WingNews logo WingNews
top | item 40111372

(no title)

pentae | 1 year ago

A commendable operation but sadly, this is a very small fraction of a percentage of the 8-10 million tons of plastic entering the ocean each year.

The Ocean Cleanup themselves have estimated at least 75% of ocean trash is from fishing boats, and from living on a remote tropical island myself, at least 90% of the things you find washed up on the beach appear to be from Chinese fishing vessels. (there's usually Chinese characters on the bottles and plastic)

Imagine how much more cost effective it would be for these NGO's to lobby (bribe) politicians and the UN to require all fishing vessels to bring back their trash to port to be weighed and processed, their nets counted.

They say theres about 10 rivers in the world that contribute the remainder of the ocean plastic, so if they can put these recovery systems on those next then we're half way towards solving the problem

discuss

order

cdrini|1 year ago

Those percentages surprised me, so I did some research and it looks like the stat from their research is that 80% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is fishing industry plastics. Not all ocean plastic, which is what the 8-10mil refer to. Ref: https://theoceancleanup.com/ocean-plastic/#other-sources-of-... . Plastics from rivers gets caught in currents that bring it near ocean coastlines/beaches, and takes a long while to make it out to free sea/GPGP. These plastics are mostly non-fishing related. (note: this link is actually a great write-up of why their mission is what it is, and their research backing it).

There are NGOs working on legislation/lobbying fixes to the problem; eg Ocean Conservancy. But those changes will take a looooong time to get through the system. And regardless, there's already plastic in the oceans that will have to be cleaned up regardless, causing damage right now. So starting on the cleanup at the same time seems reasonable to me.

The ocean cleanup also funds various research initiatives -- like the numbers you mentioned -- which lobbyists can use to help change legislation.

cookingmyserver|1 year ago

> The Ocean Cleanup themselves have estimated at least 75% of ocean trash is from fishing boats

They estimate that 75% of the ocean trash in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is from fishing boats.

paulsutter|1 year ago

Consider this project the R&D towards a scalable solution, mass production reduces costs. Even more so with automated manufacturing that will soon be possible with the new robotics

fransje26|1 year ago

> Imagine how much more cost effective it would be for these NGO's to lobby (bribe) politicians and the UN

It's not called a bribed, it's called a secondary financial incentive..

8f2ab37a-ed6c|1 year ago

I’m glad I’m doing my part one straw at a time /s

shuvuvt5|1 year ago

Those straws aren't even paper and theyre full of forever chemicals.

gosub100|1 year ago

The anti straw campaign was proof that both sides engage in science denialism.

doubloon|1 year ago

China is just adopting western ideas. Socialize the cost and privatize the profit. The western solution which is to make criminals of business people doesnt work well enough. Epa superfund sites go unfixed for decades. Governments should just print money and hire cleanup companies. Its like a massive jobs program for when AI takes normal jobs.

Workaccount2|1 year ago

Profit min-maxing precedes the west by a few millennia.

Ignoring morals to lower costs is so plainly obvious as a way to increase profits that it is almost an insult to insinuate that any one group of people didn't think of it themselves.