3 ms·

"I’d argue it should be zero." So would I, but that's impossible in meat space for any industry or technology spawned in the last 200 years. I wouldn't mind te

"I’d argue it should be zero." So would I, but that's impossible in meat space for any industry or technology spawned in the last 200 years. I wouldn't mind technologically winding the clock back 200 years, using sail boats and letting my computer wither away (and livelihood, btw). Would you? "This industry is one of the dirtiest, and least responsible to the world." True. It's also, by weight and value of goods transported, one of the cleanest. It's a massive industry Ships have the advantage of being able to dump waste in the middle of the ocean where there is little to no life (too deep, no light, no plants. There is some life). Compared to what other, land based, industries do this is comparatively benign. Here the waste gets diluted by an essentially infinite sink. Infinite sink you scoff? Yes, depending on where and what you dump. If you dump brine water off the coast near the Mississippi river, you're doing a lot of damage by significantly changing the salinity locally. Slowly dump the same brine in the middle of the ocean, and nothing will happen. Similar for heavy metals. These dissolve into salt water, and were already present in solution since the dawn of time. We won't change those numbers significantly. (again, assuming you're not dumping it just off of land like the Japanese did in the 50s) Plastic is a different ball game. Plastic doesn't dissolve and is carried, and concentrated by ocean currents. That's nasty. Chemicals and isotopes that don't naturally exist are also nasty. Particularly if they have long half-lives.

jschwartzi 7y ago
> Ships have the advantage of being able to dump waste in the middle of the ocean where there is little to no life (too deep, no light, no plants. There is some life). Compared to what other, land based, industries do this is comparatively benign. Here the waste gets diluted by an essentially infinite sink. There is life everywhere that there is a temperature gradient to exploit. Just because we haven't named it doesn't mean it isn't there. There's life in ices, life at the top of mountains, life in the deep ocean, and life in the shallow places. So I would prefer to err on the side of caution. By the way, the same arguments you're making for dumping sulfurous water were also made for the introduction of PEG into our toothpastes, shampoos, body wash, lotions, and various other cleaners. It was only after the same plastics were discovered at all levels of our food chain that someone realized it was actually a bad idea to do this. So I'm skeptical of any argument for dumping based on the small quantity of dumped materials. Humans are really good at scaling up small actions into huge consequences. And now there's plastic microbeads in our oceans, lakes, streams, fish, birds, game animals--basically anything that eats anything has measurable quantities.
samatman 7y ago
> Similar for heavy metals. These dissolve into salt water, and were already present in solution since the dawn of time. We won't change those numbers significantly. (again, assuming you're not dumping it just off of land like the Japanese did in the 50s) This is not true. Due to biomagnification, there is already significant contamination of fish stocks with (methyl)mercury: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_in_fish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_in_fish

jschwartzi 7y ago

> Ships have the advantage of being able to dump waste in the middle of the ocean where there is little to no life (too deep, no light, no plants. There is some life). Compared to what other, land based, industries do this is comparatively benign. Here the waste gets diluted by an essentially infinite sink. There is life everywhere that there is a temperature gradient to exploit. Just because we haven't named it doesn't mean it isn't there. There's life in ices, life at the top of mountains, life in the deep ocean, and life in the shallow places. So I would prefer to err on the side of caution. By the way, the same arguments you're making for dumping sulfurous water were also made for the introduction of PEG into our toothpastes, shampoos, body wash, lotions, and various other cleaners. It was only after the same plastics were discovered at all levels of our food chain that someone realized it was actually a bad idea to do this. So I'm skeptical of any argument for dumping based on the small quantity of dumped materials. Humans are really good at scaling up small actions into huge consequences. And now there's plastic microbeads in our oceans, lakes, streams, fish, birds, game animals--basically anything that eats anything has measurable quantities.

samatman 7y ago

> Similar for heavy metals. These dissolve into salt water, and were already present in solution since the dawn of time. We won't change those numbers significantly. (again, assuming you're not dumping it just off of land like the Japanese did in the 50s) This is not true. Due to biomagnification, there is already significant contamination of fish stocks with (methyl)mercury: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_in_fish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_in_fish