Dozy Dopes: Wooden Drift Card – Watted?

A short note by Kip Hansen — December 30, 2024 — 650 words

To end the year, I would like to mention an article from Shipping News.

Five years at sea: “Argonaut” oil spill drift card appears on Scottish island

“Plastic drift cards from one of America's worst oil spills [the wreck of the Argo Merchant off of Nantucket Island in 1976] After nearly five years at sea, it appeared on a Scottish beach.

“While clearing debris on her property on the Scottish Isle of Coll after the October 2024 storm, Barbara Payne discovered a red plastic object the size of a credit card with instructions in multiple languages. Contact NOAA in Boulder, Colorado.

It's a drift card: made of plastic with raised letters. The ship has been at sea for 48 years and has traveled nearly 3,000 miles. It has an identification number somewhere that dates back to the location in 1976 Argonauts leak site.

This is not the only castaway card to have spent decades at sea, a testament to their longevity and suitability for purpose.

NOAA drift card discovered after 45 years

An 88,000-mile journey? After 33 years at sea, plastic cards land in Alaska

So, after such success, what do you think NOAA has done? NOAA said the drift card “was originally made of plastic, but [are] Now it’s thin, biodegradable wood chips, painted with bright, non-toxic paint.”

When did they make the change? I have no idea. I tried, quite hard. Even the famous Confused and can’t find Much closer than I did, returns this:

“NOAA's Office of Response and Recovery (OR&R) has transitioned from using plastic to biodegradable wood drift cards, but the exact date of this change is not clearly stated in the search results. However, we can infer that this shift Taking place before 2005, sometime after the 1970s.

In the past, NOAA used plastic drift cards. For example, a plastic drift card issued in 1976 near Nantucket, Massachusetts, was discovered 48 years later.

Recently, NOAA has been using “biodegradable thin wood chips painted with bright, non-toxic paint” as drift cards.

In 2005, during the Florida Safe Shelter Contamination Response Exercise, [wooden] Drift cards have been used as part of the exercise.

As environmental concerns about plastic pollution grow, the shift from plastic to wooden drift cards may occur gradually. NOAA made this change to reduce the environmental impact of their research because the wooden cards are biodegradable and coated with non-toxic paint. While we don't have the exact date when NOAA completely phased out plastic drift cards in favor of wooden ones, it's clear that the change was implemented sometime between the late 1970s and early 2000s.

In any case, the plastic cards that were used up were replaced by wooden cards at least in 1976, which time it is unknown.

Claim, even boast, that they are biodegradable. Even more environmentally friendly, they are coated with non-toxic paint. Biodegradability means the drift cards will degrade at sea. The non-toxic paint ensures that marine life (plants and animals) colonizes the wood card, eating away at and degrading the paint. This is why a boat's “primer” paint has a certain degree of toxicity.

My question to readers:

Is it possible that the new and improved, biodegradable, non-toxic spray-painted drift cards are an improvement over the 1970s-style plastic cards?

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Author comments:

My opinion is, no. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.

If they no longer want drifting stuck at sea for decades, then wooden, if they are still readable At least it won't get any worse after their life expectancy is over.

But if the drift cards are for serious science, then I think it's best to leave them at the end for as long as possible, still floating and in a readable state. To date, 48 years is a record for drift cards.

However, there is one [non-biodegradable] A drift bottle discovered 98 years later.

Thank you for reading,

2025 could be a great year for you and your family.

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