Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

https://www.afp.com/en/news/826/ocean-plastic-waste-probably-comes-ships-report-says-doc-1kv8e91

by elorant • 7 years ago

373 291 7 years ago

So the problem is not bad habits from consumers or the over-use of disposable plastic containers, it's some rogue Chinese ships. How convenient.

realradicalwash• 7 years ago

here is a breakdown of the country of origin under the waterways theory: https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/WO-AV462_OCEANS_9...

I am not sure the new research is letting consumers completely off the hook. their garbage could well show up in the big whirlpools in a few years. but the new data is suggesting that there is another source of how the plastics entered the ocean and it's probably ships, yes.

afiori3• 7 years ago

The question is not if those are bad, the question is where does that plastic come from.

over-use of disposable plastic is bad independently from whether it ends in the ocean or not. But if you want to reduce this specific pollution you need to actually understand where it comes from.

littlestymaar2• 7 years ago

There are two different things at stake here.

1. The study. Scientific work is essential to the understanding of the dynamics of ocean pollutions. Nothing to criticize here.

2. The press coverage. Interestingly enough, it comes from a French media. You're probably not aware of that if you don't live in France (especially because of the big marketing stance on environmental issues Macron is taking of the international scene) but there is a huge reactionary movement against environmental policies nowadays in the medias in France. This article, and the editorial angle taken around the study, completely fits into that (worrysome) trend.

mc325• 7 years ago

Wonder if this will have an impact on plastic straw bans on land. It was always a feel-good hi-viz, low-impact measure given little evidence behind the measures.

mumblemumble2• 7 years ago

Or even the context. A coffee shop in my neighborhood started keeping straws behind the counter, so that you have to ask for them.

And yet, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that there's less plastic in a straw than in a disposable coffee cup, let alone the doubled cups that they serve the coffee in in lieu of using those paper sleeves. Certainly after they've stuck one of those plastic sippy lids on top of the whole affair. If they're worried about their waste stream, that's the place to start.

mc325• 7 years ago

Many will have paper straws as substitutes, but I’m very skeptical they did a study regarding cradle-to-grave impact of the substitution. Maybe they are net positive (results wise), but I doubt they looked at numbers and said, yes, clearly paper straws are less impactful.

lonelappde5• 7 years ago

Starbucks claims that their new strawless lids use 9% less plastic than previous straw+lid.

https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2019/say-hello-to-the-...

Starbucks also pays customers to take their drinks in reusable cups.

https://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/environment/cups-an...

I am not surprised to learn that people who have thought about the issue for more than 2 minutes have come up with a better solution than a low effort HN comment.

smackay• 7 years ago

One interesting side-effect is the rise of the edible straw. There are other edibles as well, spoons, forks, knives and bowls - though the latter is rather an old idea.

So while the ban straws was a token gesture it does seem to have generated some creativity and movement on other fronts which at least gets peoples attention on the problem of single-use plastics.

worldsayshi• 7 years ago

Yeah, we have to start somewhere and we have to have the mindset that we should keep going.

tonylemesmer• 7 years ago

One problem with plastic straws is they get stuck inside creatures noses and gullets and cause them a great deal of pain. So the tonnage may be small but the damage potential is significant if you are a marine creature.

sp3323• 7 years ago

We already had this data before the straw bans. They're not based on evidence, they're based on one photo of a turtle with a straw in its nose. Straws are a pretty common type of litter on beaches, and I could understand bans were that kind of litter is a problem. But if you put a straw in a landfill it's not going to end up in a turtle's nose.

viraptor4• 7 years ago

But if you put a straw in a landfill it's not going to end up in a turtle's nose.

That depends on what happens with your trash. If it stays inland in a landfill, then no. If it's sold for sorting and transported long distance on a barge, then that's possible.

TorbjornLunde• 7 years ago

One problem with banning plastic straws as well is that many disabled people are dependent on them to be able to drink. AFAIK the alternatives (other kinds of straws) don't work well.

blobs• 7 years ago

Problem? There is a solution though: https://www.sulapac.com/

lonelappde5• 7 years ago

That's why they aren't all banned.

UweSchmidt• 7 years ago

We need to do both. Push for ships to reduce their environmental impact (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_shippi...) AND take individual action.

Saving the planet - an enormous and incredibly complex task, will undoubtedly require quite a bit of individual action and behaviour change. To do without a straw or bringing your own cup can be a commitment to such behaviour change, to accept and act on whatever reasonable measure we find out to be important. Finding out that, say, producing a bamboo straw or cleaning the reusable mug takes more energy than producing plastic straws and cups should not be taken as a reason to mock well-intentioned actions (not saying that you did), but rather to iterate and figure out real solutions.

ibeckermayer2• 7 years ago

Well intentioned actions might include trying to reduce one’s own straw use, thinking it will play a part in helping the planet.

They certainly don’t include using government force to impose that on everybody else, while having no fucking clue what one is talking about.

Nitramp• 7 years ago

It was always a feel-good hi-viz, low-impact measure given little evidence behind the measures.

I think the EU when banning this had data, they sampled garbage they found on various beaches and decided that straws are both common and easy to replace.

hanniabu4• 7 years ago

a feel-good hi-viz, low-impact measure

Isn't this all that politics is?

