#i do like environmental sciences

[doinsomethingdaily]

I feel like many people care about this but there is a lot of mis-information or one sided- information going around.

(Sources; I study environmental sciences. I have followed an course on marine litter and am currently doing my end research paper on microplastic pollution in surface water. I have used some papers for this, if you want them I can put them in the comments I think)

What I really want to put out there is that the problem is divers and that personal action and industry reform both are needed.

1. Plastic pollution is obviously a large problem. Think of the Atlantic garbage patch. But also in our own environment. More recently microplastics have been of growing concern. (there is even nanoplastics, but I am not going there)

2. When talking about plastic pollution there are many terms that are used to indicate different things.

- plastic pollution: all plastics currently in the environment that do not belong there

- marine plastic: plastic in seas and oceans

- microplastics: often classified as plastic particles under 5 mm, they are found in water, air, earth, Antarctic ice, human food and our bodies

- primary microplastics: plastic particles that enter the environment as particles under 5mm

- secondary microplastics: particles that come from larger plastics that are degraded.

With this wide variety of plastics to talk about sometimes the waters get muddies. I hear a lot of 'x is the main source of microplastics'. The simple truth is: we do not know what the main source is of most of these. But we do know what the biggest contributers are.

Plastic pollution: mostly land based sources of single use plastics. Recycling is still almost never viable or implemented. Research indicates that up to 80% of produced plastics each year ends up in the environment. That seems like a lot. ( This number probably counts landfills, which are also in the environment. stuf that goes to landfill does not magically disappear. )

Marine plastic: most marine plastic seems also to be from landbased sources. However, most of the plastic sinks. Yet, The great Pacific garbage patch is made up of almost 50% fishing gear (appearantly more buoyant?) Both of these are major problems.

Microplastics:

Primary: these come from tires, paint, washing clothes, cosmetics and other personal care products, but also the production pallets that are used to make bigger plastic products are a major source.

Secondary; these come from all the bigger plastic pollution (so land based litter for example) braking down in the environment. Currently the majority of marine microplastics seem to be secondary.

3. It is hard to measure the precise main source or sources of plastics because it is hard to monitor them. They move through the environment. The total amount of plastic amount to tons. Some sink to the sea bottoms or are currently somewhere in the atmosphere. Monitoring protocols for microplastics are still being established. So there is no absolute answer about most things right now.

4. What do we know: obviously humans are the source of plastics. Plastic need hundreds of years to break down. Most current research seems to indicate that microplastics will have negative health effects. You probably have plastic close to you right now.

Yes, we need to reform the industry large scale. Plastics should be used for the things where they are invaluable such as for medical applications and such. But we need to cut back on other uses of plastics. And we need good recycling. This one is going to be harder because of the many kinds of plastics and the limits on how many times it can be reused.

However, as an individual, you can help. I am certainly not saying everyone needs to go "zero waste." But even if you are switching out little things, you do have an impact. Further more, reducing plastics and microplastics might be healthier for you.

[thedisablednaturalist]

"It is illegal for an employer to discriminate based upon disability! So if you have no excuse if you are unemployed!"

Employers:

[ID: Snippets of job requirements. By bromantically]

1. "This position requires the individual to drive either a company car, rental car or his/her own car in the course of performing their job from time to time. Employee must be able to perform the physical functions of operating a motor vehicle, including use of eyes, ears, arms, hands, legs, and feet. Employee must be able to prove that he/she has a current, valid driver’s with no restrictions." The part that says, "Employee must be able to perform the physical functions of operating a motor vehicle, including use of eyes, ears, arms, hands, legs, and feet." has been highlighted.

2. "Ability to repetitively stoop, crawl, bend at the knees and waist, squat and lift 50 lbs; includes body weight, equipment, tools and boxes, in addition to ability to stand for long periods of time on varied surfaces. Must be able to stand up to five hours at a time." End ID.]

[identitty-dickruption]

the desire to know a bit about everything vs the desire to know a lot about a couple of things FIGHT

[femmefitz]

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YALL?? BE FUCKING NORMAL!!!

