Your own trash is very unlikely to end up in the ocean.
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15611
> Our model is calibrated against measurements available in the literature. We estimate that between 1.15 and 2.41 million tonnes of plastic waste currently enters the ocean every year from rivers, with over 74% of emissions occurring between May and October. The top 20 polluting rivers, mostly located in Asia, account for 67% of the global total. The findings of this study provide baseline data for ocean plastic mass balance exercises, and assist in prioritizing future plastic debris monitoring and mitigation strategies.
The likelihood of your trash ending up in the ocean depends entirely on where you live and how your trash gets processed.
The only part of your statement that's somewhat correct is that rivers in developed countries carry less plastics to the oceans compared to developing countries. But "very little" is creating a false impression of the problem.
Processing disposable plastic waste is a problem that can be avoided by... not using disposable plastics at all. This is first and foremost a moral choice: whether or not we want to put the health of the ecosystem of which we are part above our own personal short-term convenience.
Thailand banned the use of disposable plastic bags this month:
https://phys.org/news/2020-01-thai-retailers-single-use-plas...
You'd think that the Thai would oppose the ban. That's not what's happening if you gauge the sentiment on social media:
https://www.boredpanda.com/unusual-ways-people-dealing-plast...
I got pointed to more recent studies by an oceanographer. Here is a Nature (2018) paper stating that the amount of fishing nets were underestimated in previous studies
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22939-w
> Our model, calibrated with data from multi-vessel and aircraft surveys, predicted at least 79 (45–129) thousand tonnes of ocean plastic are floating inside an area of 1.6 million km2; a figure four to sixteen times higher than previously reported. We explain this difference through the use of more robust methods to quantify larger debris. Over three-quarters of the GPGP mass was carried by debris larger than 5 cm and at least 46% was comprised of fishing nets. Microplastics accounted for 8% of the total mass
> The first source of oceans plastic is fishing nets.
Whereas the research shows:
> We estimate that between 1.15 and 2.41 million tonnes of plastic waste currently enters the ocean every year from rivers
So, that leaves only two conclusions if you connect both statements: the vast majority of what is disposed by rivers is fishnets, or there's millions of tonnes of fishnets in the oceans next to what's disposed by rivers.
And spodek, to whom lv was replying, lives in the northeast USA, where plastic waste doesn't end up in rivers.
> Processing disposable plastic waste is a problem that can be avoided by... not using disposable plastics at all.
In the first world, it's a solved problem, so it's not a problem you need to avoid.
Did you know that developed countries export thousands of tonnes of plastic waste to developing countries?
https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/blog/2019/3/6/1570...
> The U.S. Census Bureau recently published complete 2018 export data for shipments of plastic waste (officially called “waste, paring and scrap”) generated in the U.S. and sent to other countries. As shown in Figure 1, 78% (0.83 million metric tonnes) of the 2018 U.S. plastic waste exports were sent to countries with waste “mismanagement rates” greater than 5%. That means about 157,000 large 20-ft (TEU) shipping containers (429 per day) of U.S. plastic waste were sent in 2018 to countries that are now known to be overwhelmed with plastic waste and major sources of plastic pollution to the ocean. The actual amount of U.S. plastic waste that ends in countries with poor waste management may be even higher than 78% since countries like Canada and South Korea may reexport U.S. plastic waste. The data also indicates that the U.S. continued to export about as much plastic waste to countries with poor waste management as we recycle domestically [1].
Whereas:
https://resource-recycling.com/plastics/2018/08/01/epa-u-s-p...
> The EPA’s Facts and Figures Report states the U.S. in 2015 recycled 9.1 percent of the plastic generated, down from 9.5 percent during the previous year.
Then there's this:
The U.S. used to export waste to China. Until China decided to ban importing waste, leaving the U.S. waste disposal industries with a problem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK20t11He14
And finally I'll leave you with these:
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/uk-plastic-polluti...
https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2018/06/14/china-plastics-b...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/18/uk-recyc...
https://www.plasticsforchange.org/blog/category/why-are-plas...
