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A comment on EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021. Parent comment

Re:EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021 by DanBC on Thursday March 28, 2019 @02:29PM (#19515116)
> 90% of the plastic in the ocean comes from Africa and Asia

You might find this reddit comment interesting, because it debunks this statistic.

https://www.reddit.com/r/badscience/comments/aj0idr/debunkin...

Plastic in the ocean comes from roughly 3 sources: industrial equipment, microfibres from clothing, and land-based waste carried into the sea by rivers.

The 90% figure only applies to this last one.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021 by plopz on Thursday March 28, 2019 @03:01PM (#19515404)
This says that by weight, only 8% of the pacific garbage patch is microplastics and that the majority is fishing gear with fishing nets accounting for 46%.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/great-pacific-ga...

[ Parent | on HN ]