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Our biggest ever river catch?

theoceancleanup.com

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Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#41

Post by nickburns »

NamTaf wrote: post #37
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

no parties of this exchange are missing anything here except for not one having been privy to the original and actual design of the system—which specific factors identified (i.e. surface microbiome, etc.), as everyone's comments demonstrate, are clearly worth having been taken, and continue to be worth taking into consideration with previous and future improvements and/or redesigns of such. no need for any of this standoffishness.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#42

Post by dylan604 »

nine_zeros wrote: post #6

This is the kind of effort that money should be directed towards. Not the ad infested crap on eyeballs. The ROI is literally cleaner environment. If there was only a way to tax proportional to emissions producers.

> The ROI is literally cleaner environment.

You can see exactly why this would not impress people concerned with ROI, right?

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#43

Post by nickburns »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #34
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

you'll make your progeny exceedingly wealthy beyond even your wildest dreams and for generations to come if you can answer the first question. but you're obviously just being sarcastic given the second, so no, that's not likely what they intend to do with it.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#44

Post by JoeAltmaier »

NamTaf wrote: post #37
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

The life has, like it or not, integrated with the trash. Adhered to it; put spores on it; coated it. Remove the trash - remove some fraction of the life.

Not trying to be standoffish. Just being aware that the law of unintended consequences will bite you in the ass every time.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#45

Post by [deleted] »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #44
NamTaf wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

The life has, like it or not, integrated with the trash. Adhered to it; put spores on it; coated it. Remove the trash - remove some fraction of the life. Not trying to be standoffish. Just being aware that the law of unintended consequences will bite you in the ass every time.

[deleted]

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#46

Post by cdrini »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #28
buovjaga wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're still working on open oceans: https://theoceancleanup.com/oceans/

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.

They have a lot of precautions in place to avoid damaging any wild life. They move slowly, and their nets have special channels to allow animals to pass through and avoid getting caught.

See the "managing environmental impact" section here: https://theoceancleanup.com/oceans/

I imagine there must be _some_ non zero risk, but I imagine the benefits of removing the plastic outweigh the risk. Ie removing the plastic is better for the wildlife overall, despite the small potential risk.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#47

Post by cdrini »

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

This organisation is more specifically focused on river/ocean plastic removal right now. The ocean conservancy is another organisation that, amongst a wide variety of ocean-related efforts, also deals with trying to improve legislation/etc further upstream (pun intended :P).

Both do pretty impressive work! I personally find The Ocean Cleanup's more narrow focus at times useful, since it makes them a bit more defensible. Meanwhile finding exactly what the ocean conservancy is even doing is a little difficult because they touch a ton of ocean related things.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#48

Post by aunty_helen »

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

Here’s how it works in Colombia, we separate our rubbish and recycling, put the bags out for the garbage truck in the morning. Homeless “recyclers” come around and pick through your trash looking for plastics they can sell to fund their crack addiction. Sometimes they just take the whole bag down to the river bank, cut it open and sort through the stuff they want discarding the rest on the bank. Next time it rains the plastic gets washed into the river and here we are.

The western mind can’t comprehend the level of stratification in society that leads to problems like this. It’s not a case of bumper stickers and catchy slogans for school kids, it’s people trying to survive at a level below any societal cohesion.

The root cause as I see it, plastic. Everything is plastic wrapped in plastic as there’s cleanliness and trust issues in society. Want a bag of lollies? Plastic bag, individually wrapped lollies with an inner plastic wrap as well.

Swapping to trash that’s going to break down in the river is a much easier solution. Some places have started to do this in the last couple years, but it’s mostly virtue signaling fast food places that want to give a western feel to charge higher prices. So you get two layers of plastic on your vegetables but your McDonald’s straw dissolves in your coke.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#49

Post by raincom »

latchkey wrote: post #31
snielson wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, lack of "garbage collection infrastructure" better explains what's going on in SE Asia, India. When there is no such infrastructure, where else people dump?

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#50

Post by cdrini »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #33
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.

That's a potential risk, but I think working on both is ok. Organisations like the ocean conservancy deal with trying to change more upstream things like legislation. Even when we do fix the source of the problem we'll have A LOT of ocean plastic to clean up, so starting now seems reasonable. Again, so long as people are also working on the source further upstream, which they are!
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