The argument of this article is basically "The problem with plastic waste in the ocean isn't as obvious in countries with lower population densities. Other countries make more. That means plastic is fine and it's just a 1970s hippie campaign against it that ruined it." It's a bunch of cherry picked factoids, like recycling is often not properly done in most countries, used as a garnish on top of claims that plastic is actually amazing for the environment.
It also quotes the old study that people barely ever reuse their reusable bags, when I think more people are far more well-aware now and reuse the hell out of reusable bags. Mine have been used for 5 years now, several times a week.
It's a slop-filled hit piece that tries using "environmentalist" as a slur. It's not hard to walk outside and see plastic garbage laying around--increasing by the year--and knowing it'll be there well beyond my lifetime, and knowing some countries are several times worse. I've been to some of those countries and seen piles of plastic bags and wrappers lining streets. It's a problem that will only grow and have compounding damage.
As the article stated, the global problem of plastic waste entering the ocean may be big, but it is definitely not intangible. The source of most plastic entering the ocean is poor coastal countries that lack developed solid waste management. (By contrast, the US is responsible for only 1% of plastic that enters the ocean annually.)
It took me some time, but I found a non-profit that helps develop waste management in African countries. If you want to make a tangible difference in future oceanic plastic waste volume, a donation here might help: http://www.waste.nl/
> Your own trash is very unlikely to end up in the ocean.
Except that the plastic waste of certain countries tends to get "exported" to these places and then dumped there - if it doesn't get dumped into the ocean before it can even get there.
The poorest places don't tend to generate so much plastic waste because it is mostly a by-product of "luxury goods" (read: trash) in developed countries bought by clueless consumers.
For instance I will never understand the people who buy plastic-wrapped pre-sliced "salami" that hardly resembles the real thing in anything but name. I recently saw croissants(!) getting sold off the shelf in a supermarket. How the hell do you even make that work? Of course they were wrapped in plastic. I don't even want to know how they them make them last long enough. No way they're still crisp outside if the whole thing hasn't turned into a rock.
I feel like some people will buy something not despite it being a plastic wrapped faint imitation of the real thing - but because it is.
> Weird. This source[1] claims that the majority of ocean plastic pollution is from fishing equipment
You're right. One is plastic on the beaches in the US, the second is great pacific garbage patch.
> Both of these are methodologically flawed because they only sample litter that can be identified.
They don't mask that (from the first article):
"The annual audit, undertaken by 15,000 volunteers around the world, identifies the largest number of plastic products from global brands found in the highest number of countries. This year they collected 346,494 pieces of plastic waste, 63% of which was marked clearly with a consumer brand."
It's flawed and not complete, but it's data. We don't have better data yet, AFAIK.
> In places with good waste management practices, like the U.S., nearly all plastic trash ends up in a landfill.
This is not true, see [1].
> As a result, the U.S. is responsible for only ~0.25% of plastic in the ocean.
This is also not true, and your link does not say that. The link is saying that the rivers in the USA are carrying 0.25% of the plastic that ends up in the ocean, the U.S. (as in, the people living in the US) are responsible for much, much more.
Recycling plastic is a mess, so instead of dealing with it, countries like the U.S. or Canada have decided to ship it across the world to countries like the Philippines to be "recycled" over there (see [2]). So now, of course, if you look at where the plastic enters the ocean, you will see that almost all of it happens in Asian countries, that's not because they use more plastic, that's just because that's where all the plastic of the world ends up.
Taking into account the origin of the platic, the U.S. is among the worst offenders:
> "the United States generated the largest amount of plastic waste of any country in the world (42.0 Mt). Between 0.14 and 0.41 Mt of this waste was illegally dumped in the United States, and 0.15 to 0.99 Mt was inadequately managed in countries that imported materials collected in the United States for recycling." [1]
>Its people who intentionally "dispose" trash in the environment.
In the US and Europe we tend to have well developed municipal waste systems and only a small portion of our plastic waste ends up in the ocean.
