From UCI & UCSB
Even as the world focuses on the calamitous fouling of the environment by the BP oil spill in the Gulf and some folks in Santa Barbara aid in clean-up attempts, researchers in Irvine remind that Americans' ordinary, daily conduct with another petroleum-based product is helping to create a major pollution problem by dumping tons of plastics and other slow to destruct detrius into the deep seas. Researchers can first find these too casually discarded objects -- including bottle caps, popped balloons, cigarette lighters (which can
choke birds that mistake them for small fish), Barbie doll legs, a
toothbrush, a hotel room card key, tennis balls, and even a Furby -- along spots like Southern California shores before they get washed out to sea. There, the offal has accumulated into five giant gyres, garbage- and plastic-filled ocean dead zones that represent the most visible but hardly the only pollution of the planet's waters. They're also profoundly imperiled, reseachers say, by the decay of plastics -- which do not fully disintergrate or break down -- into tiny pellets that pose their own major risks to marine life and the eco-system, including the release of certain worrisome chemicals into the water and potentially into the food chain. Possible answers: recyclying, recycling, recycling, researchers say.
Photo: Prof. William Cooper and a student scrutinize beach-found plastics, other trash / Daniel A. Anderson, university communications
A call to action to curb fouling of seas with really harmful plastics, other trash
In Santa Barbara, folks are talking about how university research and product development is playing its role in a slice of the Gulf spill cleanup, in particular the deployment of the potent 'Groovy Drum Skimmer.' The device, which has been tested and found to be 300% more effective than previous devices of its kind, floats along and pulls up oil and other pollutants from the water's surface using rubber, with a triangular-grooved pattern on its surface and attached to a rolling drum. Victoria Broje, a onetime grad student, developed the device via interdisciplinary studies she praises and school officials say the process that eventually led to its becoming a commercial product exemplifies the value of university research and systems. School officials assisted Broje with patents, other complex paperwork and in finding the company that brought the skimmer to market.
University research praised for aiding 'Groovy Drum Skimmer,' a device for spill cleanup