MisterTea2• 7 years ago

I get the sentiment behind objecting to straw bans and the like. But I think we're at a point where reducing plastic waste is becoming critical. It's everywhere. Short lived single use plastics like straws, cutlery, packing and shipping materials have to go the way of their dinosaur derived chemical components.

rantwasp11• 7 years ago

if you only had limited time and resources to actually change something wouldn't you want to focus on the things with most impact? Also, before banning anything do we actually have an understanding of what the environmental impact is going to be? (e.g. if producing a paper straw consumes more electricity and generates more pollution than a plastic straw ending up to actually be worse for the environment than just keeping to use the plastic ones, wouldn't you want to know this before you ban the plastic straws and force the use of paper straws?)

MiroF10• 7 years ago

Siri, what is marginal utility?

rantwasp11• 7 years ago

Siri, what percentage of you is plastic?

wsc981• 7 years ago

In Thailand they plan to put a bit more effort in, over the next 2 years.

End of this year, Thailand will be free from three types of plastic – microbeads, cap seals and oxo-degradable plastics – and from four other types of single-use plastics by 2022, according to a road map that got the Cabinet’s initial nod on Tuesday.
The four single-use plastics to be rid of by 2022 are: lightweight plastic bags less than 36 microns thick; styrofoam food containers for takeaways; plastic cups and plastic straws – with the exception of those who still need to use them such as the elderly, patients and children.

I hope Thailand sticks with these plans. Plastics use is huge over here and in my opinion these plans could make a big difference.

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/national/30367931

tomweingarten• 7 years ago

Most of this comes from a single type of ship waste:

"Half of the great Pacific garbage patch is made up of fishing nets, by weight, according to a report published last year in Scientific Reports."

irrational• 7 years ago

So the ocean is being overfished and is being polluted by fishing. The clear answer is to ban fishing. Though, as someone who dislikes all seafood, this is easy for me to say.

StavrosK3• 7 years ago

Seafood haters unite! You're the only other person I've ever found who doesn't like seafood, I feel like we should form a club or something.

Nursie• 7 years ago

There are types of fishing we really should think about banning because of the harm the cause to the ocean ecosystem. And that's before you take into account the fishing net waste.

yellowstuff• 7 years ago

Like prohibition in the US, a ban that is unpopular and impossible to enforce can be counterproductive. Consider the difficulties in enforcing a ban on something that 1) Millions of people depend on for their livelihood; 2) Happens in the middle of the ocean.

fulvous3• 7 years ago

"Approximately 1 billion people people are dependent on fish as the principal source of animal protein"

http://www.suds-en-ligne.ird.fr/ecosys/ang_ecosys/intro1.htm

Nasrudith• 7 years ago

The ocean is interconnected commons though so nobody really has a whole domain over it.

Banning non-biodegradable nets and lines would be far more sensible and even that would have compliance issues.

wmeredith• 7 years ago

Ban fishing? That's like saying we should ban email because of spam. Or ban the internet because of malware.

hanniabu4• 7 years ago

It'd be great if fishers needed to be checked for how many nets they have on board and then checked when they arrive and then be fined for the difference.

amelius2• 7 years ago

Or only allow certified nets, and make them cost so much that you'll never want to dump them in sea.

is_true• 7 years ago

Anyone that lives in a city next to a river/lake/sea knows that all the small pieces of trash on land end up in the water.

mc325• 7 years ago

Mostly in places with no regulation or poor regulation enforcement —at least since the “Don’t mess with Texas” days.

sp3323• 7 years ago

That's still a small amount of trash compared to what gets intentionally dumped in the ocean, plus abandoned commercial-scale fishing equipment.

notacoward2• 7 years ago

Yes, but "in the water" includes both shallow water near shore and deep water far out in the ocean. The OP is about one. You're talking about the other, which might not even be relevant, so the "anyone knows" condescension is misplaced.

fullstop• 7 years ago

This (coastal area) also happens to be where the vast majority of fish live. This doesn't change the context, but it's something to consider.

MiroF10• 7 years ago

What do you mean might not even be relevant?

Is there some hidden reason we should be focusing on deep sea plastics only?

latchkey• 7 years ago

I've traveled the entire coastline of Vietnam and much of Cambodia. It is entirely covered in plastic trash. There is even plastic in all the rivers way up in the mountains. I can't imagine this just being Chinese ships.

sp3323• 7 years ago

It's a relative measure.

MiroF10• 7 years ago

Nobody in the comments read the article but all this is claiming is that land waste is a smaller percentage of deep sea plastic waste. It's still the vast majority of coastal waste

rantwasp11• 7 years ago

This is known. The number I have heard floated around is 45%. So, commercial fishing nets are a big problem when it comes to plastic in the oceans.

And here we are "saving the planet", by reducing the plastic straw consumption:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/07/18/anti-straw-mo...

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-06-07/plasti...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/business/plastic-straws-b...

Mental gymnastics at its best:

“Whether it’s 500 million or 500 a day, we shouldn’t lose sight of the real issue: Straws should be disposed of properly and should never, ever be littered on land or in waterways,” she said.

MichaelApproved• 7 years ago

And here you are creating a straw man argument.

Reducing straws won’t “save the planet” on its own. We will improve the planet by doing multiple things.

