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Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

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Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#121
I spend a day or two every year cleaning up a beach on a island off the coast of China. Its location relative to local sea currents makes it a natural garbage trap. It has been a radicalizing experience but maybe not in the way you would think.

Anecdotally about a third of the trash I pick up is fishing related - some nets, some buoys, but mostly thousands of small plastic sardine sized fishing net floats.

About a third is one-time use food packaging related - soda and water bottles mainly, but also so many bags for snacks, or tangentially cleaning bottles for hands/dishes. We could do better making less plastic waste with each meal. Straws are a very small part of that and a weird thing to fixate on relative to all the other one time use food waste we generate.

And the last third is various forms of hydrocarbon foams. This last one kills me because I see foams everywhere in the supply chain for consumer goods. TVs are shipped out in white styrofoam. Chips are shipped in with pink styrofoam. If it’s fragile lab equipment it gets shipped in a box three times it’s size full of packing peanut foam. Every product in the room you are in probably generated an equivalent volume of foam during its production. The foam lasts forever. I refuse to use it for anything we package and glad to see it phased out.

I would much prefer biodegradable paper like pulps to foam. As I understand the chemicals used to make hard paper bowls and straws may be their own kind of nasty endocrine disrupters but for all other packaging purposes, yes please. Less foam, more paper. Especially if some tweaks we can make packaging a carbon sink.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#122
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but "in the water" includes both shallow water near shore and deep water far out in the ocean. The OP is about one. You're talking about the other, which might not even be relevant, so the "anyone knows" condescension is misplaced.

What do you mean might not even be relevant? Is there some hidden reason we should be focusing on deep sea plastics only?

It's not hidden. It's what the OP is about. It's right there in the title - ocean plastic waste, not coastal. Pollution on or near shore is absolutely an important issue, but there are thousands of important issues that are not germane to this conversation.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#123
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's definitely a huge shift to reducing plastic packaging. On the consumer side. You now no longer see the packaging as it arrives to your house. Do an image search for Pallet Deliveries (I don't want to point fingers) and look at just how much plastic wrap comes on the "reduced waste" packaging, when it's delivered to your supermarket/department store. It's utterly astonishing.

Do you know how many pallets you can wrap with one roll of stretch wrap? I bet there is a teaspoon of oil in the stretch wrap for an entire pallet of goods. It’s like 6 miles down the plastic use chart.

Where I live the enterprises recycle their packaging, something a lot easier to achieve than with individuals, so can't see it becoming a huge deal yeah.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#124
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think banning ocean fishing would be a disaster actually. what we need is responsible fishing with proper management of the fishing nets (i.e. huge penalties for mismanaging/dumping/abandoning the fishing nets) also the elephant in the room is that an individual in the US has little to no control over huge sources of pollution apart from feel good activism (look at this! i'm using a paper straw! I saved 2 turtles t…

"US has little to no control over huge sources of pollution" Not trying to suggest you can create structural change here, but just as a product of being an American consumer you have a larger power to reduce GHG emissions than most of the other 6.6 billion people on the planet.

I don't disagree, but as an individual taking action, it sure feels futile.

On plastic waste specifically, I think there is far more consumer awareness and consciousness than where I am now, Japan. Everything is in bags in bags in bags.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#125
post #30

Extensive air pollution from China or India that surpasses the West also doesn't seem to get much attention, e.g. [1] [2] Greta visited the US and gave some compelling speeches. Will she visit China and India and do the same? [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/07/01/china-emits-... [2] https://qz.com/india/1581665/indias-carbon-emissions-growing...

This is a whataboutism that distracts from actually doing anything meaningful about climate change. We can't fix the entire problem, but combating climate change will require everyone to do as much as they can - so we should get to doing our part in transforming our economy.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here you are creating a straw man argument. Reducing straws won’t “save the planet” on its own. We will improve the planet by doing multiple things. Reducing plastic use (less packaging, fewer straws, reusable shopping bags) all play a role in a much bigger effort.

is it a straw man though? i'm not proposing anything, I was just providing some links and maybe hinting at the fact that if we want to reduce plastic in the oceans we should focus on the biggest sources of plastics. if everyone stops using plastic straws tomorrow it will not matter and will not make an impact on how much plastic keeps accumulating. here are a few more ideas for helping the planet: have fewer kids - t…

The population is already stabilizing at 11 billion. Paul Ehrlich was wrong: richer countries undergo a demographic transition.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#127
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> chances are, every one of those straws being used in an American city would end up in a well run landfill My front yard disagrees. It's adjacent to a somewhat busy road, and straws are part of the debris I have to routinely clean up (along with various wrappers and cigarette butts).

> and straws are part of the debris I have to routinely clean up I assume this cleaning includes putting them in your trash and the city taking them to a landfill? It's obviously not the best path, but cities[0] (by necessity) generally do a good job cleaning up the trash that gets scattered around. Bigger issue is non-urbanized areas where there isn't the density/wealth to clean up litter. [0] The collection of peop…

Our weather patterns here include heavy rain storms. What I don't happen to catch gets flushed away into the drain in the street, which leads to a nearby creek (stormwater is kept separate from sewage here).

And of course, all the other parts of the road that don't happen to run up to a yard are not really groomed, so all that debris is flushed into the waterways.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#128

This is known. The number I have heard floated around is 45%. So, commercial fishing nets are a big problem when it comes to plastic in the oceans. And here we are "saving the planet", by reducing the plastic straw consumption: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/07/18/anti-straw-mo... https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-06-07/plasti... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/business/plastic-straws-b...…

Looking at elements loses sight of the system. The boats are there as part of a system driven by growth in GDP and population, externalizing costs, and related goals.

We can say it's not us tossing the bottle overboard, but buying things the boats transport supports the system.

Among the most important leverage points for changing a system are its goals and values. Changing from growth to enjoying what we have and from externalizing costs to taking responsibility and stewarding takes time and is not the only course of action, but are necessary.

If we avoid straws and stop there, the action doesn't add up. If we use avoiding straws as practice then to avoid bigger things, then yet bigger things, I see avoiding straws like playing scales to learn piano. Scales alone seem like nothing, but they're how you get to Carnegie Hall.

In my case, starting avoiding packaged food led to no flying which led to leadership roles with my podcast, my second TEDx talk on environmental leadership this weekend (my first: http://joshuaspodek.com/my-tedx-talk-is-online-find-your-del...), and many people now contacting me that they're changing and enjoying the process and results.

Because jettisoning junk improves our lives, we expect to continue.

Only action -- not talking, not reading, not writing, not debating, not analyzing -- only action on one's values brings that joy. If straws are someone's starting point, I support them. Then I support them to continue. I believe everyone should start and accelerate as much as possible in changing their behavior and values.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#129
post #30

Extensive air pollution from China or India that surpasses the West also doesn't seem to get much attention, e.g. [1] [2] Greta visited the US and gave some compelling speeches. Will she visit China and India and do the same? [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/07/01/china-emits-... [2] https://qz.com/india/1581665/indias-carbon-emissions-growing...

Per capita US pollutes more than China and India. Using Anything besides per capita isnt a valid measurement because a it doesn’t treat people equally.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#130
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the ocean is being overfished and is being polluted by fishing. The clear answer is to ban fishing. Though, as someone who dislikes all seafood, this is easy for me to say.

"Approximately 1 billion people people are dependent on fish as the principal source of animal protein" http://www.suds-en-ligne.ird.fr/ecosys/ang_ecosys/intro1.htm

Do those folks know that peas, tofu, nuts, etc. have protein too?
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