It sounds like a great way to avoid bearing the responsibility. Better, we can now point our finger at someone else.
Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says
171–180 of 309 posts
Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do those folks know that peas, tofu, nuts, etc. have protein too?
These are people in some of the poorest countries like Bangladesh. Are pea proteins cost effective and available in sufficient enough quantities to feed all these people? Other people brought up that it isn't just about the protein but other essentials things like amino acids.
Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. All of my aforementioned foods have the complete spectrum of amino acids.
Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says
#173This 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...…
Anyone who has ever worked in industrial jobs, know how much more plastic is being used / discarded there. Sad to say, it's only been in the past few years that many companies have really started focusing on sorting / good handling of garbage.
One of my first part-time jobs were on construction sites, where I'd spend my day unloading materials which was packed in plastic - which was then just thrown in containers, which in turn were dumped in land-fills.
But with that said, I think it's good that people are aware, and spread awareness.
Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says
#174This 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 fr…
> I see avoiding straws like playing scales to learn piano. Scales alone seem like nothing, but they're how you get to Carnegie Hall.
That isn't remotely true. The best pianists in the world who play at Carnegie Hall, true virtuosi, are far beyond attributing their skill to scales. Scales are mainly used by great pianists within the context of your work on specific pieces, as that is where pianists will be judged. Why waste time on all 24 scales for an hour? That's terribly inefficient practice.
For instance, Ballade No 1 by Chopin: you need to practice scales for the coda only, but there are 30-40 other passages that are just as important. You'd be wasting your time to practice scales in other keys and not practicing those challenge moments, as no one cares if you can do scales in E major when those scales are adjacent to the G minor tonality. When I learned that piece, I practiced the two scalar passages maybe 1% of my work on the whole piece.
A more apt analogy would be: if we wean ourselves off of single-use straws, beginning piano students can wean themselves off of pneumonic devices for remembering note names. It's just the very basics of decarbonization/piano playing, and so so much more has to be done in both cases.
So, no, getting to the tip-top level of decarbonization doesn't rely on not using straws, just like Carnegie Hall doesn't rely on scales. This is a classic example of focusing on very miniscule lifestyle changes, when climate change/environmentalism is about huge, broad stroke issues first and foremost.
Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
I get the sentiment behind objecting to straw bans and the like. But I think we're at a point where reducing plastic waste is becoming critical. It's everywhere. Short lived single use plastics like straws, cutlery, packing and shipping materials have to go the way of their dinosaur derived chemical components.
if you only had limited time and resources to actually change something wouldn't you want to focus on the things with most impact? Also, before banning anything do we actually have an understanding of what the environmental impact is going to be? (e.g. if producing a paper straw consumes more electricity and generates more pollution than a plastic straw ending up to actually be worse for the environment than just kee…
I did not advocate paper straws. I would much rather a change in the way we consume things. Do we need straws at all? Do we need or want a life that moves so fast that you can't stop and remove the lid to your beverage to consume it?
Plastic waste reduction needs to think bigger. This isn't about straws. It's about a wasteful throw away culture that has to adapt to a less wasteful way of life. And that will involve making sacrifices beyond paper straws.
Does an AMD threadripper need to come in a huge gaudy plastic display case? Does amazon need to send a thumb sized trinket in a 10x12 plastic bubble envelope? Why does my gadget come in a fancy box that needs to be placed in another box filled with foam packing peanuts or plastic bags full of air? All that wasteful packaging does is clog landfills and waterways. But people foolishly praise it as in the case of the horribly wasteful AMD packing. It's environmentally tone deaf.
Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "Left" (not the democrats) was not a cheerleader for globalization. I also don't buy that if everyone was producing at smaller scales at home, this problem would be at all better. This is a consumption problem, not a "globalization" problem.
Ok, what counts as the "left" in the US and most European countries promoted globalization - the unreconstituted hard left, sure, not so much. I agree with you that this is a consumption problem, but globalization is what has driven consumption for the past 30 years.
What? It’s the right in almost every country that has promoted globalization. Labor parties around the world, and the democrats in the US up until Bill Clinton, were staunchly opposed.
Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says
#177I recall reading two years ago several reports which claimed that around 90% of all the plastic in the world's oceans flows there through just 10 rivers. > "The shipping and fishing industries also play a part. In 2018 researchers found that, in terms of weight, almost half of the plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch -- a notorious area of floating trash three times the size of France -- was made up of fishing…
I have always been skeptical of this claim.
I have seen the Pacific ocean trash problem firsthand; did a lot of beach cleanups. I simply do not believe that 8 million tons of plastic entering the oceans every year is flowing out through rivers from land.
Given this new theory I actually suspect that some significant fraction of the plastic waste we were shipping to China for "recycling" was instead being dumped directly into the ocean midway. It'd be cheaper, and it'd be hard to get caught. Given today's greed, I have little doubt this happened.
Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
These are people in some of the poorest countries like Bangladesh. Are pea proteins cost effective and available in sufficient enough quantities to feed all these people? Other people brought up that it isn't just about the protein but other essentials things like amino acids.
Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. All of my aforementioned foods have the complete spectrum of amino acids.
I don't know the details but look at what Slippery_John said in his comment:
> Well yes, but actually no. Not all proteins are equal, they have different quantities of different kinds of amino acids. Humans need 9 distinct amino acids for a healthy diet, and animal proteins are by far the easiest source of "complete proteins" from a single source. It's absolutely possible to get plant-based complete proteins (e.g. soy or quinoa), but often that involves deliberately mixing different protein sources to get a complete balance.
Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says
#179This 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.
> reusable shopping bags
So now, when I don’t have a shopping bag in the car (something I’ve done since back when it was specifically “uncool” to do so), and need a bag, I pay a dime for a plastic bag that has at least 5 times as much plastic in it, and it doesn’t photo-degrade in the sunlight like the filthy evil old T-shirt bags (which I also reused) of yesteryear.
Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
Let's consider the biggest city in the U.S., NYC. Manhattan? An island of 1.8 million no more than 2 miles wide. Brooklyn and Queens are on a spit of land called "Long Island". Together they have 4.8 million residents. Staten Island is, you guessed it, an island. And the Bronx is necessarily very close to a lot of water. People litter. Cigarette butts, straws, plastic bottles, etc. all very regularly and easily wind…
Yep. Litterbugs, all 4.8 Million of them.