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> Individuals must be aware of this and need to make better choices or else this problem will just continue. No they don't. At least not if they live in the de

> Individuals must be aware of this and need to make better choices or else this problem will just continue. No they don't. At least not if they live in the developed world. Virtually all disposed of plastic in the US and Europe is sequestered in solid-waste landfills. Modern landfills leak virtually nothing to the outside environment. Virtually all environmental plastic contamination comes from third world countries in Asia or Africa. In particular China, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia. Due to rampant corruption and lack of oversight these countries have gross mismanagement of their solid waste disposal. Plastic is completely fine to use. As long as it's properly disposed of, there's essentially zero environmental impact. If you live in a first world country, I can assure you that your plastic straw will absolutely not end up in a turtle's nose. The issue is that the international community needs to hold Asia and Africa accountable for not upholding global standards on ocean pollution. [1] https://www.dumpsters.com/blog/how-do-modern-landfills-work https://www.dumpsters.com/blog/how-do-modern-landfills-work [2] https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution#mismanaged-plastic-waste https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution#mismanaged-plas...

sachdevap 7y ago
Let's not get so high and mighty about developing countries having to take all the blame. Western countries do ship a lot of plastic waste to developing nations. [0] [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/southeast-asia-threaten-to-return-plastic-trash-to-west-2019-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/southeast-asia-threaten-to-r...
- whamlastxmas 7y ago
  Under the guise of recycling, which is funny, because we're actually seeing environmental damage as a direct result of recycling when just throwing it away would place it safely in a US landfill
martyvis 7y ago
It seems at least one first world country is sending recycling waste to developing countries for supposed processing http://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-22/malaysia-flooded-with-plastic-waste-to-send-scrap-back/11136322 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-22/malaysia-flooded-with-...
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
  There's also a problem that a lot of this smuggling may be illegal (not willingly accepted by other countries under their laws) and fraudulent (done instead of real recycling). So the statistics we have about the destination of recycling and general waste may be wrong.
- nineteen999 7y ago
  Yes it is becoming a real problem here in Australia. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-11/australias-recycling-crisis-one-year-on-whats-changed/10701418 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-11/australias-recycling-... And just recently we started sending recycling to landfill in many places: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-06/councils-sending-thousands-of-tonnes-of-recycling-to-landfill/11385458 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-06/councils-sending-thou... Historically we've "outsourced" our recycling problem to Asian nations rather than develop or implement solutions at home, and unfortunately now our chickens are coming home to roost.
  - photojosh 7y ago
    > rather than develop or implement solutions at home I find this absolutely infuriating... it's the perfect job to give to the CSIRO (our public scientific research organisation) and provide government grants to get local recycling off the ground. There's so much talk around "supporting local industry", but when decisions are actually made, they use overseas suppliers 9 times out of 10.
    - nineteen999 7y ago
      Agreed. I mean if we look at the CSIRO's list of achievements: https://www.csiro.au/en/About/History-achievements/Top-10-inventions https://www.csiro.au/en/About/History-achievements/Top-10-in... and considering the defunding that has been going on, particularly with respect to climate change: https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/csiro-australia-to-suffer-for-ignorance-on-research-20160207-gmno7t.html https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/csiro-australia-... It really is a sad picture indeed.
- 7y ago
pault 7y ago
The governments need to be held accountable but there also needs to be significant education of the population. I lived in Thailand for a few years and my Thai friends would literally just drop bags, wrappers, plastic bottles, etc. on the ground as soon as they were done with them without missing a beat. They rolled their eyes and giggled at me when I carried my trash around until I found a receptacle. In the town I lived in there were hundreds of little scraps of plastic in every square foot of dirt.
on_and_off 7y ago
In all the developed countries I have visited, plastic waste is omnipresent on the side of streets or beaches.
- modzu 7y ago
  Littered waste is distinct from 'inadequately disposed' waste in that it represents plastics that are dumped or disposed of without consent in an inappropriate location. Whilst high-income countries tend to have effective waste management infrastructure and therefore very small quantities of inadequately disposed waste, they can contribute to plastics pollution by littering. Jambeck et al. (2015) assume a rate of littering of 2 percent of total plastic waste generation across all countries.
  - WhompingWindows 7y ago
    Great comment, what do they say is the % of plastic waste in high-income countries that is litter?
air7 7y ago
I adamantly agree. The only caveat is some (I don't know the percentage) of the trash being disposed of in these developing countries comes from developed nations that sell it for recycling/dumping but don't do it properly. I'm not sure what's the western countries' responsibility here but we can't turn a blind eye.
your-nanny 7y ago
I recognize that the problem outside of US Canada Western and Central Europe, etc is worse, but I live next to a creek in US, and I guarantee you that there is A LOT of junk getting into the water, and not just plastic.
adamsea 7y ago
Wouldn't it be nice just to not use the stuff, anyway? Conserve our resources, etc. Plus foodstuffs in plastic ... what's the story there, anyway? Less code is more. Less stuff is more.
- dahfizz 7y ago
  Your platitudes are meaningless without a practical replacement. We don't use plastic for the fun of it - there's nothing else that can do what plastic can do, especially for the price. What's the alternative?
  - jaredklewis 7y ago
    There’s not a single replacement that works for every situation, but plastic is far from irreplaceable. I got a cloth shopping bag as a gift when I was in college; I still use it today 10 years later. Perfect example of a case where there is really no need for plastic in the first place. I’m not against plastic, but its cheap price had lead to grotesque levels of overuse. Every time I order take out, I always make a big point that I don’t want any utensils, because if I don’t, they cram the bag full of things I don’t need. It’s no more convenient for me to receive or not receive plastic utensils, it’s just wasteful. If you need a plastic thing, by all means, go for it. But that I can tell most use of plastic in our society is just out of habit. We could change our habits, use far less plastic and at no cost to ourselves. Seems like a no brained to optimize this function.
DanBC 7y ago
You've ignored microplastic pollution coming from clothing, and you've ignored industrial pollution from eg fishing nets. > Virtually all environmental plastic contamination comes from third world countries in Asia or Africa This is so wrong there's no point trying to rebut it. But it is very wrong, and the fact you say it shows you do not understand the problem at all.
nswest23 7y ago
According to this report from the Guardian recycled plastic from the US ends up in developing countries that mismanage that waste. Maybe the answer is to throw our plastic in the trash and not participate in the 'recycling' charade. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/17/recycled-plastic-america-global-crisis https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/17/recycled-pla...
- Fjolsvith 7y ago
  Then the answer is to not recycle plastic in the US.

