re: Gulf of Mexico is apparently full of plastic waste

It'll be alright, we caught a tripletail under a floating new balance earlier this year. It was excellent

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It was a surprise," Mark Benfield, an LSU oceanographer

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What a moron

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Gulf of Mexico is apparently full of plastic waste

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So is Orange County

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I believe have the right to be skeptical given the amount of "research" that has occurred at the tax payers expense over the last decade+. I'm sorry you are offended because you know the man and/or he is affiliated with LSU, but we spend enough in research. Let a private company do the research and present the state/federal government a solution. I'd much rather see taxpayer money spent on solutions than I would seemingly never ending research that either finds no solution or that more money is needed to research some more.

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The research was done with a relatively small amount of money from LA Sea Grant.

My beef is that people on here constantly complain about the state of LSU. Well, LSU gets a nice cut right off the top when a professor brings in a grant.

A large chunk of that money then goes to pay stipends for students doing the research. This again gives more money to LSU as the Grant also pays tuition for the student.

The money that is left over then goes to research. A marine research project like this can be very expensive because you have to pay for ship time.

Once the work is complete, reports go to the funding agency that then helps them make policy decisions. Scientific papers are produced which adds to our collective knowledge. It's easy to be critical of research like this, but it often pays dividends down the line.