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

Monitoring marine litter from space

esa.int

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 91 posts

Re: Monitoring marine litter from space

#11

Post by wffurr »

boffinAudio wrote: post #8

At some point I wonder if its going to be viable to harvest ocean plastic, and use it to produce energy .. and every time I see one of my favourite remote-beach Youtubers climb over piles of plastic rubble on some remote tropical island, I can't help get the feeling that there has to be some kind of way to make a portable, self-replicating 3D printer that can go out there and just reproduce itself. But I guess the ch…

"portable, self-replicating 3D printer" you mean bacteria? I am sure someone is working on plastic eating bacteria but it might not be a great idea to have it loose in the world.

Re: Monitoring marine litter from space

#12

Post by globalise83 »

wffurr wrote: post #11
boffinAudio wrote: post #8

At some point I wonder if its going to be viable to harvest ocean plastic, and use it to produce energy .. and every time I see one of my favourite remote-beach Youtubers climb over piles of plastic rubble on some remote tropical island, I can't help get the feeling that there has to be some kind of way to make a portable, self-replicating 3D printer that can go out there and just reproduce itself. But I guess the ch…

"portable, self-replicating 3D printer" you mean bacteria? I am sure someone is working on plastic eating bacteria but it might not be a great idea to have it loose in the world.

Nature seems to be on the case already, for example: https://futurism.com/the-byte/plastic-eating-fungus-pacific-...

Re: Monitoring marine litter from space

#13

Post by vmfunction »

wffurr wrote: post #11
boffinAudio wrote: post #8

At some point I wonder if its going to be viable to harvest ocean plastic, and use it to produce energy .. and every time I see one of my favourite remote-beach Youtubers climb over piles of plastic rubble on some remote tropical island, I can't help get the feeling that there has to be some kind of way to make a portable, self-replicating 3D printer that can go out there and just reproduce itself. But I guess the ch…

"portable, self-replicating 3D printer" you mean bacteria? I am sure someone is working on plastic eating bacteria but it might not be a great idea to have it loose in the world.

Many scientists/people only think about problem in the scope of the their discipline. Keep in mind this is the problem-solution knee jerk (treat the symptom) responses is how we got to our current situation in this world.

Oh we don't like horse dung, we going with cars now!

With bio-engineering such as this, many intergenerational horizontal studies need to be done before it even should be consider releasing in the wild.

Re: Monitoring marine litter from space

#14

Post by aitchnyu »

317070 wrote: post #10
agomez314 wrote: post #2

What’s the use of tracking waste if no efforts will be done to stop its production? Cleanups are nice and all but you gotta stop the bleeding where it starts. Maybe I’m being too cynical?

Now in the UN, or at the next climate conference, people can actually say: "Look, Vietnam, you are somehow responsible for 12.2% of the marine plastic in the ocean, with only 1.23% of the world population. We are making this trade agreement or that international investment conditional on that number improving by 2028." Before, there was simply no way of monitoring these things. I had to invent that number. That is a…

I was assuming the UN has to deploy bouys or ships at river mouths to the anger of the country owning the territory.

Re: Monitoring marine litter from space

#16

Post by dewey »

317070 wrote: post #10
agomez314 wrote: post #2

What’s the use of tracking waste if no efforts will be done to stop its production? Cleanups are nice and all but you gotta stop the bleeding where it starts. Maybe I’m being too cynical?

Now in the UN, or at the next climate conference, people can actually say: "Look, Vietnam, you are somehow responsible for 12.2% of the marine plastic in the ocean, with only 1.23% of the world population. We are making this trade agreement or that international investment conditional on that number improving by 2028." Before, there was simply no way of monitoring these things. I had to invent that number. That is a…

> Using a six-year historical series of 300 000 satellite images, the team scanned the entire Mediterranean Sea every three days, at a spatial resolution of 10 metres, on the hunt for windrows.

Indeed, but I'd assume it's also a long way to go from doing it for a small section of the world to doing it everywhere and with multiple countries participating.

Re: Monitoring marine litter from space

#17

Post by lukan »

boffinAudio wrote: post #8

At some point I wonder if its going to be viable to harvest ocean plastic, and use it to produce energy .. and every time I see one of my favourite remote-beach Youtubers climb over piles of plastic rubble on some remote tropical island, I can't help get the feeling that there has to be some kind of way to make a portable, self-replicating 3D printer that can go out there and just reproduce itself. But I guess the ch…

"At some point I wonder if its going to be viable to harvest ocean plastic"

I hope not. You can harvest landfills much cheaper today. If that becomes more expensive than taking plastic from the ocean, then the oceans would be really full of plastic.

Re: Monitoring marine litter from space

#18

Post by mulmen »

agomez314 wrote: post #2

What’s the use of tracking waste if no efforts will be done to stop its production? Cleanups are nice and all but you gotta stop the bleeding where it starts. Maybe I’m being too cynical?

There are efforts to reduce the production of waste and to eliminate ocean dumping. There are thousands of such efforts. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.

> Maybe I’m being too cynical?

Yes. What’s the point in spreading negative falsehoods?

Re: Monitoring marine litter from space

#19

Post by robertlagrant »

boffinAudio wrote: post #8

At some point I wonder if its going to be viable to harvest ocean plastic, and use it to produce energy .. and every time I see one of my favourite remote-beach Youtubers climb over piles of plastic rubble on some remote tropical island, I can't help get the feeling that there has to be some kind of way to make a portable, self-replicating 3D printer that can go out there and just reproduce itself. But I guess the ch…

> a giant hopper into which one can pile collected plastics from the environment

A bit like Mr Fusion[0]?

[0] https://backtothefuture.fandom.com/wiki/Mr._Fusion

Re: Monitoring marine litter from space

#20

Post by raincole »

agomez314 wrote: post #2

What’s the use of tracking waste if no efforts will be done to stop its production? Cleanups are nice and all but you gotta stop the bleeding where it starts. Maybe I’m being too cynical?

It's just the very first step. How are we going to stop it if we don't even know where it comes from?
Post reply on HN