By Rachel Nuwer, Source: The New York Times

rock

Plastic first became widespread in the mid-20th century. Since then, about six billion tons have been manufactured. Much of that has ended up as trash, and nobody knows what will become of it.

Now researchers have discovered an unexpected way that some plastic waste is persisting: as a new type of stone.

The substance, called plastiglomerate, is a fusion of natural and manufactured materials. Melted plastic binds together sand, shells, pebbles, basalt, coral and wood, or seeps into the cavities of larger rocks to form a rock-plastic hybrid. The resulting materials, researchers report in the journal GSA Today, will probably be long-lived and could even become permanent markers in the planet’s geologic record.

“Most conventional plastic is relatively thin and fragments quickly,” said Richard Thompson, a marine biologist at Plymouth University in England, who was not involved in the research. “But what’s being described here is something that’s going to be even more resistant to the aging process.”

Plastiglomerate was discovered in 2006 by Charles Moore, a sea captain and oceanographer at the Algalita Marine Research Institute in Long Beach, Calif. Mr. Moore was surveying plastic washed up on Kamilo Beach, a remote, polluted stretch of sand on Hawaii’s Big Island.

Read the full article at: The New York Times