Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Our biggest ever river catch?

theoceancleanup.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 190 posts

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#31

Post by latchkey »

snielson wrote: post #7
bastawhiz wrote: post #4

I'm curious how much effort is being put into avoiding this trash ending up in the rivers in the first place. Obviously it's important to catch it before it gets in the ocean, but if people are just dumping directly into the river far upstream, this feels like a Sisyphian task

Having been to Guatemala, the culture is to throw most trash on the ground. The trash is then washed into the rivers during heavy rains. It's sad to see. The country has a lot of natural beauty, but there is trash everywhere.

SE Asia is the same. Literally in the culture. The mind boggles.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#33

Post by sidewndr46 »

bastawhiz wrote: post #4

I'm curious how much effort is being put into avoiding this trash ending up in the rivers in the first place. Obviously it's important to catch it before it gets in the ocean, but if people are just dumping directly into the river far upstream, this feels like a Sisyphian task

To me it seems like this would potentially encourage more of the behavior that lead to all this trash in the river, since now people may know it is not going to the ocean.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#34

Post by sidewndr46 »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #17
Octokiddie wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any insights into what makes this culturally acceptable?

The country lacks any real garbage collection infrastructure. And I'm not just talking about ritzy landfill/recycling/compost bin sets every few hundred feet on the sidewalk, emptied by the municipality, I mean there's literally nowhere for any service to actually take the trash if it was in a bin and not on the ground. Most cities don't even have a functioning, modern landfill, just clandestine piles served by dump…

If that's the case, then what is this charity going to do with all this trash? Send it back up the river to be dumped again?

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#35

Post by JoeAltmaier »

laborcontract wrote: post #30
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This river cleanup is brilliant and effective. Messing with the top meter of ocean water does its own kind of damage. So much of the life in the ocean surface layer is going to be involved with the floating trash, like it or not. Ocean surface sterilization seems incautious and worrisome. Never mind we don't like to see trash. Stripping the ocean surface water will have unforeseen consequences.

Are you talking about sea life? According to the video on the site, the boats travel at less than 3km/h and they have live video feeds monitoring the nets. Am I missing anything here?

As most people do, you are considering only fish and such. Things we can see. Not the bulk of all ocean life, the tiny microscopic creatures that dominate the ecosystem.

It's only the top surface, right? The ocean can be miles deep!

But the density of life in the ocean decreases geometrically with depth. By mass, the top inches contain more life than the entire balance of it. Because, sunlight.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#36

Post by wlesieutre »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #15
Octokiddie wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any insights into what makes this culturally acceptable?

No Ladybird Johnson like figure driving public policy in the 1960s, melding the hippies and government together? The TV was inundated with public service announcements shaming trash throwers in the USA for maybe 15 years. It made a difference. Having seen similar "just throw it on the ground" behavior in India and china, I think that it may be a natural response in a rural culture that needs to be changed once it is…

Even “Don’t mess with Texas” started as an anti-littering campaign in the mid-80’s into the 90’s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Mess_with_Texas

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#37

Post by NamTaf »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #35
laborcontract wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about sea life? According to the video on the site, the boats travel at less than 3km/h and they have live video feeds monitoring the nets. Am I missing anything here?

As most people do, you are considering only fish and such. Things we can see. Not the bulk of all ocean life, the tiny microscopic creatures that dominate the ecosystem. It's only the top surface, right? The ocean can be miles deep! But the density of life in the ocean decreases geometrically with depth. By mass, the top inches contain more life than the entire balance of it. Because, sunlight.

Except the net completely transparent to microscopic organisms like plankton? The section "The System at Sea" on this site [1] goes into detail about the multitude of systems they have to prevent the impact on ocean life. There's some 9 image slides give information about it. With all those considered, am I missing something?

[1]: https://theoceancleanup.com/oceans/

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#38

Post by aaron695 »

xnx wrote: post #9

Credit to this organization from pivoting (AFAIK) from their original plan to scrape the plastic out of the water on the open ocean ("System 001"). Intercepting plastic at river mouths seems much more practical and cost effective.

[dead]

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#39

Post by dylan604 »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #15
Octokiddie wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any insights into what makes this culturally acceptable?

No Ladybird Johnson like figure driving public policy in the 1960s, melding the hippies and government together? The TV was inundated with public service announcements shaming trash throwers in the USA for maybe 15 years. It made a difference. Having seen similar "just throw it on the ground" behavior in India and china, I think that it may be a natural response in a rural culture that needs to be changed once it is…

The "Don't mess with Texas" campaign is supposed to have been fairly effective. I just don't know who is making that determination. If it has been effective, I would hate to see what it without. I'm just not sure where the "learning" is established that some people get it and others don't

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#40

Post by selimthegrim »

wlesieutre wrote: post #36
readthenotes1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No Ladybird Johnson like figure driving public policy in the 1960s, melding the hippies and government together? The TV was inundated with public service announcements shaming trash throwers in the USA for maybe 15 years. It made a difference. Having seen similar "just throw it on the ground" behavior in India and china, I think that it may be a natural response in a rural culture that needs to be changed once it is…

Even “Don’t mess with Texas” started as an anti-littering campaign in the mid-80’s into the 90’s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Mess_with_Texas

The "Walker told me I have litter" mashup/reboot of this is waiting to happen
Post reply on HN