Anyway exporting, burning and landfills are not real solutions. The highly developed countries published some so called models for the purpose of blaming poor countries for those messes.
The pointing fingers kind of behaves like those are not good strategies to let everyone work together and fix things. But only to make someone feels better about himself and do nothing.
Why? Anti-ecologism is not really a thing in most of the world. It is a far-right thing in a few countries like Brazil and US, but a lot of nations don't consider "fick the environment, I want to save one cent on packaging" to be edgy.
The national policies don't reflect this right now.
So apply what I wrote and you get: eat less fish.
Since this is HN, people will talk about pros and cons of eating fish, but there's only one reason people create fishing nets. If people consume less of things that damage the environment, we will produce less of it and therefore damage less of it. If some populations have to eat it, most can still eat less. I last ate fish in 1990.
A system where people still consume as much fish as they please, and our technological and governmental structures lead to downstream processes that mitigate the environmental impact of that situation may not be a globally maximal solution compared to a world where we end fish consumption. But it does have one nice attribute: it may actually be possible to achieve. Personally, I do hold out hope for an even better solution, where we get to consume the foods we love but they are created without the need for animals to live and die to give it to us.
https://shows.pippa.io/leadership-and-the-environment/episod...
http://joshuaspodek.com/my-tedx-talk-is-online-find-your-del...
https://shows.pippa.io/leadership-and-the-environment/episod...
https://shows.pippa.io/leadership-and-the-environment/episod...
Many people misinterpret to think I'm saying this strategy will solve everything by itself.
Note that at the root, it's helping people live by their values. Polluting less doesn't create a worse life, however much people who haven't seriously tried fear it will. Nearly all of my guests who act report preferring acting, saving time and money, improving relationships, self-awareness, etc.
The fetish of constraint seems to be popular among environmentalists, but it's certainly not the only way or even most preferable path forward.
And yet, every single time, now for hundreds of years, the crisis is solved not through a culture change but through a mixture of regulation and technological progress.
Pollution hurts other people. Do you want no constraints on dioxin, PCBs, and mercury emissions?
It’s not complicated. Tax the behaviors you want to discourage. Subsidize the behaviors you want to encourage.
You can’t solve all problems that way, because of black markets and other “non-linear” effects, but in this case it is a perfectly reasonable approach.
Make plant based alternatives cheaper than the real thing. I would definitely buy impossible meat if it were cheaper than real beef. As it stands it is several times more expensive than real beef. Same for impossible fish (if such a thing were to exist).
If impossible fish sticks taste nearly identical to real fish sticks, but it's cheaper and plant-based, why wouldn't your average consumer buy impossible fish sticks for their kids?
Case in point: farmed fish doesn’t require fishing nets.* Adjust it again, “don’t eat wild fish.” Until they release a new type of hemp net that is bio degradable, or a new type of fyke that doesn’t tear. Now you need to update it again. Meanwhile you’re always behind, and the real polluters will remain one step ahead. You’re playing a never ending game of whack-a-mole that money has been designed to solve.
* edit: Reading some sibling comments this comes with many caveats. Which, in a way, further proves the point.
Sustainable, low emission recirculating aquaculture comes at a price. It is not yet clear whether customers are willing to pay the premium for products from a good solution.
The goal is to reduce it to a minimum.
Not all fishmeal is unsustainable. The slaughtering residue from wild catch and from aquaculture as well as the bycatch are ressources for fish feed that we should not waste.
One of the other differences that most of the line caught tuna brands cook the raw tuna directly in the can, rather than cooking first and then canning. This results in much better texture. Other than price, it's a superior product in almost every way.
In general, advices to reduce consumption of anything to solve environmental problems are missing the point. Goal is not to get back to the stone age and thus clear up the environment (even that won't work: stone age people destroyed environment even worse than us, they eradicated whole lot of species of big animals and destroyed the tundro-steppe by disturbing the nitrogen cycle - however destructive we are now we didn't manage to destroy a single whole biome, yet). Goal is to make more with less. Increase consumption of everything, while fixing environmental issues. This is what will happen anyway: majority of the world is still poor and they are catching up. It will be absolutely awful and elitist to say them: no you can't catch up pals, you will ruin the environment if you try! They want and they will catch up with the Western world. And the Western world also can't go back to their level: someone has to move technologies ahead...