Reducing plastic use (less packaging, fewer straws, reusable shopping bags) all play a role in a much bigger effort.

ibeckermayer2• 7 years ago

Except that’s not improving the planet even a bit — chances are, every one of those straws being used in an American city would end up in a well run landfill and have minimal impact on the environment. It’s yet another example of knuckle dragging elites using state force to virtue signal. Meanwhile the real sources of the problem get ignored.

marcosdumay• 7 years ago

I don't see people talking about reducing packaging. It was all about prohibiting shopping bags, and after that failed they got that turtle video and changed into prohibiting straws.

What is doomed to fail again. You won't save the planet by focusing at the least effective, most demanding action one can do.

rantwasp11• 7 years ago

is it a straw man though? i'm not proposing anything, I was just providing some links and maybe hinting at the fact that if we want to reduce plastic in the oceans we should focus on the biggest sources of plastics.

if everyone stops using plastic straws tomorrow it will not matter and will not make an impact on how much plastic keeps accumulating.

here are a few more ideas for helping the planet: have fewer kids - this weird trick works, learn to love GMOs - this is the future, there is no way we can sustain the population growth we are experience with everyone eating organic, drive your car into the ground or until it's too expensive to repair it.

kaibee• 7 years ago

The uncomfortable truth is that action costs political capital. Something highly public, like plastic straws, by its nature is far more expensive than the actual environmental benefit that is accrued.

viscanti• 7 years ago

We will improve the planet by doing multiple things.

The problem is that people don't have infinite time or attention. So if you raise awareness and guy buy-in for something like straws, you took away time and awareness from things that could have actually made a difference. To make things worse, people will eventually realize that getting rid of straws didn't have much impact and would be less likely to participate in future causes.

EGreg• 7 years ago

In general we should stop focusing on 1% solutions — that even if somehow 100% successful will only solve 1% of the problem .

Like focusing on mass murders or killing by cop only, in the USA, when talking about gun violence. I get that it’s the most visible thing but it sucks all the political capital out of the discussion to do something major.

DonHopkins2• 7 years ago

If not a straw man argument, then at least the final straw that broke the camel's back.

CodeWriter232• 7 years ago

reusable shopping bags

So now, when I don’t have a shopping bag in the car (something I’ve done since back when it was specifically “uncool” to do so), and need a bag, I pay a dime for a plastic bag that has at least 5 times as much plastic in it, and it doesn’t photo-degrade in the sunlight like the filthy evil old T-shirt bags (which I also reused) of yesteryear.

lonelappde5• 7 years ago

So your proposal is what, New York City should somehow ban ocean fishing, instead of controlling plastic waste in it's jurisdiction?

rantwasp11• 7 years ago

i think banning ocean fishing would be a disaster actually. what we need is responsible fishing with proper management of the fishing nets (i.e. huge penalties for mismanaging/dumping/abandoning the fishing nets)

also the elephant in the room is that an individual in the US has little to no control over huge sources of pollution apart from feel good activism (look at this! i'm using a paper straw! I saved 2 turtles this morning y'all! what? can i drink though the paper straw? naaaw dog - it's mushy after 5 seconds but the turtles)

tomp2• 7 years ago

Why not? Ban fish from unsustainable and environmentally unfriendly sources. 10 million New Yorkers represent enough buying power to marginally change the economic incentives for fishing companies worldwide.

tomp2• 7 years ago

I sometimes wonder if this "plastic straw" wasn't another of 4Chan's trolling attempts... Like, sure, reduce plastic straw usage, but most bars just replaced them with paper straws. That is obviously a stupidly wrong solution, the vast majority of the population can easily manage without straws entirely, so really it just shows that people don't actually care about the environment, it's all just virtue signalling...

proaralyst2• 7 years ago

Why are paper straws the wrong solution? Even if they take a little more energy to produce they at least don't leave long-term waste behind.

MiroF10• 7 years ago

If people are really getting this upset over their straws being replaced we don't stand a chance at the level of consumption change needed to combat climate change

spodek2• 7 years ago

Looking at elements loses sight of the system. The boats are there as part of a system driven by growth in GDP and population, externalizing costs, and related goals.

We can say it's not us tossing the bottle overboard, but buying things the boats transport supports the system.

Among the most important leverage points for changing a system are its goals and values. Changing from growth to enjoying what we have and from externalizing costs to taking responsibility and stewarding takes time and is not the only course of action, but are necessary.

If we avoid straws and stop there, the action doesn't add up. If we use avoiding straws as practice then to avoid bigger things, then yet bigger things, I see avoiding straws like playing scales to learn piano. Scales alone seem like nothing, but they're how you get to Carnegie Hall.

In my case, starting avoiding packaged food led to no flying which led to leadership roles with my podcast, my second TEDx talk on environmental leadership this weekend (my first: http://joshuaspodek.com/my-tedx-talk-is-online-find-your-del...), and many people now contacting me that they're changing and enjoying the process and results.

Because jettisoning junk improves our lives, we expect to continue.

Only action -- not talking, not reading, not writing, not debating, not analyzing -- only action on one's values brings that joy. If straws are someone's starting point, I support them. Then I support them to continue. I believe everyone should start and accelerate as much as possible in changing their behavior and values.

WhompingWindows• 7 years ago

I see avoiding straws like playing scales to learn piano. Scales alone seem like nothing, but they're how you get to Carnegie Hall.

