[HN Gopher] US Should Create Strategy by End of '22 to Reduce In...
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US Should Create Strategy by End of '22 to Reduce Increasing Ocean
Plastic Waste
Author : infodocket
Score : 54 points
Date : 2021-12-02 20:11 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nationalacademies.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nationalacademies.org)
| mkskm wrote:
| Proposed initiatives / advocacy orgs
|
| https://www.beyondplastics.org
|
| https://www.plasticfreepresident.org
|
| https://camustlead.org
|
| https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/5845
| makerofspoons wrote:
| We could stimulate the domestic textile industry to mass produce
| clothing without plastic fibers while phasing out fabrics that
| are depositing microplastics in the oceans:
| https://phys.org/news/2021-01-arctic-microplastic-pollution....
| ConanRus wrote:
| Didn't find words "China" and "India" in the article, well done.
|
| The whole program should have: #1 make Asia to stop polluting the
| ocean
| tfehring wrote:
| Relevant: https://hwfo.substack.com/p/an-illustrated-guide-to-
| plastic-...
|
| TL;DR: The bulk of plastic entering the oceans comes from China,
| India, and Southeast Asia; it's still somewhat the US's fault
| since we dispose of a lot of plastic per capita and send much of
| our recycled plastic there; accordingly, the author claims,
| Americans should generally throw plastic in the garbage instead
| of recycling it.
| sa1 wrote:
| This is only looking at river waste. The major contributor to
| plastic waste in the ocean is fishing gear.
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/06/dumped-f...
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Yep... but politicians ban plastic straws and then brag how
| they're saving the planet, while those guys can do whatever
| they want.
| sa1 wrote:
| Plastic pollution is a global issue, but not a tribal
| issue. There's no us vs those guys.
| tfehring wrote:
| That's a good point, but " _the_ major contributor " seems
| like a stretch. That article claims 640,000 tonnes/year of
| fishing equipment end up in the ocean, which is ~8% of the 8
| million tonnes/year of overall plastic waste that end up in
| the ocean according to https://www.theguardian.com/us-
| news/2019/jul/30/paddling-in-...
| sa1 wrote:
| This might be true, but it seems commonly described as the
| major contributor because it's 40-70% of floating plastic
| and macroplastics. On the other hand, microplastics sink to
| the ocean bed. https://hillnotes.ca/2020/01/30/ghost-
| fishing-gear-a-major-s... I'm not sure which has more
| environmental impact.
| latchkey wrote:
| I spent 4 years living in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. It is
| literally in the culture to just throw shit into the ocean,
| rivers, everywhere. It is painful to watch how bad it is.
| RobertRoberts wrote:
| Relevant quote from that page:
|
| > And zero plastic thrown in a garbage can in the United States
| enters the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre.
| dnautics wrote:
| this is a third derivative.
|
| - strategy by (= / delta-t == 1yr)
|
| - reduce increasing (d/dt^2)
| lettergram wrote:
| I'm just going to leave this here...
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/1270819/ocean-plastic-po...
|
| The U.S. isn't even in the top 10 producers of plastic waste in
| oceans (it's something like >30th on the list).
|
| It's effectively 80+% from Asian countries.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution
| oh_sigh wrote:
| > Taking a leadership role in preventing plastic pollution
| would position the U.S. to shape and influence global plastic
| production, design, and innovation -- and possibly create new
| economic opportunities, the report says.
| lettergram wrote:
| The U.S. dictating to the poor backwards nations of the asian
| pacific will go over well.
|
| More likely, a company setup by the family member of several
| U.S. politicians will receive funds from the U.S. government
| to aid in "transitioning" these economies to a post-plastics
| world. None of which will be effective and largely be like
| the Clinton Foundation in Haiti.
|
| The reality is that reducing crude oil to gasoline production
| will remove the ability to produce plastics. As plastics
| become more expensive, different materials will be utilized.
| BostonEnginerd wrote:
| I believe that the feedstock for most plastics is natural
| gas.
| 8note wrote:
| America is the main military and economic power in the
| Asian Pacific. Currently the US has the power to dictate
| such terms, but the countries probably can't actually
| fulfill them
| [deleted]
| sjtindell wrote:
| As I understand the United States and others just ship all
| their plastic to Asia where it is dumped in the ocean so they
| can claim they are green for whatever consumer advocate.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| Most of the world signed a treaty in 2019 to stop the flow of
| trash from wealthy countries (Basel Convention).
|
| But worth noting its firms in the poor countries buying the
| stuff as scrap to recycle, and tossing or burning the stuff
| they couldn't recycle.
| howmayiannoyyou wrote:
| Nope. Most asian nations (China most notably) stopped or
| greatly reduces such imports about 5 years ago. And, even
| when these imports were happening, its was for reprocessing,
| not disposal purposes. Yes, if recycled plastics prices
| precipitously fell then some importers may have dumped the
| imports, but that was not generally the case. You may also be
| confusing plastic waste with electronic scrap which contains
| plastic waste. Here again, those imports have largely
| stopped.
| jeromegv wrote:
| It stopped in China, not in the rest of Asia.
| soperj wrote:
| They reduced the imports of stuff that was just garbage.
| maxerickson wrote:
| My county landfill gets paid for the plastic that trucks come
| and take away (or they put it in the landfill).
|
| Who is supposedly paying to come pick it up, put it on a
| boat, and so on, instead of just putting it into the
| landfill?
| JamesBarney wrote:
| It's specifically recycled material. Stuff that's thrown away
| makes it into well managed U.S. landfills with no issues.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| How about showing some leadership from the "leader of the free
| world"?
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > The U.S. isn't even in the top 10 producers of plastic waste
| in oceans
|
| Does it make it ok for them to throw plastic in oceans?
| mc32 wrote:
| Go for the low hanging fruit first, then, when you're done
| there, go for the slim Pickins. Bang for the buck.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| I didn't read anywhere in OPs comment that it was ok to
| litter in the US because India produces 50x more waste.
|
| Given we have limited time and resources I believe he is
| implying that it's easier to reduce Indian waste by 1% than
| reduce American waste by 50%. So we should probably focus on
| former.
| gennarro wrote:
| Can't have high seas fisheries with plastic at this level
| https://ofr.report/pi/2021-26321/
|
| It's really troubling to see space trash get more concern than
| ocean trash given our reliance on the oceans (not to downplay the
| problem of near-earth collisions)
| dinnison wrote:
| Plastic only becomes waste and ends up in the ocean if it is not
| collected properly. We're solving this problem at Replenysh.
|
| How we think about circularity: https://replenysh.com/blog/an-
| opportunity-to-evolve
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(page generated 2021-12-02 23:00 UTC)