Getting the world population to start eat food which is not actively harming the environment is not going to easy.
Fish don't damage the environment. Fishing nets do, when thrown into the ocean by irresponsible fishermen. Eating less fish would punish all fishermen, including the environmentally-responsible ones. What we need instead is a better enforcement of existing laws against env. pollution.
Fishing does not require that fishing nets be abandonned in the sea. I suspect it would take not a lot of innovation nor a lot of costs to cut this pollution dramatically.
Why do we have to pretend that all coastal cities are equally at fault when this is clearly not true? Are people afraid its somehow racist? It has nothing to do with race but with certain governments that just don't care. It's become a pet peeve of mine when charges of racism is used to deflect political criticism of governments.
In the US dumping trash in rivers is a crime and will get you in serious trouble: large fines, seizure of trucks and equipment, maybe even criminal charges.
Except if you live in Asia or a developing country, which is a large percentage of the world population. After traveling through that region I can honestly say that I am not surprised to see so much plastic in the oceans. People dump trash in the water, throw plastic bottles on the ground, waste and recycling infrastructure is largely non-existent. Even in richer middle tier countries like China people just toss their plastic into the rivers.
it’s my opinion these things need to become laws and business, not just individuals need to be fined heavily for jut dumping trash out
Daily, I see people getting rid of the plastic wrapping around their new cigarette pack by throwing it out the car window or just dropping it straight to the ground. It's that type of plastic that makes its way to the city's runoff which makes its way to streams/rivers/lakes/oceans/etc. After any significant amount of rain, there's a few places I can drive by to see where the trash from throughout the city has washed into the grassy areas around bends in creaks/rivers. It's a good visual example of where the plastic pollution is originating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellophane
Most people worry about the wrong thing. If you live in the West, you're not appreciably contributing to ocean plastic pollution (and no, you're almost certainly not doing so by "shipping your garbage to china" either). Smokers, definitely not contributing to plastic pollution.
National Geographic and Phys.org report otherwise: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/cigar... and https://phys.org/news/2019-07-cigarette-butts-forgotten-plas...
Others producing more doesn't reduce their pollution.
> Others producing more doesn't reduce their pollution.
If you actually want to solve environmental problems, how about solving actual problems instead of picking on lower class cigarette smokers who aren't causing any issues? It sure seems like an awful lot of "environmentalism" is nothing more than a disgusting social class pose.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/cigar...
[0]https://meshrinkwrap.com/news/cigarette-packaging-explained/
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/739893511/episode-925-a-mob-b...
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/12/741283641/episode-926-so-shou...
Except that the plastic waste of certain countries tends to get "exported" to these places and then dumped there - if it doesn't get dumped into the ocean before it can even get there.
The poorest places don't tend to generate so much plastic waste because it is mostly a by-product of "luxury goods" (read: trash) in developed countries bought by clueless consumers.
For instance I will never understand the people who buy plastic-wrapped pre-sliced "salami" that hardly resembles the real thing in anything but name. I recently saw croissants(!) getting sold off the shelf in a supermarket. How the hell do you even make that work? Of course they were wrapped in plastic. I don't even want to know how they them make them last long enough. No way they're still crisp outside if the whole thing hasn't turned into a rock.
I feel like some people will buy something not despite it being a plastic wrapped faint imitation of the real thing - but because it is.
Why does agriculture produce an excess that doesn't get sold? Because the less is produced, the more prohibitively expensive production becomes per unit due to power laws. Hence why it's far more cost effective to cultivate a large volume of livestock compared to sustenance farming.
Meat is a great example. As the demand for cheap meat is high, agricultural enterprises have optimized their production of livestock in order to attain an optimum profit margin per individual unit. For instance, the financial upkeep of infrastructure remains the same whether you have one 1 cow or 10 cows. If you raise and sell 10 cows, the production cost per individual cow goes down. Then there's market demand and supply. The cheaper the price per unit, the more an enterprise needs to produce if it wants to stay competitive. Hence why mega-farms exist.
