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It's not quite that simple to absolve Canada (and Europe and the US) from their responsibility for this problem. Quite a bit of the plastic that ends up in thos

It's not quite that simple to absolve Canada (and Europe and the US) from their responsibility for this problem. Quite a bit of the plastic that ends up in those rivers far away was exported "for recycling" to the countries where it gets miss-handled and ends up in the landscape.

gnicholas 7y ago
Sure, everyone needs to do their part. But people hear about the pacific garbage patch, and they might think that laws like this will materially affect phenomena like this. But it's possible (I'm not an expert) that a law like this would have very little impact because the vast majority of the trash comes from different regions.
- JeffreyKaine 7y ago
  I find it's best to look at laws like this as social trends. Look at the way that same sex marriage or legal marijuana spreads through the united states. One or two progressive states adopt the policy, it gains steam, and soon it's the new norm nationwide. I like to think that the same thing can happen on a global scale.
baron816 7y ago
My theory (no evidence) is that the whole recycling movement has been completely counter productive since most of that material has been shipping abroad to countries that are poorly regulated. Had we just stuffed it into landfill (we have no shortage of space to take care of it, despite what the media says), we would be fine.
- asark 7y ago
  On the landfill topic, I found this Slate Star Codex post very interesting: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/01/what-happened-to-90s-environmentalism/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/01/what-happened-to-90s-e... I'd been idly wondering about the topic for years—specifically, WTF happened to all those environmental things schools & kids' nature magazines & cartoons had all the students worked up about back in the 90s? Are they fine now? Did it all go poorly so they gave up? You know, save the rainforest, we're running out of places to put trash, and so on. The TL;DR on "ZOMG we're gonna drown in trash if we don't do something!" is that it was always basically bullshit—we didn't fix it, it was just a made-up problem to begin with. Other things the post covers are less rosy. The rainforest issue... yep, still going on, still very bad, we're just not talking about it as much.
  - dr_dshiv 7y ago
    Save the rainforest is still my main environmental mantra, thanks 5th grade. And I still think the pursuit of biodiversity is the best goal. Way more compelling to the average person than co2. And it it turns out that co2 reduction is necessary to save those lemurs, so be it. But do it for the biodiversity -- to save the rainforest. Not nearly as compelling to save the rainforest in order to reduce co2, or whatever.
    - Mediterraneo10 7y ago
      > And it it turns out that co2 reduction is necessary to save those lemurs, so be it. The threat to lemur habitats is 1) Malagasy people practicing slash-and-burn agriculture, exacerbated by a very high birthrate on the island which means there is ever more need for new agricultural land to exploit, 2) Madagascar’s poor using charcoal for cooking because they cannot afford something like kerosene, and 3) rampant logging so that the exotic wood can be shipped to China for the furniture industry. It has nothing to do with the CO2 crisis.
    - zrobotics 7y ago
      I'm curious how CO2 reduction is less compelling? Not to be blunt, but as an average American I'll likely never see the rainforest in person. I find it quite a bit more compelling to mitigate global warming, as that will drastically impact where I currently live. Sure, you can't use cute animals as mascots, but surely the people who live near coastlines should find the possibility of their homes being literally underwater more compelling than an environment they will never see.
      - dr_dshiv 7y ago
        But they see rainforests and lemurs on TV. Two cute cuddly eyes. To empathize with. The equivalent for co2 might be disaster movies (or Al Gore), which arguably are counter productive. The people living on coast lines are generally rich, which gives them the expectation that they will be ok.
  - jayess 7y ago
jlawson 7y ago
People keep saying this, but is there any evidence for it? I'm curious where this comes from. At first estimate we could just Google images of polluted rivers in Asia and Africa and look at the logos on the garbage. From my priors, I'd estimate that the plastics would almost all be from locally-consumed products, simply thrown into the river as is common and accepted in such places. My sense is that a lot of educated, wealthy Westerners don't realize: 1. How many people are in Asia and Africa. 2. How little effort they put into keeping their local environment clean. People just don't get how callous same cultures are about the environment; it cannot be believed until it's been experienced since it's so far outside of the wealthy Westerner's experience. (Plus, to believe such would also create cognitive dissonance with social justice creeds which are victim classes as inherently morally pure.)
- bobthepanda 7y ago
  China tightened up regulations on importing recycling waste last year and Western recycling was hit extremely hard: https://www.wired.com/story/the-worlds-recycling-is-in-chaos-heres-what-has-to-happen/ https://www.wired.com/story/the-worlds-recycling-is-in-chaos... > It has been a year since China jammed the works of recycling programs around the world by essentially shutting down what had been the industry’s biggest market. China’s National Sword policy, enacted in January 2018, banned the import of most plastics and other materials headed for that nation’s recycling processors, which had handled nearly half of the world’s recyclable waste for the past quarter century. The move was an effort to halt a deluge of soiled and contaminated materials that was overwhelming Chinese processing facilities and leaving the country with yet another environmental problem—and this one not of its own making. > In the year since, China’s plastic imports have plummeted by 99 percent, leading to a major global shift in where and how materials tossed in the recycling bin are being processed. While the glut of plastics is the main concern, China’s imports of mixed paper have also dropped by a third. Recycled aluminum and glass are less affected by the ban. > Globally, more plastics are now ending up in landfills, incinerators, or likely littering the environment as rising costs to haul away recyclable materials increasingly render the practice unprofitable. In England, more than half a million more tons of plastics and other household garbage were burned last year. Australia’s recycling industry is facing a crisis as the country struggles to handle the 1.3 million-ton stockpile of recyclable waste it had previously shipped to China.

gnicholas 7y ago

Sure, everyone needs to do their part. But people hear about the pacific garbage patch, and they might think that laws like this will materially affect phenomena like this. But it's possible (I'm not an expert) that a law like this would have very little impact because the vast majority of the trash comes from different regions.

