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I'm not sure how popular that claim is, but I've heard it multiple times. Especially as part of the eco-protective initiatives. I was able to find this example
by dsabanin 8y ago
I'm not sure how popular that claim is, but I've heard it multiple times. Especially as part of the eco-protective initiatives.
I was able to find this example[1]:
"Even if you live hundreds of miles from the coast, the plastic you throw away could make its way into the sea. Once in the ocean, plastic decomposes very slowly, breaking down in to tiny pieces known as micro plastics that can be incredibly damaging to sea life. 80% of plastic in our oceans is from land sources – but what does that really mean? Where is it coming from?
There are three main ways the plastic we use every day ends up in the oceans."
"1. Throwing plastic in the bin when it could be recycled. Plastic you put in the bin ends up in landfill. When rubbish is being transported to landfill, plastic is often blown away because it’s so lightweight. From there, it can eventually clutter around drains and enter rivers and the sea this way."
"2. Littering
Litter dropped on the street doesn’t stay there. Rainwater and wind carries plastic waste into streams and rivers, and through drains. Drains lead to the ocean!"
"3. Products that go down the drain
Many of the products we use daily are flushed down toilets, including wet wipes, cotton buds and sanitary products."
At no point they mention the fact that some countries are just using ocean as a landfill and that causes 90% of the pollution of it.
[1]: https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/how-does-plastic-end-ocean https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/how-does-plastic-end-ocean
- endorphone 8y agoFair enough, but none of those are about items actually in the landfill. It's about the process of getting there. And even with recycling, a large percentage is sent to China, India, and other nations where its custody is uncertain. The single raindrop never feels responsible for the flood. Whether it's CO2, plastics, CFCs, etc, our individual contributions might be tiny in the grand scheme of things, but together make a difference. The best thing we can do is change the culture of single-use disposables and export that to other nations.
- dsabanin 8y agoTo me it's like code optimization. You may spend a lot of time optimizing the code responsible for 1% of run time, or you may spend that same time optimizing the code that takes 60% of the total run time. That said, I'm not saying we should not work to reduce the pollution everywhere.
- colanderman 8y agoThose numbers are outdated. More recent studies show that 46% is discarded fishing gear: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/great-pacific-garbage-patch-larger-and-chunkier-we-thought-180968580/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/great-pacific-garb...
- marmadukester39 8y agoI think it’s absurd that we look for biodegradeable plastics as a solution when we could simple legislate common containers and reuse them. How much must we sacrifice because brands want to differentiate on the shape of the bottle instead of on what’s inside it and on the label?