Photo taken by Flickr User Fabi Fliervoet on June 17, 2009 in Welgelegen, St. Maarten, AN and used under a creative commons licence.

The Bad News

Plastic is undoubtedly the most ubiquitous manufactured material in our immediate environment today and we are all aware of its potential for polluting. We are, however, largely unaware of this beyond crisp packets blowing past us on a street, landfills with nappies/diapers everywhere or illegally dumped black bags by rural roadsides. Plastic is everywhere so beyond the computer you are reading this on which is itself largely plastic, as are the packaging, manufacturing and transportation methods that brought it to you. We ought to consider it beyond these familiar boundaries.

Plastics are being broken down and contaminating even the most remote and foreign environments. We are taught that plastic bad because it takes thousands of years to break down. This is not the case in oceans where soft plastic doesn’t just remain intact, but is broken down rapidly, releasing toxins. Fish contain actual plastics and their related chemicals. Whale and bird carcasses are seen worldwide with their stomachs full of plastic causing the animal to stop eating and eventually die. It has chemically contaminated entire food chains from the bottom up.

Discarded plastic results in both a tangible pollution and invisible contaminants. Plastic is a product of fossil fuels, making it a pollutant in its constructed nature but also its production.

• Captain Charles J Moore, the pre-eminent campaigner who brought the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to the world’s attention. See the video below.
• The piece about Capt Charles J Moore that broke the news; CDNN covers the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – every part of this exhaustive piece is fascinating and shocking. Read it. From great detail about the chemical make-upto the transport of nurdles the piece by CDNN covers it all.
• There should also be lots of plastic in the Atlantic – where is it then? The theory with the most currency at the moment is that it is being ground down to practically untraceable size and generally being consumed as normal seawater.
• The Plastiki Expedition by David De Rothschild (and pals) to raise awareness of plastic contamination.
• Puberty is occurring earlier in US girls, a lot early. The culprit is though to be synthetic oestrogens in the environment.
• These synthetic substances (pthalates) are affecting gender globally – not just girls who happen to be americans.
• Bisphenol A (BPA) has been linked in humans to heart disease, sterility and developmental restrictions in children. It is very definitely a bad thing that this synthetic substance is found in oceans globally.
• The JunkRaft, a poor man’s version of the Plastiki – raises the issues as well as being totally cool.
• 5Gyres, a large campaign dedicating to raising the awareness of plastic pollution and contamination
• Greenlandoceanblue, a blog devoted to the topic, naturally has a number of illuminating articles of plastic pollution.
• Low Sperm Counts and Deformed Penises
• Chemical contamination affects men’s development.
• Food contamination with Bisphenol-A
• Living a life without plastic is a daunting prospect but this blog is about the bigger picture. Namely, how plastic affects us biologically.
• Although it does not involve plastics per se, the situation regarding hermaphrodite polar bears due to chemical contamination illustrates how pervasive this pollution could become.

The Not-so-bad News

It’s not all bad. Our world would not be possible without hygenic medical practice, effective agricultural practice, high-tech modern textiles and manufacturing all of which depend on cheap disposable plastics. Think of single-use syringes, polytunnel construction, cheap nylon sacking, your precious smartphone, your bicycle, your lovely dashboard and most of the rest of your car interior. Without plastic how would you get your shampoo? Plastics can even be very cuddly, as in almost any teddy bear, but they can be seductively cozy too while being responsibly produced.

Imagine how little food there would be in your local supermarket without air-proof wrapping, refrigeration and bags to carry it all home. The tins you buy are lined with phthalates and other synthetics. The shelves would look much less appealing without those tantalising glimpses of tasty goods through transparent wrapping.

The issue of its disposal still remains the same; plastic is dependent, in its most common forms, on fossil fuel production which is finite. So why not recycle?

See Capt. Charles Moore describe vast areas of oceanic pollution below, from TED:

Original content created by: The Inquisition

Chiemsee by Flickr user Katdaned

As discussed before on the Inquisition, votive offerings were a prevalent feature of the largely animistic, pre-christian belief systems of early Europe. They could be anything from great artistic treasures to simple clay renderings of your diseased private parts. These were usually deposited in deep water, with, you would imagine, great ceremony. So, when a cauldron was hauled up from the depths of Bavarian Lake Chiemsee by an amateur diver in 2001, it was unusual but not a huge surprise.

The cauldron is decorated with heavily stylised figures, such as horned deities and trumpeting hunters, that would seem to derive from central indo-european, and in particular Celtic, art. Such is the quality of its craftsmanship that were it to be an authentic celtic votive artwork its value is estimated to be between 100,000 and 1,000,000,000 euro. The exquisite piece weighs 11kg, and although labelled a cauldron could just as easily be a funerary urn or the world’s most lavish chamberpot. In fact, the Inquisition, would challenge even the world’s cackliest hag to hubble, bubble, toil and trouble even a simple soup from this unwieldy saucepan.

The Chiemsee Cauldron

Origin

The pre-Chiemseean provenance of the artifact is a mystery. It has been variously associated with Nazi groups, the afore-mentioned Celtic rituals, black magic, and even state complicity with a catholic conspiracy to keep coded messages within the vessel’s golden reliefs hidden. Its attributions read like plotlines even Dan Brown would baulk at. An abortive attempt was made to purchase it by wealthy Kazakh collectors, through a Swiss bank account, but the cauldron remains, for the time being in Switzerland, as evidence in a fraud case.

Soon after the cauldron’s emergence, a team comprised of the original diver, a professional artifact hunter and an art dealer presented it to the Bavarian State Archaeological Collection in Munich for analysis. While the motifs appear to be consistent with artistic practice and style from 2000 years ago, the construction does not. In particular, it appears the kettle was soldered, which would strongly suggest a twentieth century origin.

Add to this, the fact that Bavaria does not have laws of compulsory purchase in relation to historical finds, means the cauldron was about to become the centre of much (legal) debate. The leading professor from the Archaeological Collection went on record to seemingly compare it to the Gundestrop Cauldron, but at the last moment revealed the more recent artifact to be a forgery. He alleged it was made from looted gold, and bizarrely hinted it may have been used in initiation rites. Rumours of esoteric Nazi obsessions with the Holy Grail began to abound.

Its origins have never been cleared up officially, but it is almost certainly a much later piece than it contrives to be.

The one it was based on - the Gundestrop Cauldron

What we have all been waiting for – the Nazis!

The most exciting suggestion relates to a senior director of a long-established Munich jewelers. Theodor Heiden claims to have been told by the company’s goldsmith, Alfred Notz, prior to his death, about a “golden cauldron weighing more than 10 kilograms (22 lbs.), with a figurative ornament and manufactured by means of the paddle and anvil technique.” Commisioned by a muncich-based company, Elektrochemische Werke Munchen, in 1925, it took 14 years to make. This company’s director, Albert Pietzsch, was a very high ranking non-military Nazi party member. Which in essence is a whole lot of, he-said, she-said.

Consequently, the Bavarians decided to wash their hands of the proverbially poisoned chalice. It has since been sold in ever more underhand ways, before winding up in its current legal limbo.

Bibliography
Der Spiegel
Un-natural History

Original content created by: The Inquisition