JeffreyKaine 7y ago
I find it's best to look at laws like this as social trends. Look at the way that same sex marriage or legal marijuana spreads through the united states. One or two progressive states adopt the policy, it gains steam, and soon it's the new norm nationwide. I like to think that the same thing can happen on a global scale.

baron816 7y ago

My theory (no evidence) is that the whole recycling movement has been completely counter productive since most of that material has been shipping abroad to countries that are poorly regulated. Had we just stuffed it into landfill (we have no shortage of space to take care of it, despite what the media says), we would be fine.

asark 7y ago
On the landfill topic, I found this Slate Star Codex post very interesting: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/01/what-happened-to-90s-environmentalism/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/01/what-happened-to-90s-e... I'd been idly wondering about the topic for years—specifically, WTF happened to all those environmental things schools & kids' nature magazines & cartoons had all the students worked up about back in the 90s? Are they fine now? Did it all go poorly so they gave up? You know, save the rainforest, we're running out of places to put trash, and so on. The TL;DR on "ZOMG we're gonna drown in trash if we don't do something!" is that it was always basically bullshit—we didn't fix it, it was just a made-up problem to begin with. Other things the post covers are less rosy. The rainforest issue... yep, still going on, still very bad, we're just not talking about it as much.
- dr_dshiv 7y ago
  Save the rainforest is still my main environmental mantra, thanks 5th grade. And I still think the pursuit of biodiversity is the best goal. Way more compelling to the average person than co2. And it it turns out that co2 reduction is necessary to save those lemurs, so be it. But do it for the biodiversity -- to save the rainforest. Not nearly as compelling to save the rainforest in order to reduce co2, or whatever.
  - Mediterraneo10 7y ago
    > And it it turns out that co2 reduction is necessary to save those lemurs, so be it. The threat to lemur habitats is 1) Malagasy people practicing slash-and-burn agriculture, exacerbated by a very high birthrate on the island which means there is ever more need for new agricultural land to exploit, 2) Madagascar’s poor using charcoal for cooking because they cannot afford something like kerosene, and 3) rampant logging so that the exotic wood can be shipped to China for the furniture industry. It has nothing to do with the CO2 crisis.
  - zrobotics 7y ago
    I'm curious how CO2 reduction is less compelling? Not to be blunt, but as an average American I'll likely never see the rainforest in person. I find it quite a bit more compelling to mitigate global warming, as that will drastically impact where I currently live. Sure, you can't use cute animals as mascots, but surely the people who live near coastlines should find the possibility of their homes being literally underwater more compelling than an environment they will never see.
    - dr_dshiv 7y ago
      But they see rainforests and lemurs on TV. Two cute cuddly eyes. To empathize with. The equivalent for co2 might be disaster movies (or Al Gore), which arguably are counter productive. The people living on coast lines are generally rich, which gives them the expectation that they will be ok.
- jayess 7y ago

jlawson 7y ago

People keep saying this, but is there any evidence for it? I'm curious where this comes from. At first estimate we could just Google images of polluted rivers in Asia and Africa and look at the logos on the garbage. From my priors, I'd estimate that the plastics would almost all be from locally-consumed products, simply thrown into the river as is common and accepted in such places. My sense is that a lot of educated, wealthy Westerners don't realize: 1. How many people are in Asia and Africa. 2. How little effort they put into keeping their local environment clean. People just don't get how callous same cultures are about the environment; it cannot be believed until it's been experienced since it's so far outside of the wealthy Westerner's experience. (Plus, to believe such would also create cognitive dissonance with social justice creeds which are victim classes as inherently morally pure.)

bobthepanda 7y ago
China tightened up regulations on importing recycling waste last year and Western recycling was hit extremely hard: https://www.wired.com/story/the-worlds-recycling-is-in-chaos-heres-what-has-to-happen/ https://www.wired.com/story/the-worlds-recycling-is-in-chaos... > It has been a year since China jammed the works of recycling programs around the world by essentially shutting down what had been the industry’s biggest market. China’s National Sword policy, enacted in January 2018, banned the import of most plastics and other materials headed for that nation’s recycling processors, which had handled nearly half of the world’s recyclable waste for the past quarter century. The move was an effort to halt a deluge of soiled and contaminated materials that was overwhelming Chinese processing facilities and leaving the country with yet another environmental problem—and this one not of its own making. > In the year since, China’s plastic imports have plummeted by 99 percent, leading to a major global shift in where and how materials tossed in the recycling bin are being processed. While the glut of plastics is the main concern, China’s imports of mixed paper have also dropped by a third. Recycled aluminum and glass are less affected by the ban. > Globally, more plastics are now ending up in landfills, incinerators, or likely littering the environment as rising costs to haul away recyclable materials increasingly render the practice unprofitable. In England, more than half a million more tons of plastics and other household garbage were burned last year. Australia’s recycling industry is facing a crisis as the country struggles to handle the 1.3 million-ton stockpile of recyclable waste it had previously shipped to China.