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Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

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

#241

Post by Falling3 »

DonHopkins wrote: post #162
stavros wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I don't mind fish, they smell and taste like nothing to me. I hate crustaceans/etc because they look disgusting, basically cockroaches of the sea. I can't understand how people look at them and still eat them (obligatory XKCD here https://www.xkcd.com/1268/ ).

I was eating dinner at a Thai restaurant with an ideological vegetarian friend of mine, when I noticed that he ordered prawns. So I teased him with "For heaven's sake, John! You're a vegetarian! Why are you eating Prawns??? Prawns are insects!!!" fully expecting to have an enjoyable argument about whether or not prawns qualified as insects for the purpose of vegetarianism, a hill I was willing to die on, for which I…

Shrimping is so bad for the environment and other marine life. The amount of bycatch involved is disturbing. He made a pretty lousy argument.

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

#242

Post by MauranKilom »

pembrook wrote: post #217
spodek wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> why not work toward creating more fuel efficient forms of air travel?

There is no lack of incentive for this to be invented. The global airline industry is approaching 1 trillion USD in revenue. Climate concerns are not the thing that will provoke innovation here.

Besides, "fly less" is infinitely more tangible. When you become aware that skipping one intercontinental plane (round)trip has the same positive CO2 impact as going from moderate meat consumption to veganism for one year (!) you might weigh your travel options differently. I know I do.

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

#243

Post by s_y_n_t_a_x »

undersuit wrote: post #240
rsj_hn wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people's teeth are sensitive to cold. They like to use straws to be able skip the teeth while ingesting a cold beverage. This is why the straw was invented -- to make it easy to consume icy cold drinks. Very strange that this must be explained to people who think straws are completely superfluous. If they were superfluous, people wouldn't be using them. This is a great example of Chesterton's Fence. https://en.w…

You roll your lower lip over your bottom front teeth, bring the container to your mouth, and pour the liquid into your mouth while gently resting the lip of the container on your lip.

Girls need straws for lipstick, guys need straws for beards, elderly need straws for health concerns.

They aren't "completely superfluous".

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

#244

Post by spodek »

pembrook wrote: post #217
spodek wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Efficiency doesn't mean lowering total waste and often creates more.

Reducing is strategic. Efficiency, such as bio-degradable straws and most newer technologies like you described, is tactical.

I covered this in part in my podcast "episode 183: Reusing and recycling are tactical. Reducing is strategic": https://shows.pippa.io/leadership-and-the-environment/episod....

I'm sorry you think reduction is misguided. Your appeal to human nature opposes hundreds of thousands of years of human history before the past few thousand.

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

#245

Post by DONNAJACK101 »

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

#246

Post by undersuit »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #243
undersuit wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You roll your lower lip over your bottom front teeth, bring the container to your mouth, and pour the liquid into your mouth while gently resting the lip of the container on your lip.

Girls need straws for lipstick, guys need straws for beards, elderly need straws for health concerns. They aren't "completely superfluous".

People don't need lipstick, lickstick is superfluous.

I've never needed a straw while drinking and I facial hair, but I guess personal anecdotes are useless, and cleaning your face occasionally with a napkin(or a sleeve) is... forbidden?

As for the elderly, if your health requires you to use a straw why are you relying on someone else to meet your needs? You should provide your own straws if drinking without a straw is a health concern, right? Someone with a peanut allergy shouldn't rely on the restaurant to have an epi-pin.

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

#247

Post by reaperducer »

specialist wrote: post #190
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…

Paper is an amazing technology. Were I king, I'd massively fund R&D to bring new sources of fiber to market. Make them competitive with wood pulp. Hemp, bamboo, sugar cane, feed corn. Maybe even invasive (noxious) weeds like kudzu. Two birds, one stone. Extra credit for non till harvesting techniques. Just mow those hemp fields. Then do it all again in three months.

I recently learned that many of the things we make out of plastic today were once made of paper.

I don't mean bags and plates and stuff. I mean big things like tables, and reusable bowls, and snuff boxes. A lot of them can still be found in antique shops 150 years later.

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

#248

Post by rukittenme »

undersuit wrote: post #231
rukittenme wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop raising awareness and start triaging. At a certain point, everyone is aware of the top line issues and you just need to prioritize public attention. You (obviously) can't do this on your own and, at a certain level, the environmental movement's focus on bogus, small-time, feel-good issues reveals its cynicism. BUT PLEASE, stop defending it. You're just empowering those looking for a reason to resent the movement…

>Stop raising awareness and start triaging. Like trying to start banning categories of plastic? Straws and shopping bags?

Banning categories of plastic is an action. Choosing to expend political capital on banning certain plastics is an act of triage.

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

#249

Post by jessaustin »

rabidrat wrote: post #194
the_gastropod wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's consider the biggest city in the U.S., NYC. Manhattan? An island of 1.8 million no more than 2 miles wide. Brooklyn and Queens are on a spit of land called "Long Island". Together they have 4.8 million residents. Staten Island is, you guessed it, an island. And the Bronx is necessarily very close to a lot of water. People litter. Cigarette butts, straws, plastic bottles, etc. all very regularly and easily wind…

I saw it in action firsthand in NYC. A garbage truck picked up an overflowing trash bin around midnight, and the dome of trash on top fell off and into the street, and the worker did not even break stride. Many well-meaning people took the time to carefully place their trash on the trash that was in a garbage bin, but they may as well have just dropped it on the street directly for all the good it did.

After I saw this happen a few times, I stopped taking the time to carefully place my trash, and just held onto it until I found an emptier receptacle. After all, emptying public trashcans is already a terrible job. The garbageman isn't carrying a broom and dustpan. Why make his job more difficult?

(I would distinguish public trashcans like this from e.g. commercial trashcans for the use of customers of private businesses. First, they should never fill over halfway. Second, the whole thing should be kept clean. Anything else is a failure of management.)

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

#250

Post by Forbo »

stekern wrote: post #236
forgotmypw3 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's an interesting perspective. How does such an approach play out in practice?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeganism
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