Allow me to repeat: "...the UN Environment Program estimates that there are 46,000 pieces of plastic litter in every square mile of ocean."

There is no benefit to that.

These organisms are not part of some science fiction fantasy attack upon humanity. They are present and alive on the planet, and Daniel Burd has found a way to enlist their help.

Some info on these microorganisms:

The sphingomonads are widely distributed in nature, having been isolated from many different land and water habitats, as well as from plant root systems, clinical specimens, and other sources.

An article published in the journal Science in 2008 showed that Pseudomonas may be the most common nucleator of ice crystals in clouds, thereby being of utmost importance to the formation of snow and rain around the world.

If you want a risk-benefit analysis, try putting a plastic bag over your head for 1000 years and see what happens. No malice intended with that comment, but I think you get the picture.

From my understanding, pure polyethelyne biodegrades in a few weeks of sunlight. Sure it takes a thousand years to biodegrade BENIETH GROUND, just like the fosil fuel from which it comes remains reletively unchanged over long periods benieth ground. The only reason then, that bags that are left outside don´t biodegrade is that bag manufacturures put UV ray aborbing chemicals into there bags for the deliberate purpose of preventing plasic bags from biodegrading in the sun, ie. so that your grocery bag doesn´t break down in the backseat of your car before you get home, etc. Would it really be that hard to educate consumers to keep their bags out of sun while in use, and then to hang them on the closeline in the back yard rather then throwing them in the trash, thus allowing bag manufactures to stop using the UV protection? Not in a culture that prioritises eco-responsibility, but this culture is not ours, as is well indicated by the fact that a nation of scientists never bothered to perform the high school level chemistry research necisary to look into these type of solutions. Our sciences are more than advanced enough to create solutions to these type of environmental problems, but what holds us back is, well, insatiate demand for instant convienience and general apathy and-or ignorance toward global environmental problems.

Polyethelene recycling as far as I know is a reletively efficient process, decomposition via organisms found in soil may turn out to be an efficient method as well, but in either case the trouble remains getting "everyone" to actaully gather all our plastic waste and do something responsibe with it.

Plastic from oil is not our friend. Not anyone's friend.

"Plastics". That was the advice to "The Graduate", played by Dustin Hoffman.

It presaged the dire situation that we were racing into at that time . . . to where we are today.

It was the 60s, and a new ascendancy of revolt to received ideas, and to some extent an over-reaching urge for dis-continuation of the same-old same-old was beginning to burgeon into an all out revolt against everything: Turn on, tune in, drop out.

One form of this was a rapid over-reaction towards all conservatism which, curiously, didn't work for preserving much of the good things, but for preserving some pretty stupid things. I'm still trying to figure this pussle out, and can't say I've gotten very far, but the over-arching urge to stop war was the good thing that came out of that. Only, part of the "war" which wasn't fully appreciated was the war against middle-class industry that was burgeoning, but soon to be attacked by accession to the aims of big oil interests and the pushing of plastic and other by-products of the oil industry. They wanted to see every possible road paved with asphalt versus time-proven concrete for example. Portland cement competed against this sludge-as-product. Big oil also waged war on "trolley-cars" for the sake of buses. And, guess what? We now see that that was big mistake. Now we are rebuiling trolley-systems all across the nation. I guess city-planners might call than "Oops!" moment of realization.

The impulse towards profit marched on unimpeded, for the most part, despite the popular trend that saw big-oil as an industry aimed at war. The "more" demand trumped the "righteousness" demand, and the 'more, cheaper, more!' helped to put us today in this situation where plastic can be found in all the skat of all the animals and fish that live in or on or near the ocean.

The generation of extremes has left some fine pickles for us to figure out.

Bard's research and experiment shows practical and efficient thinking that touches on periphery of the big problem of the world-wide culture of OIL and the internal combustion engine.

It will help ameliorate the problem, but will hardly solve it. The sheer volume of plastics being generated is far too great. Part of the solution indeed, but a greater part is to just demand they stop making the damned stuff. Our economy was much more robust when we used metals and even bakelite and cellulosic plastics. The prior approaches were more labor-intensive, and kept more people at work.

I seriously doubt the future "antique" collectors will value much of the injection plastic crap that is proliferating at ever greater levels just to make a quick buck. What amazes me is that "all cotton" products are labeled with synthetic tags or held together by plastic thread! It is a cancer.

On the PBS series JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH

http://www.pbs.org/journeytoplanetearth/

, a segment talked about this pervasiveness of plastic particulates in the Pacific. In looking at a sample of sea-water to about 3 meters, a fine-mesh cone that was dragged for a few miles came up with an astounding finding: the mass of particles was greater than that of plankton! This is a profound problem. When the plankton concentrations begin to suffer, the entire chain of life will alter in highly unfavorable ways. Not just in respect to animal and sea-life, but the entire globe: most of the oxygen of the earth is produced from the sea. We have spread a giant sun-filter in the top layer of the oceans. Think of that.

There is also a floating "island" of plastic in the Pacific that some have estimated is as large as Texass! See:

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/oceans/pollution/trash...

Also, see these reports, about the plastic problem, in general:

http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Origins-Small-Plastic-Particles.h...

Other interesting sites for research:

www.damninteresting.com

www.weirdscience.com

http://www.usc.edu/org/cosee-west/October06Resources/Activities/Elementa...

Bottom line: just boycott big-oil. Boycott oil-plastics. We did fine without for uncounted millenia. It hasn't helped life at all. How could it? It is leading us to extinction. We will rue the day it was invented someday. We can make plastics from peanuts and scores of other sources that will not be nearly as harmful to earth than the crap we take from the oil industry. We can invent many things. It doesn't mean we should keep them all. Time to throw this entire industry into the trash-heap.

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"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance -- that principle is contempt prior to investigation." HERBERT<