That isn't remotely true. The best pianists in the world who play at Carnegie Hall, true virtuosi, are far beyond attributing their skill to scales. Scales are mainly used by great pianists within the context of your work on specific pieces, as that is where pianists will be judged. Why waste time on all 24 scales for an hour? That's terribly inefficient practice.

For instance, Ballade No 1 by Chopin: you need to practice scales for the coda only, but there are 30-40 other passages that are just as important. You'd be wasting your time to practice scales in other keys and not practicing those challenge moments, as no one cares if you can do scales in E major when those scales are adjacent to the G minor tonality. When I learned that piece, I practiced the two scalar passages maybe 1% of my work on the whole piece.

A more apt analogy would be: if we wean ourselves off of single-use straws, beginning piano students can wean themselves off of pneumonic devices for remembering note names. It's just the very basics of decarbonization/piano playing, and so so much more has to be done in both cases.

So, no, getting to the tip-top level of decarbonization doesn't rely on not using straws, just like Carnegie Hall doesn't rely on scales. This is a classic example of focusing on very miniscule lifestyle changes, when climate change/environmentalism is about huge, broad stroke issues first and foremost.

pembrook4• 7 years ago

I believe you are genuinely trying to help solve the problem. However I think your plan of action is misguided, and is making things worse. Your ideas only appeal to certain personality types in rich countries. They make an enemy out of everybody else.

Your framing of the solution as "Humans need to change from growth to enjoying what we have" is wrong. This is diametrically opposed to human nature--you're literally swimming upstream on this one. It's not going to happen.

If we look at the solution in a way that harnesses the natural tendencies of humans to compete with each other and seek better lives for their children--you could describe it as the following: We need to find newer, more environmentally friendly technologies, faster. This is the Elon Musk approach, and he's proven it works.

Instead of spending billions of dollars on public education programs to eliminate plastic straws, why not direct that money toward inventing bio-degradable straws that are cheaper than plastic? This is absolutely doable.

Instead of telling people to stop flying to visit their family, why not work toward creating more fuel efficient forms of air travel?

You're misguided if you think wrapping yourself in the self-satisfied flag of "do-gooder" and shouting loudly at people to join you is going to have any meaningful impact.

SomeOldThrow• 7 years ago

If we avoid straws and stop there, the action doesn't add up.

Ehh, not much point in doing this without also tossing some execs in prison. People won’t see the justice in it otherwise and it will continue to fail catastrophically.

MrGLaDOS• 7 years ago

I don't know about the US situation, but the recent EU proposal is often ridiculed for being just a "plastic straw ban".

Actually the "single-use plastics directive proposal [1]", part of a greater plastic strategy [2], is not only about plastic straws:

a) The ban will apply to plastic cotton buds, cutlery, plates, straws, drink stirrers and balloon sticks. These items represent 86% of all single-use plastic items on European beaches, and about half of all plastic marine litter washed up on European beaches.

b) Member States will have to reduce the use of plastic food containers and drinks cups.

c) Producers will help cover the costs of waste management and clean-up. The industry will also be given incentives to develop less polluting alternatives for these products.

d) Member States will be obliged to collect 90% of single-use plastic drinks bottles by 2025.

e) Member States will be obliged to raise consumers' awareness about the negative impact of littering of single-use plastics and fishing gear as well as about the available re-use systems and waste management options for all these products.

f) Fishing gear is also addressed: "up to now, ports have been able to charge fishermen for bringing retrieved abandoned, lost or disposed of fishing gear ashore over and above their normal fee. The Commission’s proposal to revise the Port Reception Facilities Directive (COM(2018)33 final) removes this disincentive. However, ports' costs for expanding facilities and running them could find their way back into the port fee; thus increasing the overall cost for fishers. This is where the Extended Producer Responsibility comes in. Under this scheme, fishing net producers take on the responsibility (and the cost) for managing fishing gear plastic once it is landed. So, this will reduce port costs for fishers, particularly in small fishing ports, and it will accelerate the development of a dedicated waste stream for fishing gear waste. [3]"

You could argue that this regulation is not enough.

You could argue that the ban should not focus on the most occuring single-use plastics that wash up on European beaches but should focus on the most occurring (micro)plastic-types in the oceans.

I would say this is a perfectly fine complementory step in the right direction.

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/environment/circular-economy/pdf/single...

[2] https://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/plastic_waste.htm

[3] https://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/new-proposal-will-tackle-mari...

walshemj• 7 years ago

The cynic in me might think that corporates getting behind "pious" things like banning plastic drink straws allows them to avoid other more costly changes they should make.

Also banning straws does impact disabled people who as usual are often ignored.

snarf21• 7 years ago

I think this is human psychology. Most people don't really care about straws so it is easy to get riled up about it and ban it. If you asked those same people about banning bottled water or taxing it heavily, they would be against it. The more difficult the behavior change, the less likely people will stick with it. This is true for consumption reduction, weight loss, exercise and more.

TrackerFF• 7 years ago

Anyone who has ever worked in industrial jobs, know how much more plastic is being used / discarded there. Sad to say, it's only been in the past few years that many companies have really started focusing on sorting / good handling of garbage.

One of my first part-time jobs were on construction sites, where I'd spend my day unloading materials which was packed in plastic - which was then just thrown in containers, which in turn were dumped in land-fills.

