottles are being turned into um 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:31.760 like a fleece jacket. And actually there's a plastic bottle 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:34.200 you want to avoid if you ever tip it upside 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:36.480 down and you look, that's where you're gonna find your 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:39.679 recycling symbol, right and the number correct. Yes, So if 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:44.080 you see a triangular recycling symbol with a three inside, 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:47.000 you should actually do this while you're at the store. 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.320 Look at the bottle and if you see a three, 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:53.600 put it back and keep looking until you find, you know, 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:56.160 the laundry to churchen or whatever you're you're looking for 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:58.360 that doesn't have a three, and it has a one 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:00.840 or a two or something like that. UM. And then 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:02.640 all of a sudden that one with the three will 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:07.640 go away eventually like PC. And that's because it's is 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:11.080 it impossible to recycle or it's not hard. It's very 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.199 very The the ways you can recycle or the things 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:17.280 you can recycle into a very very limited, like maybe 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:20.760 a plastic park bench or something like that, because there's 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:24.520 so many additives and plus it there. It's actually um. 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:27.840 There's there's whole websites and organizations dedicated to getting rid 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:31.280 of PVC. Wh There's number one, it's it's impossible recycle. 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:33.800 So just that does generally end up in the dump 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:37.560 unless you take it to a specialty recycling plant. UM. 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:42.120 And number two it contains thalamites, and thalamites are UM. 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:44.760 It depends on the plastic. Thalamites are like a softener 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:48.800 to to soften plastic. So like your vinyl shower curtain 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:50.920 that has thalamites in it, when you put it in 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:54.400 and it starts smelling weird, that's the thalamites. And they're 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:59.760 actually really harmful that children's toys, like the kind of 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:04.280 mouthble ones that they chew on. Bad news. PVC thallamites 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:06.920 not good stuff. So if you start doing this at 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:09.440 the store, if you start, if you stop buying things 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:14.080 that are made in or delivered in PBC containers. PVC 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:17.600 is gonna go the way of the dinosaur pretty quick. Um. 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:19.160 But okay, so you want to look what you want 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.520 to look out for PVC? Right, Oh, I know what 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:24.760 we're talking about, raw materials. Back to raw materials, back 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:28.120 to raw materials. So recyclables are commodity because they're broken 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:33.960 back down into their original composition basically, right, okay, and 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:37.680 then they're sold for for big dough. It can be 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:42.920 big dough. Actually, I was reading an MPR article and um, 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:48.600 the price per ton that wholesale purchasers of of recycled 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:51.960 mixed office paper we're paying in this this past summer, 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:55.280 it was like ninety bucks a ton, big money. And 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:57.400 these are these are companies that are buying hundreds of 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:00.160 thousands of tons a month um. So it was big 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:04.400 business to recycle. And by the fall it had dropped 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:08.760 to nothing because even you know, recycling is subject to 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:12.160 inflation and gas fuel prices. Well, not just that, but 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:18.439 the economy. People stop buying goods, so less goods were manufactured. Um. 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:23.240 But it's also because it's it's it's subject to economic whims. 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:27.400 It's also subject to consumers. Right, So like if you 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:32.040 if you only buy um products that are sold in 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:37.920 recyclable or recycled materials, that are made from recycled materials. Um, 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:42.400 you the people who make these things are going to 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:46.400 start buying more and more recycled stuff, okay, because that's 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:49.319 what the consumers want. And if you stop buying stuff 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:52.880 that's made with you know, virgin raw materials, all of 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:57.520 a sudden, these trees are being saved or more plastic 0:12:57.600 --> 0:13:00.480 isn't being made. And it's so it's kind of cool 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.760 to know that you can have this each person. Yeah, 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:07.000 you can also have an effect by making sure or 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:09.160 doing your best to make sure that everything that you 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:11.800 putting your recycling ben gets recycled. And one of the 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:14.360 ways you can do that is by cleaning the stuff. 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:18.400 I know that I know you referenced Minnesota in the article, 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:20.640 and I believe it's the same here in Georgia. About 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:23.520 pizza boxes, I've heard that pizza boxes they won't recycled 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:25.760 because they have you know, cheese and grease and stuff 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:28.400 on it. Actually just throw mine away, now, do you. Yeah, Yeah, 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:32.840 it's probably good idea, And um, I I do a 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:35.280 real good job about cleaning out all my glass products 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:38.080 just because it stinks and you don't want, you know, 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:41.319 the barbecue sauce smelling after a few days. So that's 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:42.559 the reason I do it. But it turns out it 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:44.720 has a better chance of getting recycled. It does and 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:47.040 if you kind of look at it, like your your 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:49.760 bottle of barbecue sauce. If you look at it, you 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:51.800 will see that it's not just a bottle of barbecue sauce. 