Beachgoers were perplexed when they discovered strange white blobs popping up on the beaches and shore in Newfoundland. Well, now, we finally have an answer on what these white blobs are.
Memorial University Professor, Christopher M. Kozak, made it his mission to figure out exactly what it was. He obtained a sample and began to test it. Well, the white blobs are glue. Well, to be more technically they're a butyl rubber PVA composite found in glue, according to the The New York Times
"[It] suggests some sort of industrial adhesive or some sort of material that could be used in a variety of industrial sectors," he said. Kozak worked with assistant professor Hilary Corlett to figure out exactly what the blobs were. The team gathered samples at the beach.
He also told The Guardian, "The first thing I did was poke it and smell it." He described the texture as "like overworked bread dough." "And the smell coming off was a bit like walking through the solvent aisle in your hardware store."
After doing testing, Kozak found that the blobs did not contain carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur, and oxygen. Basically, that means that these blobs are not created naturally. A spectroscopy showed that it contained chemical bonds similar to polyvinyl acetat. This is an adhesive commonly used by the shipping industry.
White Blobs
"I did eight different tests, and they all point towards something synthetic," he said. The testing determined that it's basically like glue. "I'm quite confident that the sample that I handled was PVA butylene rubber."
These blobs have appeared along 28 miles of coastline.
"All we are seeing is the stuff that's being washed ashore. I suspect a lot of this stuff is at the bottom of the sea and being churned up by the comings and goings of the tide," he told The Guardian. "This definitely does not belong in the environment. It's plastic pollution and what worries me is that because of its shape, it could be mistaken by marine wildlife for food."
Kozak also questioned why someone didn't reach out sooner.
"It's funny that no one thought to reach out to a chemist until very late. Everyone had their own opinions and speculation, but no one was really taking a scientific and experimental point of view," he told The Guardian.
