Relevant: <a href="https://hwfo.substack.com/p/an-illustrated-guide-to-plastic-straws" rel="nofollow">https://hwfo.substack.com/p/an-illustrated-guide-to-plastic-...</a><p>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.
I'm just going to leave this here...<p><a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1270819/ocean-plastic-pollution-worldwide-by-country/" rel="nofollow">https://www.statista.com/statistics/1270819/ocean-plastic-po...</a><p>The U.S. isn't even in the top 10 producers of plastic waste in oceans (it's something like >30th on the list).<p>It's effectively 80+% from Asian countries.<p><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution" rel="nofollow">https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution</a>
> <i>to reduce increasing</i><p>e.g. not to stop it but to make it increase less but still increase?<p>what we need is a total ban on any plastics. I get free plastic bags doing groceries in Rome, Italy and it's 2021. All of this is going too slow. The whole recycling industry even in Germany, Switzerland and Austria is literal garbage and I hope that instead of talking a big game and making people think we make a difference with 5 different colors of containers we can solve this where it needs to be solved? The price of using plastic needs to be taxed into oblivion so that it is no longer economically feasible to destroy the planet with this shit.<p>edit: unlike most of you I have seen many beaches in South-East Asia when I was really young, ... these places were free of plastics/garbage and full of marine life and animals that thrived along the coastline. These romantic lone islands ... they are garbage dumps now with fresh new garbage floating in every morning. None of you will ever experience them the same way as I had the opportunity to unless you're looking forward to go snorkeling in a garbage dump. My generation is the one that deserves the blame and I hope they get held accountable and has been robbed of the opportunity to see these things that my generation had.
A few observation points from living in SE Asia for the past 13 years:
- Singapore incinerates most of its plastic
- In places like Indonesia, there aren't great waste collection systems/processes in place. When rainy season comes along, months worth of accumulated garbage/plastic gets washed out to sea. In Bali, Jimbaran beach accumulates literal mounds of plastic waste (google for pictures).
- Again in Indo, even if plastic is collected and sent to the trash dump (read: not a land fill), it gets washed out to sea when it rains.
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: <a href="https://phys.org/news/2021-01-arctic-microplastic-pollution.html" rel="nofollow">https://phys.org/news/2021-01-arctic-microplastic-pollution....</a>
Can’t have high seas fisheries with plastic at this level <a href="https://ofr.report/pi/2021-26321/" rel="nofollow">https://ofr.report/pi/2021-26321/</a><p>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)
Strategy: support media efforts in Asian countries making littering a moral issue citing natural beauty and putting sad music over dirty rivers, etc.<p>That’s how we did it in the US which did have a big littering problem until the mid 20th century.<p>Or just install a few of those silly water wheel garbage skimmers at the mouths of a few major rivers around the world.
Why? It all comes from third world countries with no garbage collection. Rivers of plastic garbage flowing into the ocean.<p>The only strategy that will work is a culture change in those country AND implementing garbage collection.<p>What will end up happening is a lot of taxpayer money handouts to politically connected contractors who won't focus on the problem and pocket the money, kicking back some to the politicians.
>should make
>a strategy
>reduce<p>Anyone who's dealt with iffy deadlines and mediocre management knows that without clear progress metrics and negative consequences for failure, nothing will happen.
Plastic only becomes waste and ends up in the ocean if it is not collected properly. We're solving this problem at Replenysh.<p>How we think about circularity: <a href="https://replenysh.com/blog/an-opportunity-to-evolve" rel="nofollow">https://replenysh.com/blog/an-opportunity-to-evolve</a>
Yes, the US really needs to step in and solve this OVERWHELMINGLY ASIAN problem.<p><a href="https://www.reusethisbag.com/articles/countries-that-pollute-most-ocean-plastics" rel="nofollow">https://www.reusethisbag.com/articles/countries-that-pollute...</a>