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Ten Rivers Contribute Most of the Plastic in the Oceans (2018)
- sproketboy 7y ago0 from the the west so why should we pay. Make the Chinese pay.
- sambeau 7y agoWhile reading this I think it's worth taking into account that not all the plastic waste originates in these countries, some of it is western trash sent there for recycling. At one point China was importing more than half of the World's plastic waste. https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and-conservation/2018/11/where-does-your-plastic-waste-end https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and-conserv... And though China has now stopped accepting the West's waste it still house mountains to deal with plus the problem has just shifted to Southeast Asia instead https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/china-ban-plastic-trash-imports-shifts-waste-crisis-southeast-asia-malaysia/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/china...
- Cthulhu_ 7y agoRecycling / waste management companies have a lot to ask for; they're being paid by local governments (and people) with the idea that they will handle the waste properly and safely - as opposed to dumping it in the river - and they just export it and turn it into someone else's problem?
- vixen99 7y agoOf course it's someone else's problem. That's why you're paying someone for the service. We all do that. As you partly recognize, if you legally contract with a company for a service (waste disposal for instance) you don't expect to be liable morally or legally for mis-conduct or failures by the service provider. Why should an exported service be an exception?
- Nasrudith 7y agoWell knowledge is also a component to it and morality and legality. To give a black comedy example if you have a friend who is a real fan of Tony Soprano and you ask a look alike to hold a surprise party for you and he is a hitman with a front company instead of an impressionist who takes it as a euphemism to murder them their death - even if you were a negligent idiot is vastly different than you straight up hiring a hitman to kill them.
- treypitt 7y agoDoesn't this assume all service providers are morally and legally good? I would restate the principle as, "you're morally and legally liable for the misdeeds of a service provider with which you've contracted in accordance with the extent to which you can reasonably expected to be aware of their moral and legal practices." But if you assume all companies are legal (else they wouldn't be companies) and that legality implies morality (an absurd belief), then your justification would be spot on. It's a gray area, in my uninformed opinion, and a key question whether Western states could reasonably expected to accurately assess what China would do with their trash
- mcv 7y ago> "not all the plastic waste originates in these countries, some of it is western trash sent there for recycling" I don't see how that makes it any better. Recycled waste certainly shouldn't be ending up in rivers. We need to reduce our waste, but we should also handle our waste better. Dumping it in rivers is not acceptable.
- lm28469 7y ago> Recycled waste certainly shouldn't be ending up in rivers. Recycling is a pipe dream. In fact it means shipping tones of garbage to 3rd world country and let them do the grunt work. Out of sight out of mind. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/burning-truth-behind-e-waste-dump-africa-180957597/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/burning-truth-... https://www.spiegel.de/international/tomorrow/electronic-waste-in-africa-recycling-methods-damage-health-and-the-environment-a-1086221.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/tomorrow/electronic-was...
- mcv 7y agoIt depends a lot on the kind of material being recycled. Paper has been getting recycled very effectively for decades. Metals are pretty recyclable. Plastic is notoriously hard, especially the thin plastic from bags, apparently. Whatever the case, it shouldn't be dumped in rivers.
- tomatotomato37 7y agoExcept if you run the actual numbers on that, you'll realize that it's still blatently wrong: 2010 total plastic marine debris[0]: 4,800k - 12,700k metric tons 2010 EU plastic marine debris[0]: 50k-120k metric tons (Higher than the US by ~1k) 2010 EU plastic marine debris percentage[0]: 1% 2016 EU export of nontoxic garbage to a country in top 10 plastic marine waste[2]: 269,000 tonnes (a lot missing statistics so wide error bars here) 2015 percent of nontoxic garbage export that is plastic/mixed[1]: ~9% Probable amount of EU plastic that gets exported to top 10 country: 26.9k - 53.8k tonnes Crude adjusted EU ranking if 100% of the doubled amount makes it into the ocean: ~10th Incredibly crude adjusted EU plastic marine debris percentage: 2% Netherlands & Germany end up importing most of the EU's garbage [3] [0]: https://www.iswa.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Calendar_2011_03_AMERICANA/Science-2015-Jambeck-768-71__2_.pdf https://www.iswa.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Calendar_2011_03_... (the footnote of table 1 specifically) [1]: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Waste_shipment_statistics_based_on_the_European_list_of_waste_codes#Non-hazardous_notified_waste_based_on_LoW https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... [2]: http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do (You'll have to screw with the customizations to get useful statistics) [3]: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/waste/transboundary-waste-shipments https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/waste/transboundary-waste-...
- yholio 7y agoI don't understand how this diminishes the fault of the countries. They took the garbage, got paid for it or profited from the valuable recyclables, then dumped the refuse into the rivers. 50% of the garbage comes from a single river that flows entirely within China. I understand you can't put the blame on a people as a whole and there are bad actors there, but a sovereign country needs to take responsibility.
- danharaj 7y agoSo, does selling their externalities to poorer nations absolve a rich nation of their responsibility?
- crazy1van 7y agoIt depends on whether the poorer nation misrepresented what it would do with the trash.
