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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

#161

Post by jadell »

asdkhadsj wrote: post #156
jadell wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both. They're made of corn starch, which is what puffy Cheetos are made of, and manufactured literally the same way, except without the cheese flavor powder mixed in. They taste like "nothing" (well, they probably taste like pure corn starch but I've never eaten that so I don't have a reference.) Source: a member of my immediate family worked at a company that manufactured them and brought home many samples. We'd fre…

Out of curiosity, do you risk rodent infestations using those? I would imagine rodents/bugs happily eat most human food, cheese puffs included, so if this is literally the same won't it suffer rodent risk?

I don't work in an industry where I encounter bulk packing materials day-to-day. I would assume the answer is "yes"? Any large warehouse for any type of product using any type of packing material probably suffers rodent risk. At least, any warehouse I've ever been in.

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

#162

Post by DonHopkins »

stavros wrote: post #69
viraptor wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fresh fish has barely any smell. You won't smell fish in a reasonable quality sushi train place for example. It's only if you don't preserve it well for hours that it starts to stink.

Personally, I don't mind fish, they smell and taste like nothing to me. I hate crustaceans/etc because they look disgusting, basically cockroaches of the sea. I can't understand how people look at them and still eat them (obligatory XKCD here https://www.xkcd.com/1268/ ).

I was eating dinner at a Thai restaurant with an ideological vegetarian friend of mine, when I noticed that he ordered prawns.

So I teased him with "For heaven's sake, John! You're a vegetarian! Why are you eating Prawns??? Prawns are insects!!!" fully expecting to have an enjoyable argument about whether or not prawns qualified as insects for the purpose of vegetarianism, a hill I was willing to die on, for which I had a bunch of subjective emotional aesthetic talking points locked and loaded.

But he headed me off at the pass by accepting my premise and shutting me up: "Of course I eat insects. Insects are the enemy! We MUST eat them!!!"

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

#163

Post by allannienhuis »

acdanger wrote: post #87
proaralyst wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are paper straws the wrong solution? Even if they take a little more energy to produce they at least don't leave long-term waste behind.

There was a video on YouTube of a sea turtle with a straw lodged in its nose. I believe that was the spark the set off the straw-less movement.

What does that have to do with the question? Using paper straws would address the type of problem you mentioned, as they're (too) quickly bio-degradable. They may not be the right direction to go in (why do we use so many straws in the first place?), but they do solve that type of impact to marine animals.

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

#164

Post by rypskar »

swebs wrote: post #98
random314 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What aboutism is all well and good. But climate change is a much bigger planet wide threat compared to local air pollution in India and China, which mostly affects locals in India and China. On a per capita basis the western world, especially USA, contribute the most co2 emissions. So that is where the climate protests should start. And dumping all kinds of what aboutism criticisms on a 16 year old is not a good look…

Why are per capita statistics more important than total emissions? Are the glaciers going to reform because China also has a billion people? China produces more than double the raw amounts of CO2 than the USA. Though I am willing to shift some of the blame to countries who outsource their manufacturing to China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

>>Why are per capita statistics more important than total emissions?

Why should a grouping of people called "country" be more important than per capita? You can always find a group that is larger than you, but it is still not a good excuse for not changing what you do. I would say it is selfish to expect mostly emerging markets to change, when it is the developed world that is mostly to blame

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

#165

Post by StavrosK »

DonHopkins wrote: post #162
stavros wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I don't mind fish, they smell and taste like nothing to me. I hate crustaceans/etc because they look disgusting, basically cockroaches of the sea. I can't understand how people look at them and still eat them (obligatory XKCD here https://www.xkcd.com/1268/ ).

I was eating dinner at a Thai restaurant with an ideological vegetarian friend of mine, when I noticed that he ordered prawns. So I teased him with "For heaven's sake, John! You're a vegetarian! Why are you eating Prawns??? Prawns are insects!!!" fully expecting to have an enjoyable argument about whether or not prawns qualified as insects for the purpose of vegetarianism, a hill I was willing to die on, for which I…

Damnit. He has a point.

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

#166

Post by DonHopkins »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #32
rantwasp wrote: post #26

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...…

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.

If not a straw man argument, then at least the final straw that broke the camel's back.

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

#167

Post by matthewdgreen »

asdfman123 wrote: post #151
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets loads of attention, not least as both India and China have developed way beyond the free "developing nation" pass they got in previous climate agreements. Which plenty said was a big mistake at the time, but we are where we are. No doubt if the climate movement in China and India invite her, she might well go. Well, perhaps not China as they lack freedom of association and speech. There have been protests in…

If you were a rising country coming up from behind in a world where the US dominates, would you want to reduce your growth to ensure you don't catch up to the rest of the world as quickly?

You might if you were one of the nations most likely to be harmed by near-term climate change, and you were already dealing with a severe water crisis to boot.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/27/india/india-water-crisis-intl...

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

#168

Post by wmeredith »

irrational wrote: post #27
tomweingarten wrote: post #5

Most of this comes from a single type of ship waste: "Half of the great Pacific garbage patch is made up of fishing nets, by weight, according to a report published last year in Scientific Reports."

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.

Ban fishing? That's like saying we should ban email because of spam. Or ban the internet because of malware.

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

#169

Post by snarf21 »

rantwasp wrote: post #26

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...…

I think this is human psychology. Most people don't really care about straws so it is easy to get riled up about it and ban it. If you asked those same people about banning bottled water or taxing it heavily, they would be against it. The more difficult the behavior change, the less likely people will stick with it. This is true for consumption reduction, weight loss, exercise and more.

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

#170

Post by random314 »

swebs wrote: post #98
random314 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What aboutism is all well and good. But climate change is a much bigger planet wide threat compared to local air pollution in India and China, which mostly affects locals in India and China. On a per capita basis the western world, especially USA, contribute the most co2 emissions. So that is where the climate protests should start. And dumping all kinds of what aboutism criticisms on a 16 year old is not a good look…

Why are per capita statistics more important than total emissions? Are the glaciers going to reform because China also has a billion people? China produces more than double the raw amounts of CO2 than the USA. Though I am willing to shift some of the blame to countries who outsource their manufacturing to China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

> Why are per capita statistics more important than total emissions?

https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/you-can-lead-a-horse-to-...

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