Where Have All the Plastics Gone? (Paperback) | Released: 12 Dec 2015

The subject of this publication is nanoparticles, including plastic nanoparticles, as vectors of environmental chemicals and their movement through the biosphere. The annotated bibliography which follows the essays provides a topic-specific journey through the world of nanoparticles and nanotechnology and their health physics significance. The hemispheric water cycle provides the context for the movement of environmental chemicals in all trophic levels of the biosphere. The tendency of invisible nanoparticles including plastic nanoparticles (PNP) to sorb environmental chemicals and then be ingested by microbiota constitutes the ménage à trois that is an overlooked pathway of human exposure to environmental chemicals. The growing presence of environmental chemicals in the hemispheric water cycle is only one component of the imposition of human ecosystems on natural ecosystems, and is manifested in a worldwide water crisis with vast environmental, social, and political ramifications. The omnipresence of environmental chemicals in the global water cycle can be expressed by the metaphor of the biosphere as a bowl of soup. More specifically, organochlorine soup is an appropriate description of the current status of the global water cycle. Associated ingredients include organophosphates, phthalates, BPA, hormone disrupting chemicals (HDC), obesogens, anthropogenic radioactivity, and remobilized naturally occurring ecotoxins, such as methylmercury. Most of these organochlorine soup ingredients were not constituents of the global water cycle before 1940. The research cited in this annotated bibliography provides commentary on an overlooked component of the impact of our plastic lifestyles on vulnerable finite natural ecosystems.
About the Author: H. G. "Skip" Brack is the founder and curator of the Davistown Museum and proprietor of and buyer for the Jonesport Wood Company, which deals in antique and used tools and includes the famed Liberty Tool Company in Liberty, Maine. Artifacts and information that Brack encountered on his tool buying expeditions in the attics, cellars, and workshops of coastal New England piqued his curiosity, raising questions about its early inhabitants and the tools they used. When he discovered that the information he sought to answer his questions was sketchy, inaccurate, or undocumented, Brack sought and scoured primary and secondary sources on the history of early coastal New England, focusing on the origins and composition of tools used by early New Englanders and New England First Nation communities. His publications include the Davistown Museum seven volume Hand Tools in History series, Norumbega Reconsidered: Mawooshen and the Wawenoc Diaspora, the five volume Phenomenology of Biocatastrophe series, and much of the text on the information-rich museum website www.davistownmuseum.org. Brack holds a B.A. from the University of Massachusetts and M.A. from the University of Colorado. His knowledge of early tools and Maine/New England maritime history makes him a sought after lecturer and consultant. Brack, the museum, and his tool stores have been featured in Yankee, Downeast, and Bangor Metro magazines, the Boston Globe, an Associated Press article that appeared world-wide, Maine Public Broadcasting Network's Maine Experience, and the Martha Stewart television show. He lives and works in Bar Harbor and Liberty, Maine, with his wife, Judith Bradshaw Brown.