But with that said, I think it's good that people are aware, and spread awareness.

cwkoss3• 7 years ago

Metal straws look cool and seem like a good step, but are actually quite dangerous and have caused death

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/world/europe/metal-straws...

codesushi423• 7 years ago

Why should we be using plastic straws at all?

logfromblammo• 7 years ago

This is the end result of all the Earth Day style propaganda. Regular people have made their lifestyles greener. And the impact it has made is not very significant, because the top polluters just kept on going. Instead of tackling the economic fundamentals that allow that to continue, the thought-leaders are just asking more and more ridiculous sacrifices to be made by consumers.

All the straws and all the 6-pack cartilages that make it into the ocean are nothing compared with lost fishing net detritus--the things that are designed to kill and capture marine life.

weiming• 7 years ago

Extensive air pollution from China or India that surpasses the West also doesn't seem to get much attention, e.g. [1] [2]

Greta visited the US and gave some compelling speeches. Will she visit China and India and do the same?

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/07/01/china-emits-...

[2] https://qz.com/india/1581665/indias-carbon-emissions-growing...

irishloop• 7 years ago

My guess is Greta focuses on people who can actually be influenced. Americans have access to a free press and information about how we use our energy or pollute. And being the richest nation in the world, we certainly have some responsibility for how we live our lives and the effects it has on the Earth.

Communicating with China and having the ability to effectively influence their policy is a much more difficult task.

kenny_r• 7 years ago

Greta visited the US[...]

Yes, to address the United Nations.

mc325• 7 years ago

...don’t forget the opportunistic appearance before Congress.

lonelappde5• 7 years ago

Please don't troll here. Pollution in those countries gets massive attention. The mainstream news articles you cited are an example. Those countries are part of the UN and Global community that is covered by the Global climate strike. Much of China's pollution is in industry manufacturing exports to the rest of the world.

If you have good faith interest in reducit pollution, please contribute efforts to reducing pollution, not backseat driving another volunteer. Greta Thunberg doesn't owe you anything.

bonerman69• 7 years ago

Tbh there are so many things we can change at home already. This tiny pack of reusable straws(https://bit.ly/2nReQyG) has lasted my kids almost a year. Literally zero waste. Trump's the paper straws even! It's the little things..

hanniabu4• 7 years ago

I believe the issue is that they aren't denying the effects like the Trump administration is.

viraptor4• 7 years ago

You literally just linked to two large publications talking about the issues you think don't get attention. India/China air pollution is pretty well known - it was in the media for decades now.

It was actually bad enough, that Beijing was apparently fixing it for the last 20 years: https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/27645/...

jajag3• 7 years ago

A lot of that air pollution is emitted producing products for the US & European markets.

spinach• 7 years ago

Exactly. It's pollution that we directly benefit from, it's not fair to think our countries are better at the protecting the environment when everything we buy is made there instead of having the dirty factories/industries in our own countries.

NeedMoreTea3• 7 years ago

It gets loads of attention, not least as both India and China have developed way beyond the free "developing nation" pass they got in previous climate agreements. Which plenty said was a big mistake at the time, but we are where we are.

No doubt if the climate movement in China and India invite her, she might well go. Well, perhaps not China as they lack freedom of association and speech. There have been protests in HK though. I doubt there is even as much in China as in Russia.

Russia has school strikes for climate consisting of one person demonstrating, changing places with another every hour or two[1]. That's because two or more demonstrating would fall foul of restrictions, as would anyone under 18.

[1] (Photos, text in Cyrillic): https://twitter.com/Fridaysforfut20/status/11776740588482478...

asdfman1232• 7 years ago

If you were a rising country coming up from behind in a world where the US dominates, would you want to reduce your growth to ensure you don't catch up to the rest of the world as quickly?

cwkoss3• 7 years ago

HK's protesting bandwidth will likely be saturated for the foreseeable future by domestic political concerns.

random3142• 7 years ago

What aboutism is all well and good. But climate change is a much bigger planet wide threat compared to local air pollution in India and China, which mostly affects locals in India and China. On a per capita basis the western world, especially USA, contribute the most co2 emissions. So that is where the climate protests should start. And dumping all kinds of what aboutism criticisms on a 16 year old is not a good look.

swebs• 7 years ago

Why are per capita statistics more important than total emissions? Are the glaciers going to reform because China also has a billion people? China produces more than double the raw amounts of CO2 than the USA. Though I am willing to shift some of the blame to countries who outsource their manufacturing to China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

ryannevius• 7 years ago

It's not just China or India. It's the entirety of Southeast Asia and West Africa for much of the year too (typically starting in the next month or so). I've lived in Southeast Asia for a couple of years of my life and even had to move my family out of Thailand because the pollution is so bad (not just air pollution).

AirVisual [1] shows the impact of these areas pretty dramatically. At times, the air pollution in Africa is so bad that its impact can be felt directly in Brasil.

[1] https://www.airvisual.com/earth?nav

vzidex• 7 years ago

This is a whataboutism that distracts from actually doing anything meaningful about climate change. We can't fix the entire problem, but combating climate change will require everyone to do as much as they can - so we should get to doing our part in transforming our economy.

adrr• 7 years ago

Per capita US pollutes more than China and India. Using Anything besides per capita isnt a valid measurement because a it doesn’t treat people equally.