- peterwwillis 7y agoThis is the "How was I supposed to know the guns I sold would kill people?" defense
- oftenwrong 7y agoOr the "How was I supposed to know the car I sold would be used to run over a crowd of people?" defence
- boomlinde 7y agoAfter a few decades of exported plastic trash ending up in the oceans being common knowledge it doesn't matter whether the handling was initially misrepresented. At best it's willful ignorance, but let's not pretend people have been sending plastic trash to China under the assumption that it would be dealt with responsibly.
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- reactspa 7y agoPlus: If I in the U.S. am buying something at Walmart that was made in China. And a ton of plastic waste was produced in China to make that thing. In such cases, most would point the finger at China and say that they did all that pollution. Whereas some would contend that we should be pointing the finger at the U.S. because it was someone there who was the end beneficiary of all that plastic waste.
- nroets 7y agoThe export of waste is not the real problem. Your reference says it adds "12 percent to the plastic waste China generates domestically every year". Clearly China has the logistics to put it's own waste into properly designed landfills. Why doesn't this happen ?
- jandrese 7y agoIt's cheaper and easier to just dump it into the river.
- x38iq84n 7y agoSo why are western countries punishing themselves by putting a ban on certain plastic items such as straws, single-use bags or creating deposit schemes for bottles etc? Sure it would be more effective to call up poor Asian countries and offer to help them clean up that mess. The effect on environment, per dollar spent, will be orders of magnitudes larger than engineering any kind of change in the said western countries.
- Creationer 7y agoBecause solutions in the form of alternate materials developed to meet Western regulations can then be implemented across the entire world.
- WhompingWindows 7y agoCountries aren't really "punishing" themselves. First, it's mostly cities/local groups banning certain plastic. Second, it's not a punishment to get rid of single-use plastic; we haven't had it for thousands of years and we don't need it moving forward. Third, Western countries have little power compared to corporations here; do we need to go over all the abuses of corporations vis a vis Asia?
- lr 7y agoAs has been noted by several other posters, western countries have exported their recyclable trash to China for years. That has pretty much come to a halt, and I don't think it will be long before countries like the US realize just what a mess they have on their hands. Getting rid of single-use plastic now is the best thing we can do.
- bubblewrap 7y agoConsumers won't notice a difference. They'll continue putting their plastic into recycling bins, so it will continue to not end up in the rivers. Unless there are rogue recycling operators who illegally dump the plastic. But that is not in the hands of the consumers.
- x38iq84n 7y ago
- swarnie_ 7y agoHN engineers and detail orientated people. Is there any workable option to add a "trash capture" device/system to the river outlet?
- peterwwillis 7y agoFor floating trash there's Trash Wheels: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/02/mr-trash-wheels-professor-trash-wheels-baltimore-harbor-ocean-trash-pickup/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/02/mr-trash-wheels-...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- wasdfff 7y agoThe hard part is not also capturing marine life.
- reaperducer 7y agoChicago has a couple of boats that patrol the Chicago River scooping up plastic and other garbage. https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/2012/09/12/slice-of-life-chicagos-river-scrubbing-boat/ https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/2012/09/12/slice-of-life...
- luckylion 7y agoThe headline is click bait. It's not "most of the plastic in the ocean", it's "most of the plastic in the ocean that comes from rivers". And that long rivers from more densely populated areas would contribute more is hardly surprising. Iirc, most of the plastic isn't even from rivers. It's from the fishing industry, illegal trash dumping and the wear on car tires. Hi Downvoters, please explain what is factually wrong about my comment. Thanks.
- barronli 7y agoI didn’t downvote you, but am wondering if you could provide any source supporting your statement? This is a website giving the ocean plastic sources, saying mostly from rivers: https://www.theoceancleanup.com/sources/ https://www.theoceancleanup.com/sources/
- danw1979 7y agoits in the article itself - "A recent study estimates that more than a quarter of all that waste could be pouring in from just 10 rivers, eight of them in Asia."
- isostatic 7y ago> Iirc, most of the plastic isn't even from rivers. It's from the fishing industry, illegal trash dumping and the wear on car tires. 10% from fishing industry Not sure what you mean by illegal trash dumping. Trash that's dumped directly on the coast and not into a river first?
- luckylion 7y ago> Not sure what you mean by illegal trash dumping. Trash that's dumped directly on the coast and not into a river first? Trash that's illegally dumped off shore. It's harder to dump large amounts of trash in a river and not have somebody notice - it's easier to say you're transporting it and "lose" part/all of it while at sea.
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- Raffers 7y agoI thought this had already been debunked....quick search shows that it has - https://www.reddit.com/r/badscience/comments/aj0idr/debunking_90_of_landbased_plastics_comes_from_10/ https://www.reddit.com/r/badscience/comments/aj0idr/debunkin... How this has made it to the front page I don't know...
- drinane 7y agoIs this right? Seems like a pretty fixable problem...
