Since I know there are scientists on this site - a question; Is there any kind of electrostatic...

[electric_blue68]

charge in a larger field effect that can be generated from some kind of invention that might attract various forms (or at least one) form of plastic, and pull ir out of the ocean, lakes etc?

I may be verrrry off base, but this idea has floated around in my mind for about 8+ months.

[Phoenix61]

1. Probably not. Plastic is used as an insulated because it doesn't carry a charge. nt

[electric_blue68]

4. Ah, ok, true - that makes sense ...

As a kid I used to play with "suji" wire - your average size insulated copper, making things.

[Phoenix61]

9. My dad worked for Southern Bell. The guys would make

these incredible little sculptures out of the old school copper covered wire. A guy swinging a golf club or a guy with a fishing pole. Wish I had some of them.

[electric_blue68]

14. Cool! Oh, I absolutely get it. ..

I learned about through one of my uncles who was a Boy Scout leader; he gave me some.

I particularly made dragons! 🥰
Little ones, about 3" inches in length. Then one medium little one about 5" - 6" inches.

[Phoenix61]

10. My dad worked for Southern Bell. The guys would make

these incredible little sculptures out of the old school covered copper wire. A guy swinging a golf club or a guy with a fishing pole. Wish I had some of them.

[mahina]

12. We call fishing line sugi.

You folks call copper wire sugi too?

[electric_blue68]

15. Yes, though I'm not sure how it was actually spelled ('60s) I wrote now what it sounded like to me

[mahina]

18. Do you folks say the g soft like general or hard like golf?

[electric_blue68]

19. Hmmm... The "g" is like "Gee".. It's possible too that it could be - suji

[mahina]

28. Same as here. It's from Japanese.

Its one of those words that, when speaking with someone not from here, I really have to reach for the English term.

Like pukaboard and pau.

(Pegboard! Finished!)

Anyway nice talking story with you. I mean chatting. 🤙🏼

[electric_blue68]

29. Got it.

Yes, a little fun chat in between the serious stuff. 👍

[TheBlackAdder]

2. That might mess with sharks and could be a form of electrofishing, where fish drawn to the anode.

[electric_blue68]

5. Oh, that wouldn't be good.

[Hugin]

3. Since I am not a scientist, but prone to general speculation...

Water and in this case salt water tends to mess with electric fields.

H2O actually has a slight dipole.

There, the sum total of my knowledge.

I can see what you are thinking here. Keep working on it.

[electric_blue68]

6. Didn't know the first thing, and looked up dipole. Thanks for the info.

[Hugin]

8. I'm old...

Amaze me.

Someone up-thread mentioned sharks use electrostatic sensory organs (which from what I understand sense the synapses firing in the muscles of prey) and I know some eels use an electric charge. See how they do it. People studied birds for flight.

Another thing you can consider is since water is a conductor. Working on a way to see where various plastics have settled in the water column to maximize manual collections. Remote sensing. Similar to sonar, but, using electric fields.

Of course, garbage in the water is like a diet. The best way to get rid of it is to keep it from getting there in the first place. That ship has already sailed. (pun intended)

[electric_blue68]

20. Pun gotten (unfortunately) I'm no scientist but I enjoy science....

particularly the Space and Earth Sciences

You have a grasp of some of the Sciences I don't have.

[Hugin]

26. It takes practice...

And lots of curiosity. Keep going, you’re half way there.

[A HERETIC I AM]

11. Sooner or later...

In a few million years, Mother Nature will likely evolve an organism that will consume plastics, perhaps some version of a baleen whale or other filter feeder.

Otherwise, we just need to stop tossing plastic into the ocean.

[Hugin]

13. It happened with cellulose during the Carboniferous.

Dead trees piling up like cord wood before that.

So, yeah I could see it happening. I am not going to hold my breath, tho.

[electric_blue68]

21. Heh and Interesting.

[electric_blue68]

22. I thought I read in the past (non chronological) year that a bacteria...

was found to eat plastic. Course, there are different tweaks to different types of plastic

[Hugin]

27. I had the misfortune of living in a highly alkaline...

Area, once.

Between the hot Sun, dryness, and salts in the air plastics, metals, organic, inorganic, nothing stood a chance. Except for truly inert materials such as stainless steel, everything had to be periodically replaced.

Of course, this isn’t practical on a larger scale. However, as you can see. Non-biological processes can break down a wide variety of different things.

[DetlefK]

16. Wouldn't work because of the Helmholtz-Double-Layer.

The range of an electrostatic field decreases exponentially in water: It causes an ion-rich layer of water to form near the surface of the object that emits the electrostatic field. (The HDL) This layer in turn severely dampens the strength of the electrostatic field. Depending on the ion-concentration, the effective range of an electrostatic field in water is somewhere in the nanometer to micrometer range.

[electric_blue68]

23. Eh, that's no good. But at least I understand what you're saying.

[electric_blue68]

24. And that's why -the HDL effect mentioned by DefletK not withstanding that it would attract the...

...micro sized particulates.

Oh, well...

[KY_EnviroGuy]

17. No, sorry EB.

Most plastics are electrical insulators and can accumulate charge on their surfaces where the surrounding medium is non-conductive. Water, and particularly sea water, is relatively highly conductive and quickly draws any accumulated charge away.

The seemingly impossible challenge we face is that much of the plastics load in oceans has over time broken down into micro- and molecular-size particles that can't be filtered out in any meaningful volumes to make a difference (we would also be filtering out the good stuff). The particulate is already collecting in-mass on the sea floor, in the bodies of sea life and even discovered in the snow pack on mountains and the planet's poles. Putting chemicals into streams and oceans to cause the particulate to agglomerate would likely come with many very bad side-effects.

The best way to solve this problem I suspect is simply to stop all plastics from going to rivers and oceans and Mother Nature will take care of it in time. Unfortunately like many human problems, it's nearly impossible to gain agreements between enough nations willing to be unselfish enough to make a substantial change.

[electric_blue68]

25. Agreements - yeah. Sigh. I know it's going up the food chain, too

[ProfessorGAC]

30. I'll Avoid Redundancy

Posts 16 & 17 are very good explanations as to why electrostatic effects won't work.

[electric_blue68]

31. Yeah, I saw. Let Sigh