The problem is the rest of the places that do not. There are many places in the world that will gladly sell you a plastic soda bottle, but after that point it's your job to burn it or bury it.
In addition, you had plenty of 'recycled' plastic waste end up in the ocean by proxy. Before 2017 or so, if you were 'recycling' plastic, it was getting shipped overseas on a container where it had a very high chance of just being dumped.
> Plastic waste is not nearly as endemic as you describe in North America
Plastic waste isn’t really endemic to North America. Surely there are some locations with plastic waste problems, but I do a lot of hiking and local travel and I can’t remember the last time
I saw huge swaths of plastic waste. People around here are generally good at picking up behind themselves and even picking up waste that others mistakenly leave behind.
That said, I’ve been to some developing countries and been absolutely shocked at the quantities of plastic waste I encountered in certain locations. Unfortunately these are the same places least likely to switch to use degradable plastic bags if they’re more expensive.
>I don’t see how sending plastics to a dump is going to result in ocean micro plastics
Because that tends to only happen in a few, what we consider, first world nations. A huge portion of the world does not have sanitary waste collection system, and therefore produces huge amounts of plastic waste that get into rivers and the ocean.
Of even in places with waste collection, an (un)healthy amount of plastics never make it to the trash. Blow off/run off from trash cans is one example. Another is direct environmental loss into the environment. For example washing your clothes releases massive amounts of plastics, unless you happen to buy only natural materials.
Plastic is both a wonder material, and a wonder mess. Using it in things like medical device sanitation is a net benefit for humankind, using it everywhere appears to have higher costs than expected.
> You think plastics should end up in the ocean? Why? It definitely should not, and if waste is managed correctly, it doesn't.
I think that enough people don't give a shit about where their waste goes, that any coastal community will lose a fraction of its waste to the drink. That isn't where most of the plastic in the ocean comes from, but the difference between "should" and "inevitably won't" is vast.
> Not sure in what country you are what I read on the internet most Western countries have issues with plastic bags floating int he air , bottles in rivers,side of the roads and forests where tourists hang out.
That is really not what the US looks like. There is not plastic trash everywhere. There is practically a public trash can on every corner here.
All I am saying is I'm not sure the ideas in this article are a solution.
Maybe this policy would be helpful in the countries that are actually the source of the plastic that is destroying the oceans though.
> Your own trash is very unlikely to end up in the ocean.
Except if you live in Asia or a developing country, which is a large percentage of the world population. After traveling through that region I can honestly say that I am not surprised to see so much plastic in the oceans. People dump trash in the water, throw plastic bottles on the ground, waste and recycling infrastructure is largely non-existent. Even in richer middle tier countries like China people just toss their plastic into the rivers.
>Its not like we are in a world crisis where marine life is dying
I'm begging you to look into how plastic gets into the ocean. It's "recycling" it, not landfill escape.
Additionally, you're missing the entire point - the current problem is primarily how we dispose of plastic which is what I'm trying to help people understand. We could avoid most of what you're talking about if we put forth even minimal effort to contain our plastic waste!
Sure, a counter-factual world where everything runs on abundant solar power should also be a world without plastic, but good luck getting there. As of today we burn fuel and put carbon into our atmospheric well to move shit around, and we do that the least when we use plastic Full stop.
You may disagree, but putting more carbon into our atmospheric and oceanic wells is the #1 problem facing humanity right now by a mile and more plastic is a means to slow the rate at which we are doing that.
I'm glad you care about the environment, but please please please pivot your concerns hardcore to the climate. It may feel like a less solvable problem than plastic (and I know it sucks to care about unsolvable problems), but its 1000x more impactful.
>even humans are found to have more and more micro plastics in our bodies.
Still waiting to read the research on why this is so dangerous. Maybe it is, but show me the data! Meanwhile, I know burning any incremental fuel is very very bad.
And again, don't you think plastic in the ocean subject to constant kinetic energy is much more of a problem than stationary plastic?
>You do know that landfills are not nuclear disposal facilities, right?
You realize plastic doesn't emit gamma radiation, right?
