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Our biggest ever river catch?

theoceancleanup.com

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Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#71

Post by foota »

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.

It seems to me like removing a non negligible amount of biomass from the ocean would be infeasible, so it's difficult for me to see the impact this could possibly have.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#72

Post by aspectmin »

I LOVE this company. We need more of them. Innovative, Solving world problems. Aware of their impact.

I am always encouraging people to donate. These are the kinds of projects that might save us.

I wish YC, and it's kin, would fund companies like this.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#73

Post by amatecha »

aunty_helen wrote: post #48
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 th…

The western mind can definitely comprehend it. When it's garbage pickup day in my city, sometimes people are going by on bicycles rooting through trash bins (or recycling bins if it's recycling pickup day) and taking anything they can turn in for a recycling deposit. This is in Vancouver, Canada. It's probably not nearly as prevalent as in Colombia, but yeah...

And yes, for sure, the root cause is the creation of plastic and its inclusion in nearly all commercial products. It's everywhere, and it's not the fault of you and I. We didn't choose it. I completely agree that having discard that is biodegradable (and perhaps can directly contribute to a compost pile) is a very worthwhile goal.

Oh yeah, a bunch of cities here banned plastic takeout bags, but it's implemented in such a poor way that it's now just a great profit center for fast food restaurants: they are _legally required_ to charge $0.25 for a bag, even if it's a paper bag. I'm sure McDonalds absolutely loves this new policy. They already gave out paper bags with takeout, but now they cost the customer $0.25! It's especially funny because now all the restaurants give you these thick "plastic fabric" bags (and charge you for them) which you'll get more use out of, but are not any better for the environment. I still get one every single time I get takeout from any sushi place. Now instead of a bag full of thin plastic bags in my closet, I have a bag full of just as many super-thick plastic/cloth bags in my closet! Good stuff. Some are recyclable, I have a huge stack of these from takeout: https://lppackaging.ca/collections/biodegradable-bags/produc... ... I wonder if I can just tell them I don't want a bag, and arrive with my own...

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#74

Post by titzer »

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.

It's a concern, but it's orders of magnitude better to clean up the garbage than not clean up the garbage. Like, the entire foodchain being decimated by choking on floating garbage kind of difference. I mean, if you want to optimize for a soup of green goo and floating cottage cheese containers, that isn't exactly "leave no trace".

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#75

Post by missedthecue »

aspectmin wrote: post #72

I LOVE this company. We need more of them. Innovative, Solving world problems. Aware of their impact. I am always encouraging people to donate. These are the kinds of projects that might save us. I wish YC, and it's kin, would fund companies like this.

Does it have a sustainable revenue stream or is it more of a charity?

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#76

Post by missedthecue »

dav43 wrote: post #56

Why can’t we just start charging producers of waste a direct cost. If we charged producers (McDonald’s, coke, Pepsi, supermarket, uniliver etc) $1 for every plastic bottle they used, we’d have a budget for clean up and a change in motivations. Suddenly glass reuse programs are suddenly cost comparable etc

Plastic is very good for the environment relatively speaking.

- It's a carbon sink,

- it's lightweight (reducing transport emissions)

- it takes very little energy to produce compared to glass or metals which require furnaces

- and has very little carbon emissions during production unlike paper packaging which has a huge carbon footprint.

The only problem with plastic is that it doesn't always make it to the proper disposal place. This isn't Coke's fault, people can just as easily dump a paper carton in the street. I think you'd get more dividends by ensuring the public has the motive (stick or carrot) to not dump their garbage into waterways, and in very poor countries, funding sanitation infrastructure.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#77

Post by stevage »

missedthecue wrote: post #76
dav43 wrote: post #56

Why can’t we just start charging producers of waste a direct cost. If we charged producers (McDonald’s, coke, Pepsi, supermarket, uniliver etc) $1 for every plastic bottle they used, we’d have a budget for clean up and a change in motivations. Suddenly glass reuse programs are suddenly cost comparable etc

Plastic is very good for the environment relatively speaking. - It's a carbon sink, - it's lightweight (reducing transport emissions) - it takes very little energy to produce compared to glass or metals which require furnaces - and has very little carbon emissions during production unlike paper packaging which has a huge carbon footprint. The only problem with plastic is that it doesn't always make it to the proper d…

What do you mean it is a carbon sink? Extracting oil from underground then turning it into plastic above ground? Or do you mean something different?

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#78

Post by stevage »

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

Uninformed guess here but collecting at the river end feels much more efficient than creating culture change in thousands of third world villages...

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#79

Post by Rebelgecko »

linuxftw wrote: post #55

The 'plastic problem' seems like it could be easily solved with a weight-based deposit system. Start paying people $1/lb for plastic rubbish and you won't be able to find any laying around. Plastic isn't very dense, so you might need to up the price per lb, but paying people for their waste means municipalities don't have to send people around to collect it in the first place and you don't have to fund cleanup effort…

In my state, the fee for plastic grocery bags comes out to a couple bucks per pound but anecdotally it hasn't made a huge difference in the amount of litter

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#80

Post by nick7376182 »

missedthecue wrote: post #75
aspectmin wrote: post #72

I LOVE this company. We need more of them. Innovative, Solving world problems. Aware of their impact. I am always encouraging people to donate. These are the kinds of projects that might save us. I wish YC, and it's kin, would fund companies like this.

Does it have a sustainable revenue stream or is it more of a charity?

Charge the country for diverted trash, a la waste management companies would be a good place to start.
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