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Our biggest ever river catch?

theoceancleanup.com

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Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#131

Post by dotancohen »

amatecha wrote: post #73
aunty_helen wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pla…

  > having discard that is biodegradable (and perhaps can directly contribute to a compost pile) is a very worthwhile goal.
No, biodegradable is far worse for the environment. Normal plastic sits on the Earth's surface for years, as an eyesore to remind us to clean up our act. Biodegradable plastic releases CO2 directly to the atmosphere quickly, contributing to climate change more quickly (albeit with less eyesore).

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#132

Post by wil421 »

Octokiddie wrote: post #12
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.

Any insights into what makes this culturally acceptable?

It’s acceptable because there is no other option. Except burning it and I’m sure that happens too.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#134

Post by paulsutter »

pentae wrote: post #82

A commendable operation but sadly, this is a very small fraction of a percentage of the 8-10 million tons of plastic entering the ocean each year. The Ocean Cleanup themselves have estimated at least 75% of ocean trash is from fishing boats, and from living on a remote tropical island myself, at least 90% of the things you find washed up on the beach appear to be from Chinese fishing vessels. (there's usually Chinese…

Consider this project the R&D towards a scalable solution, mass production reduces costs. Even more so with automated manufacturing that will soon be possible with the new robotics

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#136

Post by JoeAltmaier »

dingnuts wrote: post #62
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sure you, random Redditor, er, Orange Site Commenter, are an expert on both the topic and the design of the mechanism in question If only Boyan Slat had thought to ask you first

Oh, this project is widely criticized over its entire existence. Don't rely on some commenter on HN for sure. Do your own research. It won't take long.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#137

Post by JoeAltmaier »

titzer wrote: post #74
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

The 'garbage patch' is a soup of plastic flakes. Not like river trash; nothing at all like river trash.

To the degree this enterprise can remove pepper-sided particles of plastic floating near the surface, it will impact microscopic organisms almost exclusively. To the degree it does not clean at that level, it is not an ocean-cleanup device.

River garbage is, I think (and I began by saying) a brilliant solution. Keep it clean, rather than clean-up-after. Almost all the garbage comes from humans on land after all.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#138

Post by JoeAltmaier »

stephen_g wrote: post #68
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hopefully this has already been researched to quantify the amount of life using plastic as a habitat. Intuitively though it just seems like it's going to be such a tiny, tiny fraction that the concern is basically not worth thinking about compared to the problems of ocean garbage...

The garbage patch is a soup of pepper-sized plastic flakes. You go there, you don't even know it's a problem until you take water samples and sieve them with a fine mesh.

Just as it's so easy to think of the ocean as fish and whales, it's easy to think of garbage on a human scale - yogurt cups, straws, shopping bags. That assumption leads us astray from the actual nature of the problem.

Keep it out, with this device, sieving rivers. A brilliant solution. Not so applicable to the open ocean. That's all I said, am saying, and am finished repeating.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#139

Post by Workaccount2 »

doubloon wrote: post #124
pentae wrote: post #82

A commendable operation but sadly, this is a very small fraction of a percentage of the 8-10 million tons of plastic entering the ocean each year. The Ocean Cleanup themselves have estimated at least 75% of ocean trash is from fishing boats, and from living on a remote tropical island myself, at least 90% of the things you find washed up on the beach appear to be from Chinese fishing vessels. (there's usually Chinese…

China is just adopting western ideas. Socialize the cost and privatize the profit. The western solution which is to make criminals of business people doesnt work well enough. Epa superfund sites go unfixed for decades. Governments should just print money and hire cleanup companies. Its like a massive jobs program for when AI takes normal jobs.

Profit min-maxing precedes the west by a few millennia.

Ignoring morals to lower costs is so plainly obvious as a way to increase profits that it is almost an insult to insinuate that any one group of people didn't think of it themselves.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#140

Post by xolox »

dotancohen wrote: post #131
amatecha wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pla…

> having discard that is biodegradable (and perhaps can directly contribute to a compost pile) is a very worthwhile goal. No, biodegradable is far worse for the environment. Normal plastic sits on the Earth's surface for years, as an eyesore to remind us to clean up our act. Biodegradable plastic releases CO2 directly to the atmosphere quickly, contributing to climate change more quickly (albeit with less eyesore).

This is completely disregarding the impact of microplastics on the health of animals, plants and ecosystems (FWIW I am aware that bioplastics shed microplastics as well).
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