>Nature will process that plastic in unimaginable ways, which will lead to unforseen consequences. Consequences we see today, hence why people want to move away from single use plastic.
Again, we test nukes underground (because we live in the atmosphere not the crust). I agree that 'nature' decomposes plastic, but most 'nature' is in the atmosphere! The thing that we are ruining the fastest and need to protect the most (even though its invisible and humans hate invisible things)!
> Individuals must be aware of this and need to make better choices or else this problem will just continue.
No they don't. At least not if they live in the developed world. Virtually all disposed of plastic in the US and Europe is sequestered in solid-waste landfills. Modern landfills leak virtually nothing to the outside environment.
Virtually all environmental plastic contamination comes from third world countries in Asia or Africa. In particular China, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia. Due to rampant corruption and lack of oversight these countries have gross mismanagement of their solid waste disposal.
Plastic is completely fine to use. As long as it's properly disposed of, there's essentially zero environmental impact. If you live in a first world country, I can assure you that your plastic straw will absolutely not end up in a turtle's nose. The issue is that the international community needs to hold Asia and Africa accountable for not upholding global standards on ocean pollution.
Everyone who is against restrictions on single use loves to cite that article to rail against them, but never seems to actually have read or understood the study:
1. While many indicators suggest a dominant contribution of plastics from Asian countries, there is very little data to document these assumptions and thoroughly verify the validity of our model. [0]
2. The study was not talking about all sources of plastic in the ocean, it is referring to plastic concentration in major rivers.
3. A good chunk of "western" waste and recycling is exported to Asia for processing. Yes, it may be mishandled there but it doesn't originate from there. Reducing generation will also reduce contamination.
4. Plastic ends up in more places than just rivers feeding ocean. Plastics accumulate and degrade into microplastics, and end up in lakes, fields, forests, parks - yes, within Europe as well.
I'm also not sure why you even think Europe is a leader here. Many African and Asian countries have been taxing or banning single use plastic for years.
Your reading of "virtue signaling" and colonialism seems to be your own construction. I would bet most of people lobbying for this are lobbying because they want to see less plastic ending up in the environment, locally and globally, not because they care what you think.
> There are 10 rivers that cause 90% of plastic pollution
Except, that's not true. The study you're referring to found that those 10 rivers account for 90% of plastic waste going into the ocean from rivers, not all sources[1]. Rivers contribute only 10% or so of the plastic found in the ocean. So not nothing, but far from 90% of all plastic pollution.
Also, probably worth pointing out that quite a bit of that plastic probably originated in the west and was shipped to developing nations to be processed cheaply[2]. Often that amounts to little more than having it burned or dumped into those rivers mentioned.
I personally agree that plastic, when properly stored in a well managed landfill is harmless. But the fact is, that's not happening for far too much waste. Even waste that's used and properly disposed of in developed countries.
> Then when you look at plastic pollution and see that for the most part North America is quite good at properly disposing of plastic you wonder why we are so obsessed with this as a problem.
Go to any waterway in the US and you will find it. Plastic bottles, bottle caps, chip bags, cpu lids, straws, milk jugs, food containers, chewing tobacco cans, lighters, ping pong balls, syringes, milk crates, fishing line, bobbers, clothes hangers, insulation, O-rings, tires, fishing nets, pens, pen caps, grocery bags, six pack rings, chew toys, fake flowers, buckets, handles, 55 gallon drums, soccer balls, the broken plastic housing of almost any consumer product you can imagine.
I have with my bare hands picked up over 500 bags of this shit off coastlines and waterways and highways on three different continents. Based on my experience, every single mile of ocean coastline and nearly every waterway is littered with plastic waste to a greater or lesser degree.
The problem is so bad that unless you are in a national park a hundred miles from civilization, you cannot walk more than 100 feet along a waterway without seeing some kind of garbage, unless someone has specifically detrashed there, thoroughly, in the past week. The water is full of our junk.
> Don’t get me started on plastic straws. They make up 0.03% of plastic waste in the ocean.
