HeraldNet - Snohomish County's online news source
Heraldnet.com
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2009 7:26 pm
LocalNorthwestNation & WorldPoliticsSpecial ReportsPhotosColumnistsMultimedia 
RECENT POSTS:
• Score one for recycling, composting! Sort of.  October 22
Archives:
Twitter Updates
    LINKS:

    Eat Local
    • Eat Wild
     • Get Fresh
     • Pacific Northwest Cheese Project
     • Puget Sound Fresh
     • Tilth Producers
     • Urban Hennery (Everett)
    Eco Friendly
    • Ask Umbra
     • EcoConsumer
     • Green Everett
     • Green Gardening Tips
     • Grist
     • Living Sustainably in Snohomish County
    Recycling
    • 2good2toss
     • E-Cycle Washington
     • Freecycle
     • PC Recycle
     • Recycle with Karen (Everett)
     • Snohomish County Solid Waste
     • The Story of Stuff
    RELATED ARTICLES:
    • Brown pelicans are endangered no longer  November 11
    • Russia launches program to save Siberian tiger  November 11
    • Snohomish County's former sanitation director claims his ouster was forced  November 8
    • W. Africa’s last giraffes make surprise comeback  November 8
    • Methow ridge proves to be a great place to watch raptors  November 7
    • Columbia River salmon keep dying despite sea lion removal  November 7
    • Senate Democrats advance climate bill without GOP  November 5
    • Interior design ideas that can reduce your energy bill  November 5
    • Africans boycott meetings at U.N. climate talks  November 3
    • Barbed wire can be deadly to sage grouse, report finds  November 3
     

    ADVERTISEMENT
    Eco Geek
    May 29, 2009

    Wikimedia Commons (click to enlarge)
    These are nurdles, pieces of plastic ready to be melted and treated to become plastic products.
     
    ADVERTISEMENT
     

    What’s a nurdle? You're soaking in it.


    Posted at 8:30 am by Sarah Jackson

    Nurdles are 5-millimeter-diameter pre-production plastic pellets manufactured by the bazillions and melted into myriad plastic products, including, probably, parts of the computer you’re using right now.

    They are, according to this Sierra Club story, the beginning of plastic’s “life cycle,” ending with oceans polluted in ways unfathomably large and small.

    • Large: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, now at least twice the size of Texas is the largest garbage dump in the world. According to the Sierra Club, it might be much larger, “as much as 5 million square miles, or one and a half times the size of the United States. Sailors encounter it within 500 miles of the California coast and 200 miles off Japan.”


    • Small: Ocean-going plastics, however, don’t just stick together in a tidy gyre in the water. Plastics eventually break down.
      Entire beaches are now saturated with tiny grains of plastics, including “Hawaii's Kamilo Beach, which has been called the most plasticized beach in the world.”
      Some pieces of plastic are tiny, “specks of polypropylene, polyethylene and polyester as small as 20 microns across, narrower in breadth than a human hair.”


    What do you think of all this plastic pollution? Write me here to share your thoughts or comment below.

    (Thanks to Karen Erickson of Everett for sending the Sierra link.)
    READER COMMENTS
    Be the first to comment.
    You must be a registered user and verify your e-mail address to post comments to blogs or articles on HeraldNet.

    To register, click here. To read other terms and conditions, click here.
    Log in or register to post new comment | Log out
      Return to Eco Geek
    View All Coupons

    All you can Eat Buffets
    Angel of the Winds
    Watershed Restaurant

    25% off Bath & Groom
    New Customers
    Smokey Point Grooming

    Come and Relax
    Monthly Specials
    T-Spa at Tulalip Resort Casino

    20% Off Dinner
    Up to $75 Value!
    Sockeye's Restaurant

    15% Off Your
    First Time Purchase
    Wine Styles

    Great Food
    24 Hours a Day
    Cedars Cafe

    Free Garlic Bread/Free Soda
    Click here for details!
    Major League Pizza

    $1 off French Dip
    $4.99 Burger Basket
    50th Street Burger

    Family Night Free Sundae
    $9.99 Prime Rib
    Chopstix - Everett

    QuadraFire Save $250
    Free Smart-Stat
    Home Town Heating

    FREE 6 lb. Pad w/
    30yd Carpet Purchase
    Completely Floored

    $5 Off
    Stylecut
    Third Dimension Salon

    $2 OFF
    at Box Office
    Everett Silvertips

    Free Dessert!
    Click here!
    Bistro San Martin

    50% off 2nd Pizza
    Special Click Here!
    Luca's Italian Restaurant

    Pacific Northwest
    Fresh Cuisine
    BlackFish Restaurant

    Lube, Oil & Filter
    Buy 1 - Get 1 FREE
    American Car Care Center

    Buffet Dining
    Tulalip Resort
    Eagles Buffet

    20% off Click Here*
    Buy 1 Offer Click Here*
    Bajio Mexican Grill

    FREE Appetizer with any
    purchase daily 2-6pm
    Shawn O'Donnell's

    Island Flavors with
    Finest NW Ingredients
    Tulalip Bay Fine Dining

    FREE Appetizer w/
    purchase of 2 entrees
    Wild Vine Bistro

    Oil - Snohomish County
    Low Prices - Fill Now!
    American Distributing

    $5 OFF
    Lunch or Dinner
    Lanna Thai Restaurant
    TODAY'S TOP JOBS
     View All Top Jobs 
    Top Cars
    >> view all top cars
    >> view all cars
    Top Homes
    >> view all top homes
    >> view all homes

    ADVERTISEMENT
    |Contact Us |Advertiser Services |Home Delivery |Newsstand Locations |Classifieds |Feedback |About the Company |Work@the Herald |Site Map
    © 2009 The Daily Herald Co., Everett, WA.