sachdevap 7y ago

Let's not get so high and mighty about developing countries having to take all the blame. Western countries do ship a lot of plastic waste to developing nations. [0] [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/southeast-asia-threaten-to-return-plastic-trash-to-west-2019-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/southeast-asia-threaten-to-r...

whamlastxmas 7y ago
Under the guise of recycling, which is funny, because we're actually seeing environmental damage as a direct result of recycling when just throwing it away would place it safely in a US landfill

martyvis 7y ago

It seems at least one first world country is sending recycling waste to developing countries for supposed processing http://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-22/malaysia-flooded-with-plastic-waste-to-send-scrap-back/11136322 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-22/malaysia-flooded-with-...

TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
There's also a problem that a lot of this smuggling may be illegal (not willingly accepted by other countries under their laws) and fraudulent (done instead of real recycling). So the statistics we have about the destination of recycling and general waste may be wrong.
nineteen999 7y ago
Yes it is becoming a real problem here in Australia. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-11/australias-recycling-crisis-one-year-on-whats-changed/10701418 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-11/australias-recycling-... And just recently we started sending recycling to landfill in many places: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-06/councils-sending-thousands-of-tonnes-of-recycling-to-landfill/11385458 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-06/councils-sending-thou... Historically we've "outsourced" our recycling problem to Asian nations rather than develop or implement solutions at home, and unfortunately now our chickens are coming home to roost.
- photojosh 7y ago
  > rather than develop or implement solutions at home I find this absolutely infuriating... it's the perfect job to give to the CSIRO (our public scientific research organisation) and provide government grants to get local recycling off the ground. There's so much talk around "supporting local industry", but when decisions are actually made, they use overseas suppliers 9 times out of 10.
  - nineteen999 7y ago
    Agreed. I mean if we look at the CSIRO's list of achievements: https://www.csiro.au/en/About/History-achievements/Top-10-inventions https://www.csiro.au/en/About/History-achievements/Top-10-in... and considering the defunding that has been going on, particularly with respect to climate change: https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/csiro-australia-to-suffer-for-ignorance-on-research-20160207-gmno7t.html https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/csiro-australia-... It really is a sad picture indeed.
7y ago

