10 ms·

U.S. contributes 5 times more ocean plastic than previous estimates

170 points by hochmartinez 6y ago

staplers 6y ago
I'm assuming this means we export 80% of our waste? Wondering how the anti-globalist populace feels about this.
- Isamu 6y ago
  Further down it says 9% of our waste is recycled, and our exports should come out of that.
- dx87 6y ago
  It makes me feel like shipping it overseas was a way to keep from having to deal with it. If we have to deal with our own garbage, then maybe we'll care about reducing the amount we produce.
  - Alupis 6y ago
    Is this not the same with most (all?) electric car drivers? "Look how clean my car is, zero emissions!" Completely ignoring the open pit rare earth mineral mines that are incredibly harmful for the environment, but are necessary for manufacturing these batteries? The mines are in China though, so we don't worry about it.
    - bluGill 6y ago
      Batteries are recyclable. Cars are currently recycled at end of life more than just about anything else. