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Stomach of Dead Whale Contained 'Nothing but Nonstop Plastic'

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Re: Stomach of Dead Whale Contained 'Nothing but Nonstop Plastic'

#121

Post by DougBTX »

Ultramanoid wrote: post #111
A2017U1 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First of all, China was paid to receive it. That is completely wrong, you'll need to provide evidence here, it's strange so many replies say the same. China pays for their recycling imports and get a good deal on shipping. Current tariff wars have changed this environment and now they won't take it. California alone earns billions selling waste to them > In 2016, California’s exports of recyclables amounted to 15 m…

Tariffs are not an issue between China and the EU / Japan as they are with the U.S., that has little to do with China's decision to ban imports of trash globally . You pay recycling companies to process waste, and the cost of doing so locally in the U.S. now after the Chinese ban is so high that it means cities cannot afford it, thus waste that would have been sent to China for recycling is now piling in landfills or…

That article contradicts your assertion that “China was paid to receive it”, it says, “Franklin could break even on recycling by selling it for $6 a ton.“

Re: Stomach of Dead Whale Contained 'Nothing but Nonstop Plastic'

#122

Post by wallace_f »

Yajirobe wrote: post #109
cageface wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not. The American Dietetics Association states as its official position that a vegan diet is healthful and adequate for all stages of life: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864 There's currently quite a bit of debate over whether or not plant-based diets are better than other diets, but not over whether or not they are healthy.

> for all stages of life Even for babies?

This does not answer the question, but the fact that even ruminant offspring rely on milk to supplement their nutrition I think should at least create skepticism

Re: Stomach of Dead Whale Contained 'Nothing but Nonstop Plastic'

#123

Post by atorodius »

cageface wrote: post #35

These stories rarely mention this for some reason but the bulk of the plastic junk in the ocean is discarded fishing nets, not consumer waste. Reducing the plastic waste you personally generate is still a good idea, of course, but if you really want to have an impact then stop eating fish. https://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/ocean-plastic-made-disca... https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/great-pacific-ga...

Thanks for the links. I'm confused though, as everyone seems to claim something else is the "bulk of plastic". The links seem to talk about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch only, do you happen to have any insights into oceans at large? Or is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch the part of the ocean where most waste is and the rest is not interesting? I find it hard to find sources.

Re: Stomach of Dead Whale Contained 'Nothing but Nonstop Plastic'

#124

Post by janekm »

cageface wrote: post #35

These stories rarely mention this for some reason but the bulk of the plastic junk in the ocean is discarded fishing nets, not consumer waste. Reducing the plastic waste you personally generate is still a good idea, of course, but if you really want to have an impact then stop eating fish. https://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/ocean-plastic-made-disca... https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/great-pacific-ga...

If you do an image search for "Darrell Blatchley whale", you can see some pictures of various whale stomach contents... Unfortunately regular shopping plastic bags and rice bags appear to be the most common in terms of whale stomach contents. Perhaps because they float well...

Re: Stomach of Dead Whale Contained 'Nothing but Nonstop Plastic'

#125

Post by Dylan16807 »

toofy wrote: post #59
eecc wrote: post #3

Just like Climate Change, oceanic plastic pollution is a case of Tragedy of the commons. I can separate my waste and recycle as much as I want (and I do!) but it’s all useless if a random idiot proceeds to dump my weekly household recycling output into a river and call it a day. This is nothing that can be solved with personal initiative and responsibility; it requires international regulation and enforcement. There’…

> but it’s all useless if a random idiot proceeds to dump my weekly household recycling output into a river and call it a day. Even if that random idiot dumps their recycling, it is anything but useless. If you didn't recycle, that would be at least 2 idiots dumping their recycling. Sorry for being pedantic, but it troubles me when people worry they aren't making a difference because some other random idiot doesn't p…

> If you didn't recycle, that would be at least 2 idiots dumping their recycling.

...no, it would go in the garbage and also not a river.

Re: Stomach of Dead Whale Contained 'Nothing but Nonstop Plastic'

#126

Post by titzer »

cageface wrote: post #103
titzer wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed. 8 million tons of plastic waste enter the ocean every year. You're telling me there's 4 million tons (8 billion pounds) of fishing nets every year? Nope.

Citations provided in original comment. Take it up with national geo if you have isssues with it.

Note the article refers to the GPGP.

FTA: "Microplastics make up 94 percent of an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic in the patch. But that only amounts to eight percent of the total tonnage. As it turns out, of the 79,000 metric tons of plastic in the patch, most of it is abandoned fishing gear—not plastic bottles or packaging drawing headlines today."

79,000 tons < 8 million tons.

Re: Stomach of Dead Whale Contained 'Nothing but Nonstop Plastic'

#127

Post by usrusr »

isolli wrote: post #85
cageface wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need to eat meat or fish at all to be healthy, and meat & fish are very resource intensive. We're better off redirecting all the resources we currently waste trying to feed 8 billion people this way into sustainable, plant-based diets anyway.

I was vegetarian for 20 years, vegan for 7, yet I started eating meat and fish about a year ago. Here are my thoughts: - I started eating animal products again for health reason; I believe many people can thrive on a vegetarian or vegan diet, but I couldn't. It makes me unhappy, but there I am. - Similarly vegetarian and vegan for a long time, my wife started craving animal products the minute she got pregnant. And a…

> limited consumption of animal products

It would be more impactful get three people to reduce meat by 50% than to get one to reduce by 100%. Unfortunately, "meals that don't have a chunk of meat as their centerpiece but that are still far from vegetarian" does not have the same ideological zeal as veganism (speaking in the context of a western industrial background).

When eating out (again: western cuisine), the meat-free choices are getting better and better and I applaud that, but it seems to just get more polarized. In aggregate, either vegan or an ever bigger focus on a meat centerpiece is hardly an improvement. Low meat dishes seem to have a serious branding problem.

Re: Stomach of Dead Whale Contained 'Nothing but Nonstop Plastic'

#128

Post by titzer »

cageface wrote: post #103
titzer wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed. 8 million tons of plastic waste enter the ocean every year. You're telling me there's 4 million tons (8 billion pounds) of fishing nets every year? Nope.

Citations provided in original comment. Take it up with national geo if you have isssues with it.

Meanwhile, from the other link (which also has numbers in the 10s of thousands of tons, not millions):

"Cutting down on the amount of plastics we buy and learning to use this tricky material sensibly is still one of the most effective things we can do to live responsibly, help the planet, and inspire others to do the same. To find out how you can help make a change, check out One Green Planet’s #CrushPlastic campaign!"

Please don't distract by blaming fishing. And please read your own links. Fishing nets are a huge problem no doubt, but looking at numbers, we need to stop single-use plastics.

Re: Stomach of Dead Whale Contained 'Nothing but Nonstop Plastic'

#130

Post by janekm »

titanix2 wrote: post #12
hbarka wrote: post #7

Why hasn’t Amazon, Costco, or Walmart used their clout to effect a positive change? Have you seen all the plastic and unnecessary packaging in the goods they sell. The size of the packaging relative to the actual product is so ridiculous sometimes.

Did you read the article? It says that "more than half of that waste comes from just five countries in East and Southeast Asia — China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam". All the companies you listed are irrelevant there.

Well.. Walmart is a large chain of supermarkets in China, and Costco operate there too, so they're not entirely irrelevant (http://www.wal-martchina.com/english/walmart/index.htm). Fortunately China has like many countries moved to forcing shops to charge for plastic bags so plastic bag waste has gotten a lot less bad in China at least.
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