NeedMoreTea3• 7 years ago

It's undoubtedly some mix of "all of the above", thanks to plastic being everywhere and used in nearly everything.

We save the ocean by requiring "all of the above" to act differently. Ships, shipping, fishing, recycling, nations, individuals. Most especially producers.

dubliner2077• 7 years ago

Sure if they dump it to the sea!

johnsea2• 7 years ago

I don't believe this. -- About two years ago there was a study which said that 88 to 95 percent of the total global load of plastics in the oceans [edit: wrong see below] would come from 10 rivers:

- https://phys.org/news/2017-10-plastic-rivers-stem-plastics-o...

- https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15611 and link to table https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15611/tables/1

Still, of course, fishermen shouldn't throw their plastic bottles over board and better care to their fishing nets.

areyousure• 7 years ago

From your own source:

Now scientists have found that 10 rivers around the world where plastic waste is mismanaged contribute to most of the oceans' total loads THAT COME FROM RIVERS.

(emphasis mine)

johnsea2• 7 years ago

Uh, that's embarassing. Completely missed this (since two years... :-( ). Thank you.

vfc13• 7 years ago

I mean one thing does not take away from the other, it's necessary to stop wasting so many fish nets, AND reduce single-use plastics, AND fish less, etc. It's not OR it's AND.

This leads to reasoning like "it's fishing nets the actual issue, I might as well continue throwing a full trash can full of packages every 3 days".

It's not true, fishing nets is actually only 45%, the other 55% we can still work on that's a lot, it's the majority. Another way is to just stop eating fish.

In my local supermarket, if I want to buy 4 peaches they come in a plastic container wrapped in a transparent plastic sheet, not kidding.

rantwasp11• 7 years ago

agree that we have to work on multiple things, but the point was that a disproportionate amount of resources are placed behind getting rid of something that is a drop in the bucket. it's not "should we get rid of A or B?" We agree it's A and B, but we need to focus on the thing that has the bigger impact first.

vfc13• 7 years ago

we need to focus on the thing that has the bigger impact first

Why is this, why wait to solve the fishing net problems before taking other measures?

I see this line of thought a lot here in Hacker News, especially in topics related to climate change for example.

These things can and should be tackled in parallel at the same time. We can all take responsibility personally, how about trying to use less single-use plastics, buy in local grocery shops more with reusable bags, and stop eating fish?

We can all do that, we don't need to wait for some international fishing committee to decide for years on what is the best way to change the rules on how nets can be made or handled.

paulgerhardt• 7 years ago

I spend a day or two every year cleaning up a beach on a island off the coast of China. Its location relative to local sea currents makes it a natural garbage trap. It has been a radicalizing experience but maybe not in the way you would think.

Anecdotally about a third of the trash I pick up is fishing related - some nets, some buoys, but mostly thousands of small plastic sardine sized fishing net floats.

About a third is one-time use food packaging related - soda and water bottles mainly, but also so many bags for snacks, or tangentially cleaning bottles for hands/dishes. We could do better making less plastic waste with each meal. Straws are a very small part of that and a weird thing to fixate on relative to all the other one time use food waste we generate.

And the last third is various forms of hydrocarbon foams. This last one kills me because I see foams everywhere in the supply chain for consumer goods. TVs are shipped out in white styrofoam. Chips are shipped in with pink styrofoam. If it’s fragile lab equipment it gets shipped in a box three times it’s size full of packing peanut foam. Every product in the room you are in probably generated an equivalent volume of foam during its production. The foam lasts forever. I refuse to use it for anything we package and glad to see it phased out.

I would much prefer biodegradable paper like pulps to foam. As I understand the chemicals used to make hard paper bowls and straws may be their own kind of nasty endocrine disrupters but for all other packaging purposes, yes please. Less foam, more paper. Especially if some tweaks we can make packaging a carbon sink.

specialist3• 7 years ago

Paper is an amazing technology.

Were I king, I'd massively fund R&D to bring new sources of fiber to market. Make them competitive with wood pulp.

Hemp, bamboo, sugar cane, feed corn. Maybe even invasive (noxious) weeds like kudzu. Two birds, one stone.

Extra credit for non till harvesting techniques. Just mow those hemp fields. Then do it all again in three months.

reaperducer• 7 years ago

I recently learned that many of the things we make out of plastic today were once made of paper.

I don't mean bags and plates and stuff. I mean big things like tables, and reusable bowls, and snuff boxes. A lot of them can still be found in antique shops 150 years later.

8bitsrule• 7 years ago

Wood-pulping can also be a filthy technology. Growing up in a paper-mill town meant smelling and breathing the particulate and gaseous effluents of the cooking process. In the spring, the remnants of this deluge covered all the melting snow-piles in a black sheet. (And lungs?) Much of what didn't come out of the stacks flowed out under the river's surface through a secret pipe. Downstream, the shores were matted and bubbling with discarded wastes.

As for the hundreds of men who 'harvested' the trees ... laboring in the gulag wilderness, far from the cities where the paper for fiduciary reports, magazines, academic wisdom and signage is consumed ... most lived marginalized lives of quiet desperation. Even if they managed to make it to retirement with whole bodies.

Tomminn• 7 years ago

The fishing gets me. I used to fish from the shoreline a lot, but when I went snorkeling in a couple of beautiful places in the world all the lost tackle and line just made me angry at my past self. It's very hard to fish from the shoreline without leaving trash everywhere.

