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Our biggest ever river catch?

theoceancleanup.com

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Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#151

Post by dotancohen »

missedthecue wrote: post #143
dotancohen wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what happens to that carbon when the plastic decomposes, biodegrades, burns, is digested, or meets any other end? That once-below-ground carbon is now in the atmosphere, whether it takes a year or a decade to break down.

If the plastic is properly desposed of, this doesn't happen. When it gets into rivers and oceans is when this happens.

Even Orient disposed of plastic decomposes and biodegrades, and is often burned.

And recycling most common types of plastics actually releases more CO2 than creating new plastic products. There is no panacea one the carbon has been pumped out of the ground.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#152

Post by happyopossum »

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

“We” can - many states have relatively large (5-10 cents/bottle) charges for plastic bottles, that is ostensibly used for funding recycling and cleanup programs.

A bunch of 3rd world countries on the other hand?

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#153

Post by droopyEyelids »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #139
doubloon wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Any parent can see that "outsourcing externalities" is the default way of thinking of all humans.

Accounting for your externalities is something you have learn, and there is no guarantee individuals or societies learn it.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#154

Post by rTX5CMRXIfFG »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #146
liotier wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plastics erode and degrade into microplastics, that get into the food chain... A carbon sink of sorts, but I would do without it.

Rather than focusing on recycling plastic, we should be focusing on properly sequestering it. Dig tunnels deep in the earth were it can sit for millions of years before breaking back down into whatever simpler hydrocarbons.

The drive for profit created plastics, where's the profit in your suggestion

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#155

Post by Workaccount2 »

rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote: post #154
Workaccount2 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than focusing on recycling plastic, we should be focusing on properly sequestering it. Dig tunnels deep in the earth were it can sit for millions of years before breaking back down into whatever simpler hydrocarbons.

The drive for profit created plastics, where's the profit in your suggestion

There is none, it would have to be tax payer funded.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#156

Post by rTX5CMRXIfFG »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #147
stevage wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's certainly an unusual take

It's not a take, it's strictly true. Plastic pollution is bad, but it's different (and orders of magnitude more manageable) than the pollution that is causing climate change.

> orders of magnitude more manageable

Nope, not true. Easy to say you can regulate the heck out of enforcing it, but if it was easy it would have been done long ago. Besides there not being a feasible and cost-effective way to track all the plastic in circulation, trust people would be quick to protest about government overreach on their right to pollute

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#157

Post by liotier »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #146
liotier wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plastics erode and degrade into microplastics, that get into the food chain... A carbon sink of sorts, but I would do without it.

Rather than focusing on recycling plastic, we should be focusing on properly sequestering it. Dig tunnels deep in the earth were it can sit for millions of years before breaking back down into whatever simpler hydrocarbons.

The costs and carbon emissions of digging deep tunnels vast enough to contain our plastic waste might make it negative value.

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#158

Post by rTX5CMRXIfFG »

scotty79 wrote: post #106
klysm wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling plastics a carbon sink is dubious because you have to spend energy to get the oil out in the first place. How about calling it an oil sink?

Still good. Way better than burning it.

Not making it is way better

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#159

Post by NicoJuicy »

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.

95% of all plastic from rivers comes from these 10, none are in the west:

Eight of them are in Asia: the Yangtze; Indus; Yellow; Hai He; Ganges; Pearl; Amur; Mekong; and two in Africa – the Nile and the Niger.

https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2017/11/06/jus...

Re: Our biggest ever river catch?

#160

Post by latchkey »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #150
latchkey wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saigon is a massive city and has garbage collection infrastructure, yet people still dump trash into the rivers that run through the cities. It is actual culture to just toss trash onto the streets, into the gutters and into the rivers. I used to live alongside Truong Sa river and watched people dump their trash into it all day long. There is even a govt run group that goes up and down the river all day long picking…

I have worked with people who grew up in Central America and just drop garbage on the ground when done with something. Even if the trash is 20 feet away. It's hard to shake natural habits from your youth, especially if you don't even care that much.

My experience is that it isn't about not caring.

It is that people who have very little (or come from very little) care about different things, like putting food on the table, today. It is survival instinct only.

Quality of education goes a long way too. Do they teach sustainability in schools there? Even if they did, how many generations of kids do we have to go through before they teach these things to their kids?

There is no concept of a week or a month or 10 years from now. When you're lacking that, you have no care for the future or how your actions today, will affect things down the road.

It really was eye opening taking myself out of my nurture and actually living in a place like SE Asia.

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