While the financial cost or production per unit of food has dropped exponentially in the 20th century, the carbon cost for that same unit has increased tremendously.
Harking back to your original statement about plastic. It's true that wrapping food in plastic allows for longer conservation per unit. But then this effect is largely negated because:
Producers will keep on producing excess volumes in order to drive financial production costs down and meet market prices. Retail chains will keep buying large bulk quantities to drive costs down and throw the unsold excess away. What you conserve in your fridge gets wasted elsewhere along the entire chain from cradle to consumer. The carbon costs, however, pretty much remain the same.
Production and processing of disposable plastic wrapping just adds to the carbon cost of excess production.
One conclusion you could draw from all of this is that we simply shifted the cost of food consumption from a financial to an ecological cost. If we want to reduce emissions created by industrialized farming, then there are few options ahead of us.
There's the technological road in which we look for ways of capturing excess emissions, but this might prove extremely hard and raises all kinds of ethical questions re: GMO's or how we treat animals. How much wiggle room do we have to implement solutions that keep the consumer price of food as they are?
The other road is... produce less, reduce production an order of magnitueds in order to reduce carbon emissions and pay the actual cost of food as a consumer. That is, increase the price of meat and other produce so it reflects the true cost of the impact on the environment.
When you start thinking about the true cost of food, then you may look at the past and at how we approach food. Our culinary culture around the world. With the advent of globalization and mass-consumption, something else happened: the gradual replacement of local cuisine - based on local produce and associated habits - by western diets which contains ingredients with a high carbon cost.
I recommend watching Michael Pollan's Cooked series on Netflix in order to get the idea of what cooking really means across the world and the impact of this evolution on our dietary choices. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epMAq5WYJk4).
Our habits and behaviour as consumers really is one of the big keys to this problem.
When you come to think of it, there's little reason why millions of people in Europe or America should be able to buy tiger prawns on a daily basis produced in the Mekong delta at discount prices worth pennies. If there is a high demand for tiger prawns, then that's likely a demand created because of their mere availability and low price in supermarket chains.
Well, if I don't buy it presliced from the butcher I always buy packaged presliced milano salami, because it's nearly impossible to slice it thin enough with a knife. There is also not really a difference in quality. Both products are imported from Italy anyway.
In fact, I can't recall the last time I've had a croissant from a bakery, and I have definitely purchased dozens of packaged, off-the-shelf croissants in that time. Even though they're not as good as fresh, they're still good, to the point where it's not worth the time or extra money to go to the bakery.
This is true for many other products as well. My grocery store butcher packages everything in plastic wrap, even if you get it from the counter (I think they have paper upon request). My self-serve, bulk foods company (WinCo) requires you to use their plastic bags instead of bringing your own containers (simplifies checkout process). Nearly everything I could want to buy is more conveniently purchased wrapped in plastic.
People but plastic-wrapped products because of convenience, not because they prefer the packaging. I honestly prefer getting meat wrapped in paper because it's much easier to unwrap than plastic. I prefer getting bakery items in a paper bag than a clamshell or cellophane wrap, again, because it's easier to unpackage. However, to get those items packaged that way, I need to go out of my way, and specialty shops tend to have less reliable inventories because they're lower volume businesses.
I doubt anyone prefers wasteful, inconvenient packaging, people just prefer convenience, and wasteful, inconvenient packaging is more convenient for stores, so that's what gets used. If you want to change the world, make a more convenient, cost-effective way to package things than plastic.
This argument bothers me a great deal. It takes a simple solution (regulation) and turns it into a complicated distributed solution (convincing the majority of consumers to make the right decision) prone to disinformation campaigns, green washing, confusion, and simple lack of attention.
We have governments for reasons. This is one of those reasons. They need to do their job and stop using our behaviour as an excuse for inaction.
- the more money we spend on <thing> the more <thing>’s manufacturer has to lobby for its continued existence
- the more we standardize that product as “normal” we make regulating it less politically viable (see blowback re: plastic straws)
This whole expectation of disposability is the problem in the first place.
> paper bags cause more harm than plastic
Citation needed. As I understand it, they can be more harmful if unsustainable methods of production are used. Unbleached paper from sustainable forestry should be less harmful. It may not be cheaper. Cheapest should not be the only aim. c.f. regulation.
It's funny how luxurious a simple ice-filled straw-included one-time-use styrofoam cup of Coke from the McDonald's drive-thru is, really, and how much we take it for granted.
How Authoritarian of you, what other area's of life should the governments of the world control for everyone denying them their human right of choice?
It is sad to me that as civilization "advances" more and more people want to go back to a time where people were subjects of their government, instead of free people. I know it has only been a few hundred years of human civilization where people have had any kind of freedom, why are we so willing to give all of that up?
The types of invasive regulations that will require increasing food costs, as well as lowering shelf life for every day people will cause massive problems for not only the poor but the middle class as well.
What is next mandatory vegan artisanal organic diet to save the climate? Each meal having to be hand picked by a local farmer that day.
It's not just an arbitrary decision, promoted by some power structure. Our phylogeny is conclusively based around groups coordinating for optimal reward.
ie Cooperation has worked out better than being individuals.
"Free People" is a meaningless categorization without social context. Even anarchists have labels and limits, even if they are individually arbitrary. Deciding how to behave individually is not a decision in a vacuum when living in the same regional bounds as others. In modern times, the region is global, as the impacts of an individual utilizing technology can have recognizable impact.
if you live in a real democracy, is it really authoritarian that a majority decide that we want to live in a cleaner world?
the earth isn’t some computer program where you have infinite ram and can just alloc as much as you want, at some point you start pushing other process out of memory, and you wonder why stuff starts crashing and freezing...
(i’ll stop with the computer analogy now ^^)
I don't, nor do I want to. I live in a Constitutional Representative Republic. where the majority is not allowed by the constitution to invoke their mob rule on others
The Founders of my nation did not trust democracy any more than they trusted monarch's and I agree with them
I desire individualism, and individual rights not democracy and mob rule
>>the earth isn’t some computer program where you have infinite ram and can just alloc as much as you want, at some point you start pushing other process out of memory, and you wonder why stuff starts crashing and freezing...
I 100% agree with this, I disagree that a Authoritarian Centrally managed government is the best or ideal way to allocate though resources
I am not going to get into a computer analogy, but I tend to following Geo-Libertarian philosophy as a structure for human organization
Instead, that privilege is reserved to a minority privileged by geographic distribution, which is much better.*
* If you are in the privileged minority; not so much otherwise.
That's impressive. I've been trying to reduce plastic use on a room by room basis, and it's tough as almost every product has a plastic component in the packaging at least. The kitchen has been the most difficult thus far; for example, I cannot find a alternative to mayonnaise in a plastic jar. I've tried making my own but this is a work in progress as I haven't got it quite right yet.
I heard a commentator say (paraphrased) 'Buy food that looks like food. The more writing there is on it, the less reason to buy'. This was in the context of healthy eating which has a great side-effect of generating less garbage. And vice versa.
Everything else in my pantry is either purchased infrequently or requires a lot of work to make myself that I've moved on to other things. Instead of trying to create those things, I try to reduce my use of them. Making mayo or ketchup isn't worth it IMO (mustard is easy though), and they're not particularly healthy either, so I just try to reduce how much I eat them.
I think reducing waste should involve a more complete review of our lifestyle, not just replacing items one by one. For example, I only really use mayonnaise when making certain sandwiches, and I only eat those sandwiches because they're convenient and semi healthy. Instead of figuring out how to make mayonnaise more ecologically sustainable, I instead look for more healthy foods that I can make more convenient, like salads, burritos, and sir fry, all of which don't need mayonnaise.
https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/10/two-minute-mayon...
If you have an immersion blender, it takes literally 2 minutes, and is fool-proof. Doing it other ways, such as manually or a food processor is a little trickier. I've done this way now for a while and never need to buy mayonnaise anymore. Kenji has a vegan recipe too using aquafaba if you're in to that.
My bulk food store sells soy sauce, soap, and other things into containers I bring.
With mayonnaise, you might consider my solution for oil: stop buying it. I haven't used oil in years and eat a lot more nuts. Everyone's tastes are unique, but I love this trade.
I see the egg vendors at the farmers market filling cartons that people bring, then stacking the cartons they brought the eggs in, I presume to reuse.
My top strategy is to lose taste in such things, like everyone I know looks at cigarettes. People's diets are their business, but I used to eat a lot of those things and now find them not remotely like food.
It's alao cheaper to buy this way and quality of product on your table going to be much higher.
And remember that most plastics that end up in the ocean are from south-east Asia. Part of which are likely exported from Europe and / or the US.
Then a newspaper report of volunteers cleaning rubbish off the beach has them complaining that it's mostly plastic items people put in their recycling bins that got blown out and washed down the drain into the sea.
People see news about the ocean plastic and somehow assume the moral thing they've been taught about recycling is the cure. They don't want to know that it's mostly fishing gear and rubbish from S.E. Asian cities where people directly drop rubbish into the rivers on purpose.
[0] which celebrates "unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research", mostly papers with totally absurd-sounding titles. https://www.improbable.com/ig-about/
The associated Luxuriant Flowing Hair Clubs for Scientists is possibly even more awesome. https://www.improbable.com/hair/
I agree that we need to try and achieve prevention. Consumer action has proved nearly powerless though, frankly. There will never be enough consumer buy in. We've been campaigning for recycling for decades and it's gotten us here. Our modern lives are built on oil and plastic, not even the ones who care and try are doing good enough. You're far and wide an outlier, you would probably have a hard time convincing other avid recyclers to go to your level, to say nothing of the consuming majority.
We are going to need to prescribe this change, not ask politely for it. Through regulation and economic policies. If there is a buck to be made you will have the immense power of capitalism on your side, the same forces that cause the situation can be used against it. Perhaps if we tax oil so much that plastic stops being a cheap material, and plastic recycling and recapture from the oceans becomes profitable, technology and investment in fixing the oceans can prosper.
It's the sort of thing that could be done in a blanket fashion within a couple of years if a major government just stepped up and said "no bullshit plastic waste everywhere".
That is to say - it's preventable as soon as a major government says so.
Unfortunately none of them seem to have the balls. It's fine and dandy to spend multiple years on political fluff (see UK), but god forbid we make any serious changes in packaging regulation.
https://www.boredpanda.com/unusual-ways-people-dealing-plast...
https://thethaiger.com/hot-news/plastics/majority-of-thais-s...
As far as the U.K is concerned: it will off the use of plastic straws, cotton buds and drink stirrers in april 2020:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/22/england-...
Following a complete ban adopted by the European Parliament in 2018 which will be implemented across all members of the union:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/24/european...
Seems like politicians do have balls to tackle the problem.
Sadly, we lost so much time over the past decades when everyone knew that this was a problem.
Most of my household waste and that of those around me is endless plastic trays, cling films, bottles from tiny package sizes with high surface area etc.
Even if it's not polluting it's annoying because it takes up so much space unnecessarily. I'd rather go to the store with a bottle and fill it.
That's what is not being addressed. Most people can just stop using straws. Buying food without OTT packaging for most means going to a different town which has a hippie health foods store with bins or whatever and paying over the odds.
Regulation can help, which results from popular support. Bans and other legislation in cities and nations around the world are resulting from people voicing and acting against plastic and pollution, but we're barely started.
When enough of us act as consumers not to buy polluting products, producers will respond to products not selling by producing less.
I would have thought I couldn't do much until I started avoiding packaged food. A few years' practice led to me filling only one load of garbage per year in 2019, 2018, and 2017 http://joshuaspodek.com/avoiding-food-packaging-2 -- while saving money and time and increasing meals with friends and family and meeting my farmers. Those in food deserts or who had less time asked me to teach them to do it since it helped them.
Food packaging is only one source of plastic. We can avoid other junk too, particularly relevant after Christmas. Anecdotally, here in Manhattan, piles of garbage around discarded pine trees look larger, overflowing with packaging.