I assume their situation is made difficult by a huge population on tropical, (mountainous?) islands. Do they have reasonable locations for landfill?

Could other countries apply tariff-based pressure based on plastics detection at river mouths, and help with any methods of addressing the problem? There was a comment the other day that plastics in food/bev wrappers was one issue. Surely these are not unsolvable problems with a bit more motivation?

Also wouldn't hurt to publicise the info about ocean plastics coming from their islands (like your comment) and hopefully that encourages change also.

Recklessly polluting a shared and vital resource like the oceans is an act of war. If the US wasn’t busy squandering unimaginable amounts of resources in backwaters like Afghanistan, we could be wielding our military might towards genuinely virtuous ends like putting a stop to this criminality.

We certainly shouldn’t let ourselves be held hostage and paying them “protection money”

One could think that multiple failed military interventions through decades which resulted in worse mess in the end than at the start could teach some lessons but apparently not. Let's send warships do deal with trash problems - yeeeeee haaaaaw, oh yeah.

When you have an unchecked military, everything looks like an enemy combatant. With a populace conditioned to casually suggest military invasion as a solution to every international (and sometimes domestic) problem, I’m sure history will keep repeating itself.

It would be easier and much cheaper to go in and provide proper waste disposal services than to try to use the military. Don't just send money, send people to go in and fix it.

Unfortunately no, that won’t work either. No culture can change it’s behavior without significant buy in from the people which takes a lot of work and time, no matter what you’re trying to do. And more money and more people does not usually mean faster.

The problem is we incorrectly assume that if we build something other cultures will just use it. Really we would need to build a good waste system in a really fucked area, then use that system to clean the area up over 2-5 years. Let the example show a better or improved way.

This example stage is something we often fail at when attempting to export solutions.

"we could be wielding our military might towards genuinely virtuous ends like putting a stop to this criminality"

Maybe we should start by dealing with our own criminals that ship garbage around the world illegally?

https://www.ecowatch.com/us-illegal-plastic-waste-2651126176...

Wait, you're suggesting we should murder people? If so, I'm out.

This is the kind of America strong arming that I could get behind.

I’m sure Russia and China would too. And then use it to open new fronts against America.

If 'reckless pollution' of a shared resource is an act of war, then every country (very definitely including the US) is an aggressor.