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Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic

nytimes.com

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Re: Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic

#41

Post by henvic »

gfo wrote: post #17
throwaway427 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God forbid I use a straw, though.

Explain the inconvenience you're experiencing because you can't get a straw? It's a step forward, a small one at that, but it's progress. I don't understand those complaining - they usually fall back to people with disabilities, and yet establishments will still have straws on-hand for those folks.

How about if I'd rather drink acid drinks like Coke (when I do) without damaging my teeth?

What about my freedom of choosing whether I'd use straws or not?

Re: Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic

#42

Post by dsabanin »

endorphone wrote: post #32
dsabanin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how popular that claim is, but I've heard it multiple times. Especially as part of the eco-protective initiatives. I was able to find this example[1]: "Even if you live hundreds of miles from the coast, the plastic you throw away could make its way into the sea. Once in the ocean, plastic decomposes very slowly, breaking down in to tiny pieces known as micro plastics that can be incredibly damaging to se…

Fair enough, but none of those are about items actually in the landfill. It's about the process of getting there. And even with recycling, a large percentage is sent to China, India, and other nations where its custody is uncertain. The single raindrop never feels responsible for the flood. Whether it's CO2, plastics, CFCs, etc, our individual contributions might be tiny in the grand scheme of things, but together ma…

To me it's like code optimization.

You may spend a lot of time optimizing the code responsible for 1% of run time, or you may spend that same time optimizing the code that takes 60% of the total run time.

That said, I'm not saying we should not work to reduce the pollution everywhere.

Re: Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic

#43

Post by pishpash »

notadoc wrote: post #22
lisper wrote: post #14

My wife and I were traveling in Borneo a few years back. They have "water villages" there where all the houses are built on stilts in shallow water. You could not see the shore because it was completely covered in a layer of garbage. It was like living on top of a landfill. At first I thought it was garbage thrown out by the villagers, but it's not. It was garbage that washes in on the tide. Every now and then the vi…

> You could not see the shore because it was completely covered in a layer of garbage. It was like living on top of a landfill. I've seen the same thing in many different parts of the world. The coastlines are an absolute mess, but then again so is the interior. Garbage is just everywhere in the developing world, strewn about with no concern no matter where you are.

Part of the problem is development shock and part of it is externality. As the neighboring post says, before non-biodegradable stuff it might not have been as big a problem. It is plausible that if they had developed at their own pace, or that the relevant infrastructure and institutions were put in along with the commercial products, things might have been different.

As it is they are not capable of fixing this problem.

Re: Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic

#44

Post by beagledude »

21 wrote: post #37

The title makes you believe that this garbage comes from somewhere else, across the ocean, but it's actually coming from their own river into which everybody is dumping waste.

I'm assuming you don't know how oceans work. Eventually, we'll all be ingesting that.

Re: Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic

#45

Post by foepys »

henvic wrote: post #41
gfo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain the inconvenience you're experiencing because you can't get a straw? It's a step forward, a small one at that, but it's progress. I don't understand those complaining - they usually fall back to people with disabilities, and yet establishments will still have straws on-hand for those folks.

How about if I'd rather drink acid drinks like Coke (when I do) without damaging my teeth? What about my freedom of choosing whether I'd use straws or not?

Please explain to me how you can drink without the liquid touching your teeth. Do you stick the straw directly down your throat?

Re: Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic

#46

Post by [deleted] »

polskibus wrote: post #39
fein wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> developing countries using ocean as a waste dump I thought this was common knowledge by this point. The most polluted rivers in the world are located in India, China, South America, Africa, and Indonesia.

Developed countries don't help by shipping their waste to developing countries and removing the problem from their sight. China recently stopped accepting garbage from California and now the problem is back in the USA.

[deleted]

Re: Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic

#47

Post by jandrese »

wavesounds wrote: post #20
ramy_d wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read that in the article, then i checked it on google maps https://goo.gl/maps/pVJeXBUE4Ck . It's still hard to believe so much trash can wind up on a beach through that river. Wait, what does the river look like? Should they just install a shallow net? It's crazy

They should stop dumping trash in the river

Easier said than done. First you have to develop the infrastructure (garbage trucks, dumps, entire departments in local government, etc...). Then you have to convince the villagers to change their way of life through littering fines that everybody will hate.

I don't think anybody is happy with the situation, but practical alternatives are in short supply. Worse, you have to apply the situation throughout the whole country or the people who follow the law but still get smothered in garbage from upstream will be angry and disincentiveized to continue trying to clean up.

Re: Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic

#48

Post by Alupis »

gfo wrote: post #17
throwaway427 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God forbid I use a straw, though.

Explain the inconvenience you're experiencing because you can't get a straw? It's a step forward, a small one at that, but it's progress. I don't understand those complaining - they usually fall back to people with disabilities, and yet establishments will still have straws on-hand for those folks.

It's not all good banning straws - Starbucks, for one, is finding out it uses more plastic with their new lids[1][2][3][4].

Sure, they're more recyclable, but a big part of the problem is many people don't throw their Starbucks cup in the recycle bin as it is! So, more plastic is being manufactured and used, and maybe some of it will be recycled... not such a clear cut win after all...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jul/23/starbucks-s...

[2] https://reason.com/blog/2018/07/12/starbucks-straw-ban-will-...

[3] https://www.thekitchn.com/starbucks-no-straws-new-lids-more-...

[4] https://www.vox.com/2018/6/25/17488336/starbucks-plastic-str...

Re: Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic

#50

Post by lisper »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #30
lisper wrote: post #14

My wife and I were traveling in Borneo a few years back. They have "water villages" there where all the houses are built on stilts in shallow water. You could not see the shore because it was completely covered in a layer of garbage. It was like living on top of a landfill. At first I thought it was garbage thrown out by the villagers, but it's not. It was garbage that washes in on the tide. Every now and then the vi…

I saw that on the Malaysian peninsula. Chinese fishing villages that still speak an old dialect of Cantonese. It's worse in what looks to be the dry season and low tide like you have there. The other issue is that it's not important to them to clean it up - as it was explained to me. I talked to a local while there and she explained that growing up she never saw it, but years away and she doesn't like it now but know…

> You DO NOT want to go down there.

I don't actually know if this village had sewers or not (I suspect not) but we did see people swimming in the water.

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