7 ms·

There seems to be a movement now in the West to ban plastic bags and put higher taxes on plastics among other things. This is pointless as the West is only resp

by vimy 8y ago

There seems to be a movement now in the West to ban plastic bags and put higher taxes on plastics among other things. This is pointless as the West is only responsible for a tiny fraction of the plastic waste in our oceans. The study linked in the article claims that "The 10 top-ranked rivers transport 88−95% of the global load into the sea." Those rivers are: Chang Jiang, Indus, Huang He, Hai He, Nile, Bramaputra, Zhujiang, Amur, Niger and Mekong. Eight in Asia, two in Africa. To put it bluntly, these are regions where most people don't know the meaning of the word recycling. This is a cultural problem, not a technological one. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.7b02368 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.7b02368

timmaah 8y ago
Lead by example
- vimy 8y ago
  We are. We have recycling programs, we have fines and social pressure against littering, city workers cleaning the streets. Those simple things can reduce almost 90 % of ocean plastic.
  - stevenleeg 8y ago
    What is the problem with implementing bag taxes/bans then? Even if it’s simply symbolic, don’t you think it sets a good example for the rest of the world and further ingrains the idea of “reduce, reuse, recycle” in our own societies?
    - vimy 8y ago
      Because it's worse for the environment to ban plastic. And who likes to be taxed more? A new Danish study claims that low-density polyethylene (LDPE) has the smallest impact on the environment. Meaning plastic bags are more environment-friendly than paper bags, bio-plastic bags or cotton bags. "The use of a unbleached paper bag is equivalent, as it needs to be recycled 43 times, a bag made of renewable PP needs to be recycled 45 times, and a cotton-bag has to be brought to the supermarket and back up to 7100 times (and around 20,000 times, if the cotton is organic),to assure the environmental impact is similar to the LDPE-bag." https://stateofgreen.com/en/profiles/state-of-green/news/plastic-bags-are-more-environmentally-friendly https://stateofgreen.com/en/profiles/state-of-green/news/pla...
      - jogjayr 8y ago
        It might be worth a small increase in CO2 emissions to reduce plastic pollution TBH. We have other ways to offset those extra CO2 emissions, plenty of waste to cut. But once plastic and particularly microplastic pollution is in water and the food chain it's going to be nigh impossible to remove it.
      - mtberatwork 8y ago
        > A new Danish study claims that low-density polyethylene (LDPE) has the smallest impact on the environment. "In general, LDPE carrier bags, which are the bags that are always available for purchase in Danish supermarkets, are the carriers providing the overall lowest environmental impacts when not considering reuse." (emphasis mine)
  - goalieca 8y ago
    > We have recycling programs Most recycling centers bundle plastic up into barges and ship them overseas where they may end up being partially recycled and partially in the ocea. There's often too much contamination to properly recycle. China has also recently stopped taking in these plastic barges so many municipalities don't have anywhere to put this except the city dump.
  - jogjayr 8y ago
    > We have recycling programs Not all cities in the US participate in recycling programs equally. The overall US plastic recycling rate is still only 31%. Many states (maybe most?) don't have a plastic bottle deposit program.
    - reaperducer 8y ago
      >Many states (maybe most?) don't have a plastic bottle deposit program. Most. The few places that do are: California, Connecticut, Guam, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon, and Vermont. Source: http://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resources/state-beverage-container-laws.aspx http://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resourc...
- skwirl 8y ago
  Having just visited Vietnam, this logic no longer makes any sense to me and I’m not sure how it ever did. Standards we set many decades ago for ourselves aren’t even close to being followed in that country. I can see no reason to believe why any future restrictions on ourselves will be any different.
  - ataturk 8y ago
    The entire far east, India, Africa, Mexico, Central and South America. What is that, 90% of the world's popuplation? They aren't following any of these high-minded ideals about recycling. Remember the Olympics in Brazil where they tried to clean up the water enough to get the rowing sports in there? Remember the rowers getting sick from the polluted water and stuck by needles? It's shit. The entire human race is shit.
jessriedel 8y ago
Not to mention the fact that the correct handling of garbage (so it ends up in the appropriate processing plant or landfill rather than the ocean) is vastly more sensible, effective, and economical than regulating plastic use.
saiya-jin 8y ago
It's a start. You can't ask poor people to have a discipline and behave in certain way when you are infinitely richer person don't behave like that. But yeah, bulk of the effort should go into areas around those rivers. Education, paying small fees for bringing in plastic waste (in same fashion metals are collected, not enough to abuse the system but enough to motivate), and more education.
baud147258 8y ago
Here in France grocery store can't give you plastic bags for free. And even most shops will sell you the paper bags.
easyat 8y ago
