While many people are using their newfound free time to binge Netflix, bake bread, plant gardens, or take up new hobbies, Rob Arnold is spending a stupid amount of hours sorting through litter washing up on the beach.
Look at this haul!
It’s a good deed, of course, but he’s also learning that there are things to be gleaned from the stuff that he finds – some of which can be traced back to specific incidents from decades ago, which is crazy!
He’s pulling amazing amounts of trash from the beach, putting it out to dry on this driveway…
Washed litter from Tregantle beach on my drive, drying in the sun.
Posted by Rob Arnold on Friday, April 10, 2020
And in his garden.
Drying microplastics in the back garden too!
Posted by Rob Arnold on Friday, April 10, 2020
Then he’s separating it.
Micoplastics from Tregantle dried and sieved.
Total dry weight aprox 250kg
3 sacks of fragments 10mm and above
4 sacks …Posted by Rob Arnold on Friday, April 10, 2020
And sifting through it.
This is the lighter fragments removed from the microplastics.
The thing that always shocks and saddens me when I do…Posted by Rob Arnold on Friday, April 10, 2020
He’s found a Barbie (posssibly) phone.
Not sure how I spotted this little treasure among the plastic fragments.
Tiny mobile phone, possibly belonging to Sindy, Barbie or Ken. By the look of the style of phone, early 90’s I would think.Posted by Rob Arnold on Friday, April 10, 2020
A bunch of lost toy flippers.
Last tally of Lego flippers from this sort, 290!
I’ve been collecting Lego flippers from the 97 container spill for the…Posted by Rob Arnold on Friday, April 10, 2020
Way too many nurdles. What’s a nurdle?
He can tell you that, too.
Some of the 5 million nurdles and bio-beads separated from the 250kg of plastic collected from Tregantle.
Nurdles are…
Posted by Rob Arnold on Friday, April 10, 2020
A Kelloggs’ giveaway toy from 1958!
It’s always good when you can date a found item. Here we have a give-away toy by Kelloggs from 1958! Incredibly it could have been lying in the environment for 62 years!
Posted by Rob Arnold on Friday, April 10, 2020
This pyroplastic pebble is just the weirdest thing.
A pyroplastic pebble.
Thought to be created from the uncontrolled burning of plastic. In the marine environment where it…Posted by Rob Arnold on Saturday, March 21, 2020
He regularly shares photos of his interesting and identifiable finds.
If this intrigues you, make sure to follow Rob on Facebook for more updates and photographs.
Or, you know, you could comb a beach near you. Sadly, you’d find piles and piles of your own trash and treasures.
Mostly trash, though, because humans.