[notedchampagne]

do you give out your usernames to employers? I've always worried about jobs finding my accounts since I similarly claim doing art for a skill on my resume, but I figured no one would find them since I use different names? Is it because you use examples on your resume?

i dont! i really mean it when i say i priv my twitter just to assuage my own anxieties. ive had plenty of ppl irl find my account(s) even though i didnt give them my username - i fear it might have to do with online tracing or something, but im not a tech expert so i wont say it with confidence. i tend to do similar things when applying for a visa or travelling as a very small safety measure

[raskolotlegs]

Every earth science major I’ve met is the coolest person ever, by way of being the type of person to choose a difficult major despite it not assuring financial success, out of a genuine desire to do good for the world

[glittergroovy]

Hi loves I only have $109 in my account after buying groceries yesterday…

I’m waiting to hear back from jobs still. My only source of income currently is from online surveys & that does not add up to much at all.

Any help (tips, reblogs etc) in getting by until I land a job is extremely appreciated!

Venmo: @Grubcore

Ko-fi: grubcore (you can look through some of my art on here!)

[aeide-thea]

06-07-23 Why Patagonia helped Samsung redesign the washing machine

Samsung is releasing a wash cycle and a new filter, which will dramatically shrink microfiber pollution.

Eight years ago, Patagonia started to study a little-known environmental problem: With every load of laundry, thousands (even millions) of microfibers, each less than 5 millimeters long, wash down the drain. Some are filtered out at water treatment plants, but others end up in the ocean, where fibers from synthetic fabric make up a surprisingly large amount of plastic pollution—35%, by one estimate. Fragments of your favorite sweatshirt might now be floating in the Arctic Ocean. In a collaboration that began two years ago, the company helped inspire Samsung to tackle the problem by rethinking its washing machines. Today, Samsung unveiled its solution: A new filter that can be added to existing washers and used along with a “Less Microfiber” cycle that Samsung also designed. The combination makes it possible to shrink microfiber pollution by as much as 98%.

[…] Patagonia’s team connected Samsung with Ocean Wise, a nonprofit that tests fiber shedding among its mission to protect and restore our oceans. Samsung shipped some of its machines to Ocean Wise’s lab in Vancouver, where researchers started to study how various parameters change the results. Cold water and less agitation helped—but both of those things can also make it harder to get clothing clean. “There are maybe two ways of increasing the performance of your washing machine,” says Moohyung Lee, executive vice president and head of R&D at Samsung, through an interpreter. “Number one is to use heated water. That will obviously increase your energy consumption, which is a problem. The second way to increase the performance of your washing machine is to basically create stronger friction between your clothes . . . and this friction and abrasion of the fibers is what results in the output of microplastics.” Samsung had already developed a technology called “EcoBubble” to improve the performance of cold-water cycles to help save energy, and it tweaked the technology to specifically tackle microfiber pollution. “It helps the detergent dissolve more easily in water so that it foams better, which means that you don’t need to heat up your water as much, and you don’t need as much mechanical friction, but you still have a high level of performance,” Lee says. The new “Less Microfiber” cycle, which anyone with a Samsung washer can download as an update for their machine, can reduce microfiber pollution by as much as 54%. To tackle the remainder, the company designed a filter that can be added to existing washers at the drain pipe, with pores tiny enough to capture fibers. They had to balance two conflicting needs: They wanted to make it as simple as possible to use, so consumers didn’t have to continually empty the filter, but it was also critical that the filter wouldn’t get clogged, potentially making water back up and the machine stop working. The final design compresses the microfibers, so it only has to be emptied once a month, and sends an alert via an app when it needs to be changed. Eventually, in theory, the fibers that are collected could potentially be recycled into new material rather than put in the trash. (Fittingly, the filter itself is also made from recycled plastic.) When OceanWise tested the cycle and filter together, they confirmed that it nearly eliminated microfiber pollution. Now, Samsung’s challenge is to get consumers to use it. The filter, which is designed to be easily installed on existing machines, is launching now in Korea and will launch in the U.S. and Europe later this year. The cost will vary by market, but will be around $150 in the U.S. The cycle, which began to roll out last year, can be automatically installed on WiFi-connected machines.

