Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says • Hacker News Board

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#211

Post by magashna » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 7:36 PM UTC

pureliquidhw wrote: post #189

soperj wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The warehouse I worked in had a rodent infestation, they didn't eat the edible packing peanuts as far as I could tell though. -- never saw any with bites out of them and they didn't noticeably disappear. As an aside, don't drink from beer/pop cans without washing the tops.

please elaborate on why not? I would think they'd have to be relatively sterile. Boxes are stacked flat, can tops must be in a pringles style stack until they're assembled into a can. Where are they contaminated?

For soda/beer cans, wipe a damp cloth on them and try to get into that little moat around the top. It's almost always filthy.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#212

Post by knodi123 » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 7:39 PM UTC

codesushi42 wrote: post #208

The pointless use of plastic is astounding. Just the other day I was sorting through electronic cables that were individually packaged in their own plastic bags. What the fuck was the point? Even the actual connector pins had their own dedicated plastic covers, and the cable was tied with a plastic tie. Yet the plastic bags were somehow still needed? Jesus fucking Christ.

The reason is that each cable in its own package is a separate SKU, purchased from a separate supplier, and tossed one-per on an assembly line that is filling the box you finally received. I suspect that if, say, samsung or nintendo was told to stop putting bags on every single cable, they'd just add a step to their assembly line for snipping open the existing bags and tossing them in the garbage.

The real solution will be (as usual) more complex than you'd guess at first, and I don't have a good idea for where you'd start. Maybe find the point in the supply chain where these baggies are first introduced and add a tax on them at that point?

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#213

Post by codesushi42 » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 7:42 PM UTC

knodi123 wrote: post #212

codesushi42 wrote: post #208

The pointless use of plastic is astounding. Just the other day I was sorting through electronic cables that were individually packaged in their own plastic bags. What the fuck was the point? Even the actual connector pins had their own dedicated plastic covers, and the cable was tied with a plastic tie. Yet the plastic bags were somehow still needed? Jesus fucking Christ.

The reason is that each cable in its own package is a separate SKU, purchased from a separate supplier, and tossed one-per on an assembly line that is filling the box you finally received. I suspect that if, say, samsung or nintendo was told to stop putting bags on every single cable, they'd just add a step to their assembly line for snipping open the existing bags and tossing them in the garbage. The real solution w…

That may be true, but in this case all of the cables were the same and from the same manufacturer.

There was no reason why the plastic bags were needed. None.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#214

Post by Tomminn » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 7:53 PM UTC

paulgerhardt wrote: post #121

I spend a day or two every year cleaning up a beach on a island off the coast of China. Its location relative to local sea currents makes it a natural garbage trap. It has been a radicalizing experience but maybe not in the way you would think. Anecdotally about a third of the trash I pick up is fishing related - some nets, some buoys, but mostly thousands of small plastic sardine sized fishing net floats. About a th…

The fishing gets me. I used to fish from the shoreline a lot, but when I went snorkeling in a couple of beautiful places in the world all the lost tackle and line just made me angry at my past self. It's very hard to fish from the shoreline without leaving trash everywhere.

It's hard to think that every dollar I spent on tackle was a dollar I spent polluting the shoreline. It was out of sight, so it was out of mind.

I remember this incredible natural aquarium, formed in a wide, deep circular depression of a coral reef. And a single 30m piece of neon line riiight through the middle of it. Doubtless, it was left by a fisherman who swore at losing another $2 sinker, with no concept of what else they'd just done.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#215

Post by agent008t » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 8:01 PM UTC

proaralyst wrote: post #82

tomp wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sometimes wonder if this "plastic straw" wasn't another of 4Chan's trolling attempts... Like, sure, reduce plastic straw usage, but most bars just replaced them with paper straws. That is obviously a stupidly wrong solution, the vast majority of the population can easily manage without straws entirely, so really it just shows that people don't actually care about the environment, it's all just virtue signalling...

Why are paper straws the wrong solution? Even if they take a little more energy to produce they at least don't leave long-term waste behind.

Doesn't paper production require trees to be cut down?