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:56.120 There's several components to it, the lid, maybe that little 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:59.199 ring that held the lid in place, to the safety 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:01.720 seal um that's not just kind of dangling around the 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:04.520 neck of the bottle of the label. If you break 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:07.160 this thing down into its parts, you're increasing its chances 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.120 of being recycled as well, because if you think about 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:13.000 the labels paper, but the bottles glass and the cap 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:16.640 is plastic. So you separate it, you're making it easier 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:18.920 for the people at the recycling plant, or I should 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.000 say the magnets and lasers at the recycling plant. And 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:25.160 it's it's going to be likelier to be recycled, right, 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:27.760 it won't become a residual, which I believe that is 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:30.960 what the refuse is called it. They cannot recycle correct, right, 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:34.000 and they want to any any recycling company would want 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:38.240 to cut down on residual, right because that's just lost money. 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:41.200 So they're gonna do a lot to kind of make it, 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.480 UM get as much money as possible by recycling as 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:48.080 much ASTU as possible. But you can definitely help, right, Yeah, 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:51.320 that's great. I agree. So does that take us too? 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:53.880 Plastic and where that might end up? Yeah, you know, 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:57.080 plastic is kind of a big problem, right, and not 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:00.440 just PBC, but you know there's some play stick that's 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:06.120 a lot easier to recycle than others, UM, but it 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:09.040 doesn't always get recycled, and when it doesn't get recycled, 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:12.520 it can end up in some really screwed up places, right, 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:16.440 most specifically the ocean. Yes, a lot, a lot of 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:19.360 this stuff ends up in the ocean. And I have 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:21.240 a stat for you if you if you're into that, 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:24.760 you know, I'm into your stats. Uh. The the u 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:27.440 N did a little study their environmental program and they said, 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:31.520 in two thousand six, every square mild ocean has forty 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:36.040 six thousand pieces of floating plastic in it. Not awful, 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:40.440 forty six thousand pieces per square mile, And of the 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:43.000 more than two hundred billion pounds of plastic that we 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.080 produce each year all over the world is not United States, 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:48.520 about ten percent of that ends up in the ocean, 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:50.600 and a lot of that ends up on the floor 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:52.200 of the ocean. Well, not just a lot of it's 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:54.560 seventy of it ends up on the floor of the ocean. 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:58.680 So if every square mile has forty six thousand pieces floating, 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:02.920 that's thirty of what's actually in the ocean. The rest 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:05.320 is on the ocean floor, right, all right, So plastic 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:10.560 is it's well, it's plastic, right, It's super wonderful material. 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:14.680 It's so useful. But yes, it doesn't biodegrade. It does 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:17.800 break down, it photo degrades, but it doesn't break down 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:21.440 molecularly into simpler compounds that can be absorbed by nature. 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:23.680 It just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces of 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:26.720 the same thing, conveniently bite sized pieces, which is one 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:31.160 of the big problems. What they're called mermaids tears or nerdles. Yeah, 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:35.360 that's probably the saddest thing I've ever heard in my life. 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:38.840 It is. It's almost as bad as the American Indian crying. Yeah, 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.120 some mermaids here. Uh so yeah, what happens is the 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.160 stuff ends up in the ocean and filter feeders like 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:49.280 our friend the whale, shark and catfish they take the 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:53.040 stuff in because they think it's food. Uh, seagulls, albatross 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:55.880 they eat the stuff and uh it ends up you know, 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:58.360 killing a large chair. Yeah yeah, but wait, there's more 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:02.720 aside from the choking hazard or you know, any problems 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:08.280 digestive problems that can occur. Um. These little mermaids tears 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:13.600 actually have this added property of attracting toxins like a sponge. 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:17.320 So like the anything, any toxin it comes in contact 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:19.800 within the ocean, it can actually draw stuff to it. 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.760 It soaks it up, absorbs it, hangs onto it, and 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:26.400 then when it's eaten, little poison pills. Basically pretty much 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:28.720 shooting and sinking any ocean. And this is all over 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:32.040 the place, but there's actually there's this. There's a place 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:36.240 in the Pacific Ocean. This is startling to me. There's 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:40.760 a place in the Pacific in between Japan and California, right, 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:47.240 and it is called the North Pacific subtropic gyre okay um. 