It's hard to think that every dollar I spent on tackle was a dollar I spent polluting the shoreline. It was out of sight, so it was out of mind.

I remember this incredible natural aquarium, formed in a wide, deep circular depression of a coral reef. And a single 30m piece of neon line riiight through the middle of it. Doubtless, it was left by a fisherman who swore at losing another $2 sinker, with no concept of what else they'd just done.

forgotmypw33• 7 years ago

It's thinking like this that led me down the path of rejecting money/currency for the most part. Every dollar I spent is a vote for producing more of whatever I'm buying, directly correlated with habitat loss (for humans included) and animal deaths. And each transaction is like a curtain from behind which the finished product appears, handed to you with no information about its origin.

bamboozled• 7 years ago

This is why I prefer spear fishing (free diving style especially), yes it’s harder work, yes there are dangers; But it’s not only visually attractive but you can be much more selective about the fish you take and there is almost never anything left behind, unless you had to drop a weight belt in an emergency or something, which I’ve never actually needed to do though it happens.

Often I actually take tack home I find and dispose of it properly.

barbs• 7 years ago

I seem to remember working for a pharmacy years ago and disposing of packing peanuts by putting them in the sink and dissolving them with hot water. Is that not a thing anymore?

undersuit11• 7 years ago

Starch-based packing peanuts are will break down in water, unlike their polystyrene equivalents.

undersuit11• 7 years ago

Straws are a very small part of that and a weird thing to fixate on relative to all the other one time use food waste we generate.

Straws are completely superfluous. If you take away my straw I can continue drinking the beverage. Chips need a container, sure I'd prefer more bulk bins and recycled containers, but if we banned plastic containers for chips you interfere mightily in someone enjoying their product.

ANYWAYS, the fixation is from the bad actors, the trouble makers, the noisemakers.

rsj_hn2• 7 years ago

Most people's teeth are sensitive to cold. They like to use straws to be able skip the teeth while ingesting a cold beverage. This is why the straw was invented -- to make it easy to consume icy cold drinks.

Very strange that this must be explained to people who think straws are completely superfluous. If they were superfluous, people wouldn't be using them. This is a great example of Chesterton's Fence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence

Unfortunately this is a widespread problem that dominates environmental activism in privileged wealthy countries. I wouldn't necessarily call the Straw Banners "Bad Actors" or "Trouble Makers", just foolish people. You have people venturing into areas they know nothing about and suddenly start trying to ban things before even understanding what the issues are. Serious people know that reducing plastic use or the production of plastics is not the issue, but having secure disposal systems is how you keep garbage out of the ocean. Moreover, the problem is almost entirely in the third world where secure disposal systems don't exist. Nothing that you do or don't consume here is going to make a difference in terms of what ends up in the ocean.

cpeterso• 7 years ago

My local recycling center (in the SF Bay Area) accepts styrofoam blocks (though the machine is down right now). Unfortunately, storing and transporting bulky styrofoam is cumbersome for individuals, so it's not very scalable.

https://www.el-cerrito.org/952/Drop-Off-Materials-Accepted

brok3nmachine• 7 years ago

"Fees apply for customers from outside El Cerrito"

I wonder why? Sounds like it's impractical to recycle.

rasz• 7 years ago

acetone will melt huge polystyrene foam block into a small puddle

BurningFrog• 7 years ago

Straws are a very small part of that and a weird thing to fixate on relative to all the other one time use food waste we generate.

People always fixate on things they personally touch and see, over things that are out of sight even if they're thousand or million times bigger factors.

Thus all the frenzy around straws, shopping bags, coffee mugs etc.

tda• 7 years ago

I sometimes see biodegradable packing peanuts that resemble tasteless Cheese puffs used as alternative. So much better, I wonder why the styrofoam puffs are even still allowed.

Another side note, look at this sign that I've seen aboard vessels: https://vesselplacards.com/product/garbage-overboard-marpol-...

It basically states "Don't throw garbage overboard, You could be breaking the law" as if it being illegal should be the only reason not to dump your waste in the environment.

benj1114• 7 years ago

"resemble tasteless Cheese puffs"

Resemble in looks or taste?

jjjensen90• 7 years ago

Look AND taste. They are starch-based, biodegradable and nontoxic. Not very tasty but I've tried one!

jadell2• 7 years ago

Both. They're made of corn starch, which is what puffy Cheetos are made of, and manufactured literally the same way, except without the cheese flavor powder mixed in. They taste like "nothing" (well, they probably taste like pure corn starch but I've never eaten that so I don't have a reference.)

Source: a member of my immediate family worked at a company that manufactured them and brought home many samples. We'd freak people out by eating them. The joke was always "What do you pack packing material in for shipping?"

rktdno• 7 years ago

A bit of both

BurnGpuBurn• 7 years ago

Aren't there some laws prohibiting this kind of behavior? I mean, willingly and purposely dumping tons of plastic waste in the ocean should be a crime everywhere no? Can't do that with oil, why is it permitted with plastic?

Well, at least it's another group added to my list of people we could do without.

imagetic• 7 years ago

I recall reading two years ago several reports which claimed that around 90% of all the plastic in the world's oceans flows there through just 10 rivers.