[burning-academia-if]

Pictured: future me's demise probably (majors + magic class options)

Text version:

Majors:

Undecided

English

Journalism

History

Law

Art

Graphic Design

Music

Biology

Environmental Science

Chemistry

Psychology

Astronomy

Computer Science

Calculus

Statistics

Magic Elective:

Magic Theory

Magical History

Modern Day Magic

Magical Artifacts

[m00ngbin]

I'm trying to pick a major that I would be the most interested in just because it would make my life so much easier and right now I have like three ideas and they all have a million problems

[yuckytastic]

how life feels after i allow myself to think that i dont have to do art as my job and i can just keep it as a hobby

[whentherewerebicycles]

i really and truly believe that there are only two genuine human superpowers, both of which can be actively cultivated:

the ability to find anything interesting, ie the ability to reframe and reflect on any situation or encounter, even/especially negative or boring ones, so as to make what is happening to you interesting, engaging, and personally meaningful to your human experience. this habit of mind is mostly curiosity but it's also woven through with psychological flexibility, especially the ability to regulate your own emotional reactions so that you can respond to challenging or tedious situations in more thoughtful and values-aligned ways that develop your sense of self instead of making you feel trapped or bored or fragmented

the ability to teach yourself new things. idk maybe as a teacher i am biased but i really believe that the single most transformative gift you can give any human being is a deep understanding of how people learn and improve at things. what is more hopeful, more inspiring, or more life-affirming than the realization that you can learn new things at any age, and that the new things you learn (plus the joyful process of learning itself!) can utterly transform the way you experience the world and understand yourself? what is more amazing or incredible than the realization that learning things is not a mysterious & passive process that happens to you but a reasonably consistent set of steps and tools that you can learn how to master and apply to virtually any skill or domain of human knowledge? the superpower of being able to learn/improve at anything you set your mind to… but also the superpower inherent in that quiet unwavering certainty that even if you feel stuck at various points in your life, you have within yourself the capacity to get unstuck through learning and changing and growing and experiencing new things. wowowowowowowow!!!!! what an extraordinary gift!!!!

[hurt-comfort-cache]

knowledge is a curse, y'all. i want to write whump fic about a snakebite... but i also don't wanna fearmonger about snakes. on the one hand, they rarely bother people (and even more rarely are the aggressors) & predators are important for top-down ecosystem control. on the other hand... my favorite characters are often alone in the wilderness & they hurt so pretty.

[cherrycoloredphoenix]

A brief summary of today's fieldwork

[beanboop]

aster for 10-20 on the dnd ask thing!!

Ty for the ask. I love my Birkenstock-rocking druid girl 🥺💖

Tav Dialogue Ask Meme

10. Sending them to talk to an NPC

"Alright, I'll talk to them. But I've met badgers that seem more reasonable." 

11. Sending them to talk to their romanced partner

About Gale: "He'd look pretty cute with a little dirt on him."

12. Encountering a locked chest/door

"A little help, anyone? Astarion? ...Karlach?"

13. Picking a lock

"If this is a trap, we're all screwed."

14. Looking at a globe

"My whole life has been spent between Baldur's Gate and my circle... But there is a whole world out there that is yet to be discovered."

15. Looking at an astrolabe

"Beautiful, but... Not quite as good as the real thing."

16. Looking at a telescope

"Oh look, a red-tailed hawk! That's a rare sighting in these parts. ...Ahem. No enemies spotted."

17. Looking in a mirror

"Why didn't anyone tell me that I had mud on my face this whole time?"

18. Looking at a nonmagical lamp 

"Nice lamp."

19. Noticing a trap

*Whistles to catch the party's attention*

20. Can’t fit into a small hole

"I can't wild shape into something that small. Doubt even an ant would fit."

[kenonade]

esalen………………………………………………………………………