Live data from Hacker News

Stomach of Dead Whale Contained 'Nothing but Nonstop Plastic'

npr.org

261–270 of 372 posts

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

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mind vegetarian. I rarely eat meat and never crave for it. However vegan just sounds horrible. Eggs and cheeses are incredible, milk, fish, prawns. Cutting them out feels like cutting half of the nutrients out of my diet. I wouldn't risk it unless I had very extensive knowledge and dedication to human dietary requirements and what which plants can provide, which I don't have and won't have.

With a vegan diet, you need vitamin B12 supplements. Take a multi-vitamin supplement, some linseed oil for the essential fatty acids and maybe some mineral supplement if appropriate according to the blood test. You should do that anyway no matter your diet. Dr Garth Davis: Americans have become obsessed with Protein https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQCt3IhaUtU&feature=youtu.be...

Supplements are a scam industry and you should not be advising anyone to waste their time and money on supplements.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/supplements-are-a-30...

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

#262

This is a terrible thing for a creature to go through. How common are cases like this, or is this more of a one-off?

There was an article on the front page recently where they found plastic particles in the cells of creatures in the Marianas Trench. It's plastic all the way down.

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

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one's disputing the footprint, they're disputing how feasible it is for all or even most people. Vegetarianism requires much more understanding and planning to ensure you ingest sufficient proper macro and micronutrients. Edit: and you need look no further than Harvard's explanation of how to become a vegetarian and choose your foods to ensure a healthy diet: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/becoming…

Eating a healthy diet takes work no matter what diet plan you follow. You're assuming a meat-based diet is automatically healthy when in fact the typical meat based, western diet is strongly linked to all of our most deadly diseases. You're going to be a lot better off on an even non-ideal plant based diet than you are going to be eating hamburgers and pizza. I'll admit it's currently not that easy to follow a strict…

> the typical meat based, western diet is strongly linked to all of our most deadly diseases

The standard American diet is composed of 70% plant-based foods, which is the same ratio found in the Mediterranean diet which is lauded as one of the most healthful.

It's not the meat that's causing the issues, it's the processed plant foods and plant-derived oils that destroy one's health on a western diet. Or in other words, the horrible food quality. Any diet that doesn't include processed plant foods and oils will be an improvement from one that does, regardless of whether it includes meat.

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

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So called "developed" countries were once similarly careless with their waste. And their developed status was a result of such carelessness and the free expansion of their industries. It seems slightly unfair to expect developing countries to achieve a similar level of development via a sustainable methodology immediately, when that has not been the path for the richest countries in the world. (Given that developing…

The countries listed above are far more developed than you are giving them credit for. They absolutely have the ability to recycle.

I mean... no where I personally traveled in Indonesia had trash service. Maybe Jakarta and Java do, IDK. But it’s REALLY common to just dump your trash behind your place and burn it. It’s just what you do.

Malaysia was better, but I’m sure people there and in Taiwan still burn trash.

Asking people who are still burning trash to recycle might be a step too far just yet.

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

#265
post #64
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure that is good advice. Fixing the fishing industry is important, overfishing is rampant as is plastic waste from it. But fish is probably one of the best alternatives we have to other environmentally unfriendly meats we currently raise. As populations grow it is proving to be key to keeping everyone fed. Farmed fish most importantly will soon be the majority of fish consumed. Getting ocean based fishing t…

Fish farming generally uses ocean fish as feed. In terms of CO2, chicken is about as environmentally friendly as animal proteins get. Chickens also don’t really require any special diet and grow quickly. Dealing with chicken waste is a problem, but if you live in the US, chicken “litter” is fed to cows.

Unfortunately chicken, like pork, is extremely high in omega-6 due to being fed unnatural modern grain-based diets.

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

#266
post #133
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure that is good advice. Fixing the fishing industry is important, overfishing is rampant as is plastic waste from it. But fish is probably one of the best alternatives we have to other environmentally unfriendly meats we currently raise. As populations grow it is proving to be key to keeping everyone fed. Farmed fish most importantly will soon be the majority of fish consumed. Getting ocean based fishing t…

Doesn't farmed fish undo some of the advantages of eating fish? The big advantage of fishing over farmed meat is that we do not feed fish food grown on fields that could have fed people (which is a big part of the reason why meat is so economically inefficient). Fish just roam the seas and we scoop them out, with very little investment on our part. Of course the fact that fish is such a relatively efficient source of…

Unless we miraculously figure out some way to convince people to stop attempting to exponentially increase the human population, it's pretty much a sure thing that we'll strip or pollute the oceans free of food sources.

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

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like it would be easy enough to ban plastic fishing equipment. Couldn't they make the nets out of hemp, or something else biodegradable?

You think illegal fishermen in the Philippines (where the bulk of the waste in the whale originated according to the article) really care you’ve outlawed plastic fishing nets? Your solution needs to be extremely incentivized and also easy to enforce in those places of the world. “Banning” something will have a laughable impact and only affect people who never created the waste in the first place.

Well you could ban at the manufacturing level, and ideally use political pressure to get other countries on board. It wouldn't be a %100 fix, but seems like it would be a simple step in the right direction.

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

#268

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.

Or just perfecting lab grown meat.

[deleted]

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

#269
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’…

Imagine applying "tech" industry logic to this? "Bbbut regulation will prevent small players from competing"

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

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mind vegetarian. I rarely eat meat and never crave for it. However vegan just sounds horrible. Eggs and cheeses are incredible, milk, fish, prawns. Cutting them out feels like cutting half of the nutrients out of my diet. I wouldn't risk it unless I had very extensive knowledge and dedication to human dietary requirements and what which plants can provide, which I don't have and won't have.

Aren't fish and prawns animals? Would you still considered a vegetarian if you ate them?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pescetarianism
Post reply on HN