Ocean cleaning device succeeds in removing plastic for the first time

Re:Ocean cleaning device succeeds in removing plastic for th... by Iv on Sunday January 12, 2020 @10:09AM (#22026574)

Don't make bold statement, exactly like I used to do a few months ago about this very subject :-)

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

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Re:Ocean cleaning device succeeds in removing plastic for th... by CaptArmchair on Sunday January 12, 2020 @10:31AM (#22026685)

Wait, that's comparing very different things here. That's a study on the Great Plastic Garbage Patch in the Pacific ocean specifically. The study I referred to is about the yearly emission of plastics through rivers globally.

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Re:Ocean cleaning device succeeds in removing plastic for th... by Iv on Sunday January 12, 2020 @09:35PM (#22031389)

Yes, and the article we discuss about is about oceanic plastics.

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