Much of that plastic discharge is from manufacturing of goods that will be consumed in the West. Economic and environmental policies in these places are exploited by Western businesses Simple blaming it on the culture of a people seems myopic
- vimy 8y ago
  The West isn't forcing them to dump everything on the street or in their rivers. That's on them. Besides, if you look at pictures or videos of rivers drowning in plastic, it doesn't look like industrial waste at all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PavA4rUypE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PavA4rUypE
  - mikec3010 8y ago
    The west isn't forcing them, but it's choosing them for manufacturing because they are the cheapest. One reason they are cheap is because of no environmental regulation. There's a great documentary on YouTube about the ship breaking industry in Sri Lanka. Rich nations selling old ships for scrap to a very poor nation who couldn't care less about the environment or workers rights. Much better to dump it there than in a western nation where asbestos must be mitigated and oily pipes can't be welded on the beach. See also China. Especially a few years ago when their "smoggy cities" photos were making headlines. The west chides them on their pollution, yet where do all your consumer devices come from and why do they come from there and not your country ? Of course they're more polluted when they do most of the manufacturing for the world.
    - reaperducer 8y ago
      >Of course they're more polluted when they do most of the manufacturing for the world. The United States, European Union, and Japan all manufacture more than China and are comparatively pristine. It's time to stop playing the "We're just poor China! You big bad Western countries are too hard on us!" card. You're either a technological powerhouse, or not. Time to put on your big boy pants.
    - reaperducer 8y ago
VBprogrammer 8y ago
While I don't think it really refutes your point; are you aware of the minimum charge on plastic bags introduced in England? It practically overnight reduced the number of plastic bags used by 80%. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/single-use-plastic-carrier-bags-why-were-introducing-the-charge/carrier-bags-why-theres-a-5p-charge https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/single-use-plasti... I don't see why this wouldn't work just as well in other parts of the world (obviously scaled to a reasonable price level compared to average income).
jogjayr 8y ago
You'll be surprised to know then it's not just the "West" that considers it a problem. Here's the Indian state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, introducing a plastic bag ban and deposit on PET bottles.[1] 1. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/ban-comes-into-force-dispose-of-all-plastic-materials-in-a-month/articleshow/63436449.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/ban-comes-in...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
andyjohnson0 8y ago
> This is a cultural problem, not a technological one. Its about poverty. Almost none of the communities that border these rivers will have access to organised waste disposal, never mind recycling. So the trash goes into the river. Thats bad, and I suspect that its known to be bad by the people involved, but where are the alternatives? Check out [1] for some pretty horrifying descriptions of what plastic pollution is doing to coastal communities in Cambodia. Quote: "according to Water.Org, about four million people in Cambodia still lack access to safe water, leaving them with no alternative but to buy endless bottled water, perpetuating the environmentally destructive cycle. [...] this plastic waste that all the people here live amongst is unavoidable- they are not about to feed their babies the black muddy liquid that comes out of the taps, it’s poison.” Clearly the solution involves people not throwing plastic into the rivers, but labelling dirt-poor people in a poisoned environment as having a "cultural problem" isn't going to help. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/mountains-and-mountains-of-plastic-life-on-cambodias-polluted-coast https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/mountains-and-...
- vimy 8y ago
  How is being poor an excuse for throwing your trash in the river? A cart, a horse and you have a garbage truck. Add some plot of land where you can dump the garbage and you have the mvp of a garbage management system. I'm having a hard time believing these countries can't afford such a simple system. Naming the problem is step one in fixing it. Our efforts are better focused helping these countries fix their garbage problem. That won't happen if everyone here keeps thinking we are the origin of all that ocean plastic.
  - andyjohnson0 8y ago
    > A cart, a horse and you have a garbage truck. Add some plot of land where you can dump the garbage and you have the mvp of a garbage management system. I'm having a hard time believing these countries can't afford such a simple system. Who pays for it? Cambodia's per-capita GDP is just under UD$1300. A third of the country earns less than US$1.90 a day. Its a poor country. From a developed-word perspective it makes sense to collect the trash, but their perspective may be very different. > Naming the problem is step one in fixing it. Our efforts are better focused helping these countries fix their garbage problem. That won't happen if everyone here keeps thinking we are the origin of all that ocean plastic. I agree.