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#216

Post by forgotmypw3 » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 8:17 PM UTC

Tomminn wrote: post #214

paulgerhardt wrote: post #121

I spend a day or two every year cleaning up a beach on a island off the coast of China. Its location relative to local sea currents makes it a natural garbage trap. It has been a radicalizing experience but maybe not in the way you would think. Anecdotally about a third of the trash I pick up is fishing related - some nets, some buoys, but mostly thousands of small plastic sardine sized fishing net floats. About a th…

The fishing gets me. I used to fish from the shoreline a lot, but when I went snorkeling in a couple of beautiful places in the world all the lost tackle and line just made me angry at my past self. It's very hard to fish from the shoreline without leaving trash everywhere. It's hard to think that every dollar I spent on tackle was a dollar I spent polluting the shoreline. It was out of sight, so it was out of mind.…

It's thinking like this that led me down the path of rejecting money/currency for the most part. Every dollar I spent is a vote for producing more of whatever I'm buying, directly correlated with habitat loss (for humans included) and animal deaths. And each transaction is like a curtain from behind which the finished product appears, handed to you with no information about its origin.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#217

Post by pembrook » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 8:39 PM UTC

spodek wrote: post #128

rantwasp wrote: post #26

This is known. The number I have heard floated around is 45%. So, commercial fishing nets are a big problem when it comes to plastic in the oceans. And here we are "saving the planet", by reducing the plastic straw consumption: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/07/18/anti-straw-mo... https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-06-07/plasti... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/business/plastic-straws-b...…

Looking at elements loses sight of the system. The boats are there as part of a system driven by growth in GDP and population, externalizing costs, and related goals. We can say it's not us tossing the bottle overboard, but buying things the boats transport supports the system. Among the most important leverage points for changing a system are its goals and values. Changing from growth to enjoying what we have and fr…

I believe you are genuinely trying to help solve the problem. However I think your plan of action is misguided, and is making things worse. Your ideas only appeal to certain personality types in rich countries. They make an enemy out of everybody else.

Your framing of the solution as "Humans need to change from growth to enjoying what we have" is wrong. This is diametrically opposed to human nature--you're literally swimming upstream on this one. It's not going to happen.

If we look at the solution in a way that harnesses the natural tendencies of humans to compete with each other and seek better lives for their children--you could describe it as the following: We need to find newer, more environmentally friendly technologies, faster. This is the Elon Musk approach, and he's proven it works.

Instead of spending billions of dollars on public education programs to eliminate plastic straws, why not direct that money toward inventing bio-degradable straws that are cheaper than plastic? This is absolutely doable.

Instead of telling people to stop flying to visit their family, why not work toward creating more fuel efficient forms of air travel?

You're misguided if you think wrapping yourself in the self-satisfied flag of "do-gooder" and shouting loudly at people to join you is going to have any meaningful impact.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#218

Post by theptip » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 8:41 PM UTC

viscanti wrote: post #107

MichaelApproved wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here you are creating a straw man argument. Reducing straws won’t “save the planet” on its own. We will improve the planet by doing multiple things. Reducing plastic use (less packaging, fewer straws, reusable shopping bags) all play a role in a much bigger effort.

> We will improve the planet by doing multiple things. The problem is that people don't have infinite time or attention. So if you raise awareness and guy buy-in for something like straws, you took away time and awareness from things that could have actually made a difference. To make things worse, people will eventually realize that getting rid of straws didn't have much impact and would be less likely to participat…

> The problem is that people don't have infinite time or attention.

Exactly this. Furthermore, we should be thinking about these issues in terms of ROI; how much time/effort/political capital does this intervention cost? And how much utility does it yield? Banning straws vs. sending them to landfill - not much difference in utility there as I see it.

Unfortunately a lot of movement environmentalism (every movement, really) is just virtue signaling ("Look at me, I fit in to this community, I don't use plastic straws!") rather than actions that are rationally constructed to make a difference.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#219

Post by tracker1 » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 8:44 PM UTC

How long can we keep giving China, India etc a pass? And ourselves in allowing this level of irresponsible trade to happen?

We're busy panicking about "climate change" in terms of something that is going to end the world in a dozen years, it probably isn't... That said, pollution in and of itself should be a goal in terms of not doing it, and not trading with nations that do. As it is, there are cities in the U.S. I pretty much avoid or won't go to because the air quality is so bad that I can't stand being there. People need to stop with the boogie-man scare tactics pushing a political agenda and actually start concentrating on the very real issues that should be higher order priorities.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#220

Post by rantwasp » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 8:49 PM UTC

therealdrag0 wrote: post #199

vfc1 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we need to focus on the thing that has the bigger impact first Why is this, why wait to solve the fishing net problems before taking other measures? I see this line of thought a lot here in Hacker News, especially in topics related to climate change for example. These things can and should be tackled in parallel at the same time. We can all take responsibility personally, how about trying to use less single-use pla…

Do you have the experience of triaging bugs/features at work? There's always more problems then we can solve at once. There is only so many man hours/money/attention available.

ha. i was originally thinking performance optimizations but I like your example more