pault 7y ago

The governments need to be held accountable but there also needs to be significant education of the population. I lived in Thailand for a few years and my Thai friends would literally just drop bags, wrappers, plastic bottles, etc. on the ground as soon as they were done with them without missing a beat. They rolled their eyes and giggled at me when I carried my trash around until I found a receptacle. In the town I lived in there were hundreds of little scraps of plastic in every square foot of dirt.

on_and_off 7y ago

In all the developed countries I have visited, plastic waste is omnipresent on the side of streets or beaches.

modzu 7y ago
Littered waste is distinct from 'inadequately disposed' waste in that it represents plastics that are dumped or disposed of without consent in an inappropriate location. Whilst high-income countries tend to have effective waste management infrastructure and therefore very small quantities of inadequately disposed waste, they can contribute to plastics pollution by littering. Jambeck et al. (2015) assume a rate of littering of 2 percent of total plastic waste generation across all countries.
- WhompingWindows 7y ago
  Great comment, what do they say is the % of plastic waste in high-income countries that is litter?

air7 7y ago

I adamantly agree. The only caveat is some (I don't know the percentage) of the trash being disposed of in these developing countries comes from developed nations that sell it for recycling/dumping but don't do it properly. I'm not sure what's the western countries' responsibility here but we can't turn a blind eye.

your-nanny 7y ago

I recognize that the problem outside of US Canada Western and Central Europe, etc is worse, but I live next to a creek in US, and I guarantee you that there is A LOT of junk getting into the water, and not just plastic.

adamsea 7y ago

Wouldn't it be nice just to not use the stuff, anyway? Conserve our resources, etc. Plus foodstuffs in plastic ... what's the story there, anyway? Less code is more. Less stuff is more.

dahfizz 7y ago
Your platitudes are meaningless without a practical replacement. We don't use plastic for the fun of it - there's nothing else that can do what plastic can do, especially for the price. What's the alternative?
- jaredklewis 7y ago
  There’s not a single replacement that works for every situation, but plastic is far from irreplaceable. I got a cloth shopping bag as a gift when I was in college; I still use it today 10 years later. Perfect example of a case where there is really no need for plastic in the first place. I’m not against plastic, but its cheap price had lead to grotesque levels of overuse. Every time I order take out, I always make a big point that I don’t want any utensils, because if I don’t, they cram the bag full of things I don’t need. It’s no more convenient for me to receive or not receive plastic utensils, it’s just wasteful. If you need a plastic thing, by all means, go for it. But that I can tell most use of plastic in our society is just out of habit. We could change our habits, use far less plastic and at no cost to ourselves. Seems like a no brained to optimize this function.

DanBC 7y ago

You've ignored microplastic pollution coming from clothing, and you've ignored industrial pollution from eg fishing nets. > Virtually all environmental plastic contamination comes from third world countries in Asia or Africa This is so wrong there's no point trying to rebut it. But it is very wrong, and the fact you say it shows you do not understand the problem at all.

nswest23 7y ago

According to this report from the Guardian recycled plastic from the US ends up in developing countries that mismanage that waste. Maybe the answer is to throw our plastic in the trash and not participate in the 'recycling' charade. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/17/recycled-plastic-america-global-crisis https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/17/recycled-pla...

Fjolsvith 7y ago
Then the answer is to not recycle plastic in the US.