The tone of this comment really raised my hackles. I'm not going to unload on you, but I am so tempted to right now. But holy shit, if you'd dragged 5 tons of shit out of the creek you'd not complain from behind your keyboard that they want to take your stupid straws away.
>Paper bags do have a larger carbon footprint, but I assume that parent is talking about plastic waste ending up in the oceans
Most of the plastic in the oceans isn't coming from consumer waste[1]. Furthermore, most ocean pollution comes from a few developing countries[2]. Therefore a ban single-use plastics for consumers in developed countries will have little or zero impact on ocean pollution.
>In the US and Europe we tend to have well developed municipal waste systems and only a small portion of our plastic waste ends up in the ocean.
Thats exactly what I said
>The problem is the rest of the places that do not. There are many places in the world that will gladly sell you a plastic soda bottle, but after that point it's your job to burn it or bury it.
And to solve this problem the people in this thread what to replace plastic bottles on the other side of the world (in the west) with glass/aluminum bottles.
See how that does not work?
>In addition, you had plenty of 'recycled' plastic waste end up in the ocean by proxy. Before 2017 or so, if you were 'recycling' plastic, it was getting shipped overseas on a container where it had a very high chance of just being dumped.
This is a side effect of the whole "recycling at any cost" nonsense strategies.
Plastic was carefully and labor intensively separated form trash to be sold. But only very specific plastics have accentual market value. The rest does not have value or maybe it sometimes has but supply and demand fluctuates so there could be many month where no one wants to buy it.
Consequentially the US companies would need to pay for it to have it burned or land-filled. But that would destroy their "recycling goals" so what they instead do is they sell it with the valuable stuff by offering it only together.
Whoever buys it then dumps the worthless stuff somewhere.
The whole recycling-mania created the incentive for this. There is no way moving the plastic trash so far away is cheaper than the local landfill. They are simply not allowed to landfill it due to recycling goals which if they reach it probably gives them taxpayer money to do do more useless recycling.
> It turns out that about 90 percent of all the plastic that reaches the world's oceans gets flushed through just 10 rivers: The Yangtze, the Indus, Yellow River, Hai River, the Nile, the Ganges, Pearl River, Amur River, the Niger, and the Mekong (in that order).
> These rivers have a few key things in common. All of them run through areas where a lot of people live — hundreds of millions of people in some cases. But what's more important is that these areas don't have adequate waste collection or recycling infrastructure. There is also little public awareness that plastic trash is a problem at all, so a lot of garbage, gets thrown into the river and conveniently disappears downstream.
The biggest thing we can do to fix the ocean plastic pollution problem isn't visionary technology like Slat's cleanup machine (don't get me wrong - we should cheer that project on!), or virtuous self-flagellation like using reusable drinking straws, it's good old fashioned hard work: hire more bin men, and put up more information posters.
EDIT: Here's another paper, applying related methods and coming to a broadly similar, although fatter-tailed, conclusion - "The top 20 polluting rivers, mostly located in Asia, account for 67% of the global total":
SECOND EDIT: The latter paper includes a couple of sentences i struggle to reconcile:
"We estimate that between 1.15 and 2.41 million tonnes of plastic waste currently enters the ocean every year from rivers" ... "It has been estimated that between 4.8 and 12.7 million tonnes of plastic enters the ocean every year from coastal populations worldwide".
I'm not sure if they're quoting the 4.8 - 12.7 figure to endorse it (coastal populations significantly outweigh rivers) or criticise it (ie it's rivers, not coastal populations).
It also quotes the old study that people barely ever reuse their reusable bags, when I think more people are far more well-aware now and reuse the hell out of reusable bags. Mine have been used for 5 years now, several times a week.
It's a slop-filled hit piece that tries using "environmentalist" as a slur. It's not hard to walk outside and see plastic garbage laying around--increasing by the year--and knowing it'll be there well beyond my lifetime, and knowing some countries are several times worse. I've been to some of those countries and seen piles of plastic bags and wrappers lining streets. It's a problem that will only grow and have compounding damage.
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