by vimy 8y ago

timmaah 8y ago

Lead by example

vimy 8y ago
We are. We have recycling programs, we have fines and social pressure against littering, city workers cleaning the streets. Those simple things can reduce almost 90 % of ocean plastic.
- stevenleeg 8y ago
  What is the problem with implementing bag taxes/bans then? Even if it’s simply symbolic, don’t you think it sets a good example for the rest of the world and further ingrains the idea of “reduce, reuse, recycle” in our own societies?
  - vimy 8y ago
    Because it's worse for the environment to ban plastic. And who likes to be taxed more? A new Danish study claims that low-density polyethylene (LDPE) has the smallest impact on the environment. Meaning plastic bags are more environment-friendly than paper bags, bio-plastic bags or cotton bags. "The use of a unbleached paper bag is equivalent, as it needs to be recycled 43 times, a bag made of renewable PP needs to be recycled 45 times, and a cotton-bag has to be brought to the supermarket and back up to 7100 times (and around 20,000 times, if the cotton is organic),to assure the environmental impact is similar to the LDPE-bag." https://stateofgreen.com/en/profiles/state-of-green/news/plastic-bags-are-more-environmentally-friendly https://stateofgreen.com/en/profiles/state-of-green/news/pla...
    - jogjayr 8y ago
      It might be worth a small increase in CO2 emissions to reduce plastic pollution TBH. We have other ways to offset those extra CO2 emissions, plenty of waste to cut. But once plastic and particularly microplastic pollution is in water and the food chain it's going to be nigh impossible to remove it.
    - mtberatwork 8y ago
      > A new Danish study claims that low-density polyethylene (LDPE) has the smallest impact on the environment. "In general, LDPE carrier bags, which are the bags that are always available for purchase in Danish supermarkets, are the carriers providing the overall lowest environmental impacts when not considering reuse." (emphasis mine)
- goalieca 8y ago
  > We have recycling programs Most recycling centers bundle plastic up into barges and ship them overseas where they may end up being partially recycled and partially in the ocea. There's often too much contamination to properly recycle. China has also recently stopped taking in these plastic barges so many municipalities don't have anywhere to put this except the city dump.
- jogjayr 8y ago
  > We have recycling programs Not all cities in the US participate in recycling programs equally. The overall US plastic recycling rate is still only 31%. Many states (maybe most?) don't have a plastic bottle deposit program.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    >Many states (maybe most?) don't have a plastic bottle deposit program. Most. The few places that do are: California, Connecticut, Guam, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon, and Vermont. Source: http://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resources/state-beverage-container-laws.aspx http://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resourc...
skwirl 8y ago
Having just visited Vietnam, this logic no longer makes any sense to me and I’m not sure how it ever did. Standards we set many decades ago for ourselves aren’t even close to being followed in that country. I can see no reason to believe why any future restrictions on ourselves will be any different.
- ataturk 8y ago
  The entire far east, India, Africa, Mexico, Central and South America. What is that, 90% of the world's popuplation? They aren't following any of these high-minded ideals about recycling. Remember the Olympics in Brazil where they tried to clean up the water enough to get the rowing sports in there? Remember the rowers getting sick from the polluted water and stuck by needles? It's shit. The entire human race is shit.

jessriedel 8y ago

Not to mention the fact that the correct handling of garbage (so it ends up in the appropriate processing plant or landfill rather than the ocean) is vastly more sensible, effective, and economical than regulating plastic use.

saiya-jin 8y ago

It's a start. You can't ask poor people to have a discipline and behave in certain way when you are infinitely richer person don't behave like that. But yeah, bulk of the effort should go into areas around those rivers. Education, paying small fees for bringing in plastic waste (in same fashion metals are collected, not enough to abuse the system but enough to motivate), and more education.

baud147258 8y ago

Here in France grocery store can't give you plastic bags for free. And even most shops will sell you the paper bags.

