Live data from Hacker News

Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

bbc.co.uk

111–120 of 166 posts

Re: Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of that plastic is shipped there "for recycling" by other countries? Everything I've read on the subject seems to indicate we send tons of plastic to places that we know aren't really going to recycle it.

It's shipped there because it's bought. It's bought because the buyer intends to make money off of it, not throw it in a river. Although a lot of crap does wind up in the air and water, the environmental havoc wreaked by thousands of backyard plastic smelters is incredible. "Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade" by Adam Minter https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17286721-junkyard-planet

Many recyclers are paid to take rubbish (especially unsorted rubbish). They claim they sort it and responsibly recycle or dispose.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/20/plastic-...

Re: Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

#112
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does being a young democracy have to do with how clean people are? Are you arguing that only people who have lived under a democracy for hundreds of years recognise how important it is not to shit on the streets or fill rivers with rotting corpses and plastic? Also, I'm not even sure education can fix this. Nature made turds foul-looking and smelly so everybody knows to stay away from them. If Indians can't even…

Have you been to India ? No one does this in the cities, it's a problem in the villages where the govt. hasn't built enough toilets (due to corruption or plain neglect). The current govt. organized a program just to counter this, how effective this program is up for debate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swachh_Bharat_mission Any problem, including education about safe hygiene practices, is massively difficult at scal…

The problem is not that the government hasn't built any toilets, the problem is that some people don't build toilets on their own.

I have two toilets at home, I haven't waited for the government to build them for me.

Re: Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

#113
post #11

Just for comparison 6kg of plastic in a 60 ton animal is the same as 6g of plastic in a 60kg organism (or a little above one teaspoon of plastic ingested by a teenager).

I find it baffling, that parent comment made just a comparison without giving any opinion, and pretty much every sibling comment is telling them they are wrong... lol. Fascinating how people project their opinions onto others and argue with them. Parent even got called a moron and told to eat a plastic bag xD Pretty much every one assumed that on a human scale weight it's not that much, though still wrong. I wonder w…

> Parent even got called a moron and told to eat a plastic bag

You know everyone can see the thread right? Lying about what's in it isn't going to work well for you.

Either way yes, it's possible to be wrong by merely making a comparison. Try to think about why.

Re: Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

#115
post #11

Just for comparison 6kg of plastic in a 60 ton animal is the same as 6g of plastic in a 60kg organism (or a little above one teaspoon of plastic ingested by a teenager).

weight? really?

Go by the size & volume of the animals' digestive systems. It is the plastics relative to the digestive systems volumes that is the killer.

Re: Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

#116
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say all of this as a thought experiment. But: > Sad thing is, the vast majority of people are oblivious or flat out don't care. I mean, if we're making mental jumps to wiping out billions of people - I'd argue that, does it even matter? Ie, in your example human life largely doesn't matter. Human survival maybe, but clearly not billions of lives. I'm not saying this negatively either, just acknowledging what topic…

> Regardless, I struggle to be emotionally invested in a situation where I decide 6 billion people die. 6 billion people will die. Heck, 7.5 billion will die. Everyone dies. The question is not when, but how, and how do they live their lives. I think we should pursue a solution not of genocide, but one of mass sterilization. We should choose about 100 million people from all over the Earth that will represent the gen…

File this under "Things still too radical to say in 2018."

Honestly, your proposed solution goes too counter to human nature to be viable, in my opinion. Not to say it wouldn't work if you could pull it off, just that there's too much going against it.

Human nature is selfish on a per-tribe basis. I think much of humanity's ills stem from our inability to effectively care about more than ~100-1k people. Even if you convinced the world to go along with this, including the inevitable rash of unrest by religious groups and murders/etc by people who feel they were unfairly sterilized, here are a couple questions I have with this plan:

1) Age distribution +30 years out from implementation? Developing nations with declining growth rates (most of them) are facing serious age-related care and resource issues as the largest section of population becomes elderly. The plethora of energy and real estate wouldn't kick in until the sterile group shuffles off, and the preceding ~10-20 years would be a really uncomfortable transition without some serious forced old-people-warehousing solutions. Even from just a "how many care nurses can we really get in here" point of view.

2) How to implement permanent, lasting cultural shift on wealth, growth, and sustainability? The mentality that led us here, that maximum growth and wealth is more important than sustainable growth, would have to be permanently squashed from the human psyche, otherwise it's only a matter of time before the "chosen ones" and their progeny get us right back where we started. I don't think anything is permanently squashable from the human psyche, especially things that lead necessarily to occasional "my tribe has to take a haircut so someone I've never met can improve," due to afore-mentioned tribal nature of humans.

There are more, but I don't have time to think of them. I would like to revisit this later, perhaps.

Personally, I think we need to re-organize society to be more in line with how humans are wired, then build-in rules and solutions for sustainable growth. Like designing society around many more, smaller towns, linked together by internet and services that make sense as national services (like risk pools, transportation networks, etc.) but are as close to self-sufficient as possible in terms of energy, food, and water. I don't know what that society would look like, or how to get there, though.

Re: Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

#117

> pieces of string (3.26kg) Over half of it was string? Is this from fishing or something?

The original wording is "tali rafia", which is a flat plastic string used for tying down/lashing many common everyday items. So no, not related to fishing.

Re: Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

#118
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been to India ? No one does this in the cities, it's a problem in the villages where the govt. hasn't built enough toilets (due to corruption or plain neglect). The current govt. organized a program just to counter this, how effective this program is up for debate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swachh_Bharat_mission Any problem, including education about safe hygiene practices, is massively difficult at scal…

The problem is not that the government hasn't built any toilets, the problem is that some people don't build toilets on their own. I have two toilets at home, I haven't waited for the government to build them for me.

You likely have a functioning sewer system and fresh water taps to your home.

Americans always underestimate the amount of effort and wealth it takes for the infrastructure that maintains their normalcy.

Re: Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

#119
post #21
post #11

Just for comparison 6kg of plastic in a 60 ton animal is the same as 6g of plastic in a 60kg organism (or a little above one teaspoon of plastic ingested by a teenager).

While I understand the comparison you're trying to make, I'm not sure weight is the best estimation here. A whale can be heavier without being larger . While the whale may weigh 1000x more, it appears to be only around 10x as big (sperm whales are 40 feet long, and somewhat wider than humans). If you take a look at the picture in the article, and analyze what it had ingested: "115 drinking cups, four plastic bottles,…

they literally can not be heavier without being larger....

Re: Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

#120
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been to India ? No one does this in the cities, it's a problem in the villages where the govt. hasn't built enough toilets (due to corruption or plain neglect). The current govt. organized a program just to counter this, how effective this program is up for debate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swachh_Bharat_mission Any problem, including education about safe hygiene practices, is massively difficult at scal…

The problem is not that the government hasn't built any toilets, the problem is that some people don't build toilets on their own. I have two toilets at home, I haven't waited for the government to build them for me.

@dang Might want to take a look at this subthread.
Post reply on HN