- succleaf 7y agoNo, the headline is not right. It isn't "of all the plastic in the sea, most of it comes from 10 rivers" It's "of 57 rivers, 10 contribute 93% of the plastic of those 57" > Schmidt and his colleagues dug up published data on the plastic concentration in 57 rivers of various sizes around the world. ... > The results, published last November in Environmental Science & Technology, show that rivers collectively dump anywhere from 0.47 million to 2.75 million metric tons of plastic into the seas every year, depending on the data used in the models. The 10 rivers that carry 93 percent of that trash are the Yangtze, Yellow, Hai, Pearl, Amur, Mekong, Indus and Ganges Delta in Asia, and the Niger and Nile in Africa. The Yangtze alone dumps up to an estimated 1.5 million metric tons of plastic waste into the Yellow Sea.
- britch 7y agoMaybe I'm being slow, but what is the obvious solution? The article doesn't really go into how or why the Yangtze, for instance, has so much plastic. The Yangtze is is 6,300 km long. It seems difficult to prevent people from dumping in it along it's entire length. Are thinking of setting up a filter at the mouth? Processing 4000 tons of plastic a day, including microscopic beads, doesn't seem trivial to me. Is your assumption that there's only a few major dumpers?
- hairytrog 7y agoIt's far more fixable than filtering the water in ocean. The river mouths are probably where the plastics are most concentrated in the plastic's life cycle. You could couple the plastic filter/processing plants with other required systems like power plant cooling and desalination, so that the energy you expend to filter is being used both to filter and for a secondary purpose.
- nroets 7y agoI've cycled 5,000 km this year in China and what I saw is at odds with this report: There are cleaners in all public areas. What they collect must surely go to landfills. Although I've seen some garbage dumps on the sides of lakes and rivers, I'm sure the authorities don't condone it. I also saw many signs saying "Water Source Protection Area" and fences keeping the public away. Plastic sheeting is used extensively in agriculture, but surely they will dispose of used sheets properly...
- djhaskin987 7y agoIt couldn't be Brutus, he's such an honorable man...
- tnorthcutt 7y agomust surely go to landfills I'm sure the authorities don't condone it surely they will dispose of used sheets properly
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- jandrese 7y agoI'm not trying to be overly mean here, but your comment reads like someone making a political comedy skit entitled "The World's Most Naiive Man Goes For a Bike Ride".
- nroets 7y agoI gave my raw observations last night. Maybe they sound naive. But I think that, after many years of growth at any cost, China is cleaning up their act. It may be years before it results in cleaner water flowing into the sea.
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- api 7y agoUnfortunately I find myself agreeing with the critics/cynics here on this one: people are contorting their brains to let China off the hook for what (if this study is to be believed) is a mostly Chinese problem. I don't think the point about China taking US recycling waste is relevant. They're being paid to take the waste and recycle it, not throw it in the ocean. I don't think anyone would be doing the same if the Hudson River or the Port of Long Beach were the source of most of the plastic in the ocean. China is also the world's #1 greenhouse gas emitter on a per GDP basis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ratio_of_GDP_to_carbon_dioxide_emissions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ratio_of_... Sort by GDP per emissions and China is quite exceptional compared to other large economies and even among developing nations. China just clearly doesn't care at all about the environment, or if the leadership does care they're doing a really poor job of enforcing anything. It's bizarre to me to hear Western liberals give a free pass to China with its massive and still growing CO2 emissions, internment camps for ethnic minorities, rivers of plastic, and dystopian total surveillance state. I suspect it comes from a knee jerk desire to take the opposite position from Trump and his supporters, but I personally find that to be kind of mindless. Pushing on China is one of the very very few things I agree with them about.
- BurningFrog 7y agoChina is in the earlier phase of industrialization where the focus is on escaping poverty/building wealth over a clean environment. All currently rich countries have gone through this phase, so it's hard to judge them too harshly for this, and they are showing signs of transitioning to the cleanup phase.
- jmknoll 7y agoUse of disposable plastics is actually _accelerating_ as China develops. The most developed cities are the ones where the most plastics get thrown away. In Shanghai, for instance, almost everything is delivered. Meals, products, groceries. Every single item is wrapped in layers and layers of disposable plastics. You buy a coconut, it’s wrapped in styrofoam, then wrapped in plastic. This all ends up in the ocean. A billion plastic bags are thrown away every day in China. This has nothing to do with lack of development, and nothing to do with importing recyclables. It is lack of education, disregard for the environment, and poor government policy wrt recycling and waste reduction.
- ricardobeat 7y agoThis means cleaning up, or at least putting a stop to the problem, could be a lot easier than complex ocean trash collection endeavors. Capturing debris from a river stream should be simpler, cheaper and more effective?
- OliverJones 7y agoWe reap what we sow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSxihhBzCjk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSxihhBzCjk
- weeksie 7y agoThe vast majority of the waste is fishing nets so blaming this on trash export is silly.
- thegranderson 7y agoThis focuses on just one source of plastic pollution, of which there are many. I found this resource helpful to understand more about the broader scope of the problem: https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution
- ZeroGravitas 7y agoWhat percentage of the world's population live alongside these rivers?