easyat 8y ago

Much of that plastic discharge is from manufacturing of goods that will be consumed in the West. Economic and environmental policies in these places are exploited by Western businesses Simple blaming it on the culture of a people seems myopic

vimy 8y ago
The West isn't forcing them to dump everything on the street or in their rivers. That's on them. Besides, if you look at pictures or videos of rivers drowning in plastic, it doesn't look like industrial waste at all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PavA4rUypE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PavA4rUypE
- mikec3010 8y ago
  The west isn't forcing them, but it's choosing them for manufacturing because they are the cheapest. One reason they are cheap is because of no environmental regulation. There's a great documentary on YouTube about the ship breaking industry in Sri Lanka. Rich nations selling old ships for scrap to a very poor nation who couldn't care less about the environment or workers rights. Much better to dump it there than in a western nation where asbestos must be mitigated and oily pipes can't be welded on the beach. See also China. Especially a few years ago when their "smoggy cities" photos were making headlines. The west chides them on their pollution, yet where do all your consumer devices come from and why do they come from there and not your country ? Of course they're more polluted when they do most of the manufacturing for the world.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    >Of course they're more polluted when they do most of the manufacturing for the world. The United States, European Union, and Japan all manufacture more than China and are comparatively pristine. It's time to stop playing the "We're just poor China! You big bad Western countries are too hard on us!" card. You're either a technological powerhouse, or not. Time to put on your big boy pants.
  - reaperducer 8y ago

VBprogrammer 8y ago

While I don't think it really refutes your point; are you aware of the minimum charge on plastic bags introduced in England? It practically overnight reduced the number of plastic bags used by 80%. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/single-use-plastic-carrier-bags-why-were-introducing-the-charge/carrier-bags-why-theres-a-5p-charge https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/single-use-plasti... I don't see why this wouldn't work just as well in other parts of the world (obviously scaled to a reasonable price level compared to average income).

jogjayr 8y ago

You'll be surprised to know then it's not just the "West" that considers it a problem. Here's the Indian state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, introducing a plastic bag ban and deposit on PET bottles.[1] 1. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/ban-comes-into-force-dispose-of-all-plastic-materials-in-a-month/articleshow/63436449.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/ban-comes-in...

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

andyjohnson0 8y ago

> This is a cultural problem, not a technological one. Its about poverty. Almost none of the communities that border these rivers will have access to organised waste disposal, never mind recycling. So the trash goes into the river. Thats bad, and I suspect that its known to be bad by the people involved, but where are the alternatives? Check out [1] for some pretty horrifying descriptions of what plastic pollution is doing to coastal communities in Cambodia. Quote: "according to Water.Org, about four million people in Cambodia still lack access to safe water, leaving them with no alternative but to buy endless bottled water, perpetuating the environmentally destructive cycle. [...] this plastic waste that all the people here live amongst is unavoidable- they are not about to feed their babies the black muddy liquid that comes out of the taps, it’s poison.” Clearly the solution involves people not throwing plastic into the rivers, but labelling dirt-poor people in a poisoned environment as having a "cultural problem" isn't going to help. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/mountains-and-mountains-of-plastic-life-on-cambodias-polluted-coast https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/mountains-and-...

vimy 8y ago
How is being poor an excuse for throwing your trash in the river? A cart, a horse and you have a garbage truck. Add some plot of land where you can dump the garbage and you have the mvp of a garbage management system. I'm having a hard time believing these countries can't afford such a simple system. Naming the problem is step one in fixing it. Our efforts are better focused helping these countries fix their garbage problem. That won't happen if everyone here keeps thinking we are the origin of all that ocean plastic.
- andyjohnson0 8y ago
  > A cart, a horse and you have a garbage truck. Add some plot of land where you can dump the garbage and you have the mvp of a garbage management system. I'm having a hard time believing these countries can't afford such a simple system. Who pays for it? Cambodia's per-capita GDP is just under UD$1300. A third of the country earns less than US$1.90 a day. Its a poor country. From a developed-word perspective it makes sense to collect the trash, but their perspective may be very different. > Naming the problem is step one in fixing it. Our efforts are better focused helping these countries fix their garbage problem. That won't happen if everyone here keeps thinking we are the origin of all that ocean plastic. I agree.