"The shipping and fishing industries also play a part. In 2018 researchers found that, in terms of weight, almost half of the plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch -- a notorious area of floating trash three times the size of France -- was made up of fishing nets. On the other hand, microplastics made up 94% of the estimated 1.8 trillion tiny pieces floating in the area."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/24/health/plastic-pollution-rive...

Most of the time all the stats don't add up, but either way, humanity leaves a big mess and plastic is probably one of those materials we will regret inventing.

titzer• 7 years ago

I have always been skeptical of this claim.

I have seen the Pacific ocean trash problem firsthand; did a lot of beach cleanups. I simply do not believe that 8 million tons of plastic entering the oceans every year is flowing out through rivers from land.

Given this new theory I actually suspect that some significant fraction of the plastic waste we were shipping to China for "recycling" was instead being dumped directly into the ocean midway. It'd be cheaper, and it'd be hard to get caught. Given today's greed, I have little doubt this happened.

xsmasher2• 7 years ago

That study was WIDELY reported on, and most of the reporting was faulty. For example this article says 'around 90% of all the plastic in the world's oceans flows there through just 10 rivers.'

But that isn't what the study says - the study only deals with plastic that comes from rivers, not all plastic in the ocean.

alex_duf• 7 years ago

It sounds like a great way to avoid bearing the responsibility. Better, we can now point our finger at someone else.

cwkoss3• 7 years ago

It is interesting that so much of the discussion of meat consumption and climate change has been centered around cows and other terrestrial animals. I'm curious if anyone knows of a good source that compares the greenhouse gas emissions from fishing vs land-based livestock.

specialist3• 7 years ago

What about the military (navies) too?

I'm just now reminded of stories from a guy who served on a troopship. The waste and pollution was staggering.

Dumping fuel, garbage, bilge water.

Expending all your ration of ammo, killing the porpoises riding the bow wave, so that you don't have to unload all that ammo later.

codesushi423• 7 years ago

The pointless use of plastic is astounding. Just the other day I was sorting through electronic cables that were individually packaged in their own plastic bags. What the fuck was the point? Even the actual connector pins had their own dedicated plastic covers, and the cable was tied with a plastic tie. Yet the plastic bags were somehow still needed?

Jesus fucking Christ.

knodi123• 7 years ago

The reason is that each cable in its own package is a separate SKU, purchased from a separate supplier, and tossed one-per on an assembly line that is filling the box you finally received. I suspect that if, say, samsung or nintendo was told to stop putting bags on every single cable, they'd just add a step to their assembly line for snipping open the existing bags and tossing them in the garbage.

The real solution will be (as usual) more complex than you'd guess at first, and I don't have a good idea for where you'd start. Maybe find the point in the supply chain where these baggies are first introduced and add a tax on them at that point?

codesushi423• 7 years ago

That may be true, but in this case all of the cables were the same and from the same manufacturer.

There was no reason why the plastic bags were needed. None.

laughinghan• 7 years ago

To be fair, that would still be an improvement because we could make them isolate those bags and recycle or burn for energy or something. It is by comparison impossible to control what consumers do with those bags.

undersuit11• 7 years ago

if, say, samsung or nintendo was told to stop putting bags on every single cable...

Maybe, until they can rework the contract with the supplier to just receive the cables unpackaged.

tracker1• 7 years ago

How long can we keep giving China, India etc a pass? And ourselves in allowing this level of irresponsible trade to happen?

We're busy panicking about "climate change" in terms of something that is going to end the world in a dozen years, it probably isn't... That said, pollution in and of itself should be a goal in terms of not doing it, and not trading with nations that do. As it is, there are cities in the U.S. I pretty much avoid or won't go to because the air quality is so bad that I can't stand being there. People need to stop with the boogie-man scare tactics pushing a political agenda and actually start concentrating on the very real issues that should be higher order priorities.

TheGrassyKnoll• 7 years ago

Go to virtually any parking lot and notice all the crap that's littered all over it. Most of it will end up in the ocean eventually. (not to mention all the crap in every street gutter)

jxramos2• 7 years ago

Are there actual photos of the great pacific garbage patch? I've heard about it for sometime now but it seems a lot of the photos on image search depict small scale stuff, garbage visibly close to shore, or illustrations.

I was disappointed to find Wikipedia didn't have any direct birds eye view of the patch in any photos. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch

I see a lot of illustrations depicting the scale of the patch but is the reason there are no actual photos because the flotsam density is too low to be picked up by a camera at the necessary height to capture a large area of it? What's the deal?

slavik812• 7 years ago

From your link:

Despite the common public perception of the patch existing as giant islands of floating rubbish, its low density (4 particles per cubic meter) prevents detection by satellite imagery, or even by casual boaters or divers in the area.
This is because the patch is a widely dispersed area consisting primarily of suspended "fingernail-sized or smaller bits of plastic", often microscopic, particles in the upper water column.

jxramos2• 7 years ago

Nice find!

superfreek• 7 years ago

One of the problems with this, is that consumers are given no choice in packing material. I just bought a new TV. The TV had the protective sticky plastic, and was wrapped in plastic. Each individual component came in a plastic bag and then all in one larger bag.

All properly disposed of by local regulations.

The fault then somehow falls onto the consumer if it ends up in the ocean?

Taxing companies based on it seems like a trade dispute as most are not US companies. We've seen how easily those are won.

Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

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