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:51.320 And basically a gyre is just it's a circulating area 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:54.720 of water. But this is this isn't like a funnel, 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:58.119 it's it's much more wide than that. Actually, one of 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:02.359 these gyres is twice the size of Texas. This this 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.800 subtropic gyre, the one in the North Pacific is actually 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:08.960 there's two, and they're connected by a six thousand long 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:15.120 subtropical convergent zone miles of basically trash and other things 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:17.280 making its way from one to the other. This is 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:20.600 where the garbage goes. This the the garbage that if 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:23.920 you have a cigarette lighter and it goes out or 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:26.679 it comes out of your pocket because you had it 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:30.240 in your bathing suit when you jumped in it, it 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:33.600 will likely end up in this huge garbage patch. There 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:37.440 is a garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean that's twice 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:40.640 the size of Texas, and it's just kind of slowly 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:45.560 sitting there turning. There's actually there's there's two versions. There's 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:47.720 a western in the eastern right, and just one of 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:50.360 them is twice the exactly and that's they're connected by 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:54.560 the little trash trail on the six thousand mile trash trail. 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:57.000 And this is having you could say, something of an 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:00.879 impact on some of the Island, the island chains in 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:03.560 the area right Hawaiian Islands, some of the wine islands, 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:06.080 some of them are Some of them have beaches that 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:10.520 feature um five to ten feet of trash ten ft 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:13.080 deep and the plastic sand is what they call it. Yeah, 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:17.920 bads tears that that turned into these really tiny tiny 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:21.040 bits that you just can't do anything about. It comes 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:23.880 and mixed in with the beach. So it's bad news. 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:26.879 The the there is one heartening thing to all this, 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:31.639 to the great Pacific garbage pat It can be it 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:34.120 can be reduced. And the reason it can be reduced 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:37.040 is because I think eight percent of the trash and 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:40.920 the ocean it starts on land. This isn't like ocean 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:43.880 going vessels going out and dumping you know in this 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:47.000 jy or anything like. It's it's pulled there and it's 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:49.240 usually from land. That was good to hear. I mean, 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:52.000 it's sad in a way because it's coming from us, 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:54.959 but it's good to know that, you know, something can 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:57.400 change about that, right because it's everyday people who are 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:00.360 doing this. It's not you know, some faceless corporation. It's 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:02.639 not the people who are duping us into thinking that 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:05.480 where our stuff is being recycled and they're actually taking 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.080 it and dumping it in the Pacific. There's something you 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.920 can do, Like you can not UM use plastic grocery 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:15.159 bags anymore. It's a great ice very popular. UM. You 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:18.959 can recycle absolutely everything. UM. You can. You can if 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:21.640 you have eco anxiety, which we've talked about, you can follow. 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:23.760 You can walk up and down the street and pull 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:26.600 the aquafina water bottles out of the trash and you 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:29.560 can do theirself sure, or you could charter a helicopter 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:30.960 and have them fly you out to the gyre and 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:34.480 get to work. That's so that's just the tip of 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:38.000 the iceberg. On the on the on you know, recycling 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:42.280 in the World's Biggest landfill, which is the Great Pacific 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:45.119 garbage paths and it is UM and we've got a 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:48.520 couple of articles on them. Coincidentally, this is a dual podcast. 0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:51.000 This is a bonus street It was Yeah, it's our 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:53.679 first time ever. We hope you liked it. UM. You 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:57.200 can read both of these articles by going to our 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:01.560 handy search bar and typing in world Biggest Landfill or 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:04.840 recycling reality and you can do that at how stuff 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:09.880 works dot com and Chuck we have a little listener 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:13.120 mail we do my favorite part of the show, mail time. 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:19.639 So today Josh, we have I'm gonna start off with 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:22.879 some corrections. Actually I'm gonna start off end end with corrections. 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:26.239 I have a few. We had a recent podcast on 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:30.160 body armor which was a special request from a soldier, 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:36.240 Donald Anderson and Iraq. And um. First correction is Donald 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:38.000 actually wrote us back because we didn't have his We 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:40.119 found out his rank as a sergeant and it's a 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:44.200 sergeant part of the fourth Squadron, third Armored Calvary Regiment, 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:47.639 and he works on the Age sixty f D turbine engine, 0:21:47.640 --> 0:21:49.880 which I did a little googling, and that's in the 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:54.000 Apache helicopter. He's got a very cool job. And he 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:57.439 thanked us for the for the podcast. And um, some 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:00.440 people wrote in because we were talking about the spider 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:04.399 silk being made from the goat and we couldn't conceive 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:06.520 of how that would happen exactly. We thought of it 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:09.400 coming out of its dairy air or right right, what 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:14.360 was it? We said, let's listen, yealysis. Yeah, they've actually 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:18.680 genetically engineered goats to produce spider silk. That is, and 0:22:18.760 --> 0:22:21.520