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Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

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Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#161

Post by thaumasiotes »

noahtallen wrote: post #118
maxerickson wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is freshwater usage? My water comes out of a Great Lake and substantially ends up back in it, about as clean as it came out. It's not used up. Some energy is consumed making it potable and pumping it around, and then treating it. Farms in the Midwest happen to catch a lot of rain, are they using freshwater in a different way than an almond orchard in California, or is it the same (my expectation is that the almo…

Completely different scenarios, right? The rainy parts of the Midwest aren’t in a drought which makes water consumption important to track. California is. Anyways, they do use in freshwater differently. Where I grew up in NW Ohio, there is practically no irrigation. It rains enough there’s no need. Freshwater use is passive, in other words. Out west, farms have to actively pump water to irrigate since there’s not eno…

> Where I grew up in NW Ohio, there is practically no irrigation. It rains enough there’s no need. Freshwater use is passive, in other words. Out west, farms have to actively pump water to irrigate since there’s not enough rain.

Interestingly, the natural state of much of California was a swamp. We put in a lot of effort converting the swamp to desert.

If we reestablished the swamps, California would be a much less pleasant place to live, but it might be a better place to grow stuff like rice.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#162

Post by steve_adams_86 »

nimbius wrote: post #77

as someone who fishes the Atlantic twice a year, the wisest advice I ever got was to replace your line every year or two, especially if its left in an unconditioned room or in the sun.

This is commercial gear, though it’s a great idea to keep recreational gear in good shape. It’s a huge shame to lose tens of meters of line attached to a fish which will then be eaten by a predator, and so on. A lot of needless waste and suffering.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#163

Post by steve_adams_86 »

paulcole wrote: post #101

So today the wheel of who-do-we-blame-for-fucking-the-earth settles on commercial fishermen. The reality is that the actual wheel points at me and you and everyone we know (and everyone we don’t). If you’re reading this, the lifestyle you’re living is very likely incompatible with a planet that isn’t ravaged by climate change. You’ve got to make drastic changes to how you choose to live and do everything you can to g…

One of the most dramatic changes an individual can make is switching to a plant based diet. Don’t support fishing, don’t support animal agriculture, and you’re way ahead. Not only in energy expenditure but resource utilization as well. It’s a stunning difference.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#164

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

eru wrote: post #141
causality0 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trucks suck. Even with the US' road-friendly policies, transporting goods via truck is twelve times as expensive as by rail.

Why do (some) profit seeking companies use trucks then?

because the massive subsidies on trucking can make them sometimes convenient enough to be worth it.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#165

Post by adrianN »

01100011 wrote: post #20
ksaj wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are starch-based "plastic" utensils that look/feel like a slightly more matte version of the plastic most people are used to. The school my partner works at used them as a trial for a year. They had straws, spoons, forks, knives and plates made from it. The problem is they are more expensive than regular plastic or paper/cardboard, and people in general seem to be unwilling to pay that bit extra to keep non-bio…

I wonder how they break down outside of a compost environment? My company uses "compostable" plastics which feel like normal plastic. I've used the same compostable clear plastic cup for months on end and it isn't showing any signs of degradation. I suspect it would break down in a proper compost pile(high temps and such) but outside of that environment it seems as durable as traditional plastic. Hopefully in an envi…

I've been using a wooden desk for decades and it's not showing any signs of degradation either, yet wood waste is not an environmental problem. Compostable plastics degrade very slowly compared to other compostable materials. Your normal garden compost heap probably doesn't break them down in a year. But they do decompose much faster than normal plastic, they don't stick around in the environment for millennia.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#166

Post by psi75 »

airstrike wrote: post #108
causality0 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really weird how cars get a pass for so much. It's really weird how trucks get a pass from people who don't give cars a pass. If tire wear is proportional to road wear, the majority of tire-originating microplastics is from semi trucks, not commuter sedans.

The corollary to this argument is that most environmental issues routinely blamed on individual behavior pale in comparison to the externalities from industry and commerce People talk shutting off the faucet while brushing one's teeth but ~70% of global freshwater usage comes from agriculture and ~20% from industry, with municipalities accounting for only 10%

The corporates bank on the idea that if they tell you that you're an oppressor too for using drinking straws, you'll see them as the good guys who can be trusted to keep the world safe (from you, and from the 8 billion poors just like you) and therefore not, say, overthrow them using force.

You bought a latte last February? Well, then, you're also a buyer of human labor. You're a capitalist, too. The only difference between you and Elon Musk is that he's smarter. If capitalism is a problem, then you're part of the problem, because you do after all buy things. If you really believed in your anti-capitalist rhetoric, you'd grow the beans hydroponically in your basement (capabilities that, if you were serious, you would surely possess even if you weren't born into the tiny minority who actually benefit from the widespread and rigid enforcement of asymmetric state services called "property rights").

Meanwhile, the world is on track to be J. G. Ballard's Drowned World by the end of the century due to the persistence of a moribund socioeconomic system with no exit strategy or real means of improvement.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#167

Post by throwaway0x7E6 »

swayvil wrote: post #126
bargle0 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the alternatives? Back every store up to a rail line?

Localize manufacturing for one.

manufacturing out of thin air? if you aren't transporting the finished product, then you're transporting the ingredients.

unless you picture raising wheat in urban environment, in which case I'll just leave you to it.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#168

Post by adrianN »

recycledmatt wrote: post #4

It is 50,000 tons per year. In plastic recycling terms, not that much volume. A very large plastic recycling facility can do about 200,000 tons in a year. http://intelligentliving.co/worlds-largest-climate-neutral-p... A tractor trailer hauls roughly 20 tons - so all the sea nets in the world in a year could be hauled by 2,500 trailers. Not that much in the scheme of things.

Not a terrible quantity in one year, but the stuff essentially never disappears, so you have to sum over all years starting from a couple of decades back to the hypothetical future date where we finally manage to stop polluting (or killed all marine life). That adds up to a lot of garbage.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#169

Post by ksaj »

adrianN wrote: post #165
01100011 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how they break down outside of a compost environment? My company uses "compostable" plastics which feel like normal plastic. I've used the same compostable clear plastic cup for months on end and it isn't showing any signs of degradation. I suspect it would break down in a proper compost pile(high temps and such) but outside of that environment it seems as durable as traditional plastic. Hopefully in an envi…

I've been using a wooden desk for decades and it's not showing any signs of degradation either, yet wood waste is not an environmental problem. Compostable plastics degrade very slowly compared to other compostable materials. Your normal garden compost heap probably doesn't break them down in a year. But they do decompose much faster than normal plastic, they don't stick around in the environment for millennia.

A well protected / maintained desk versus the usual stuff thrown into a rotting heap of other delicious-to-bugs and vulnerable-to-water items isn't a realistic comparison, so I don't get the gyst of this response.

Besides, I was talking about a set of products that are made from starch and cellulose. They'll break down real fast with the rest of the compost. Faster than your desk that also would degrade and get eaten up under those same conditions.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#170

Post by DoingIsLearning »

gruez wrote: post #109
airstrike wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The corollary to this argument is that most environmental issues routinely blamed on individual behavior pale in comparison to the externalities from industry and commerce People talk shutting off the faucet while brushing one's teeth but ~70% of global freshwater usage comes from agriculture and ~20% from industry, with municipalities accounting for only 10%

> The corollary to this argument is that most environmental issues routinely blamed on individual behavior pale in comparison to the externalities from industry and commerce I agree with internalizing externalities, but let's not pretend that isn't part of individual behavior (consumer demand drives industry), or that individuals don't benefit from them in some way.

> consumer demand drives industry

And industry lobby drives government policy and regulation.

Industry apologism will not help us move towards mitigating climate crisis effects.

Industry has externalized most of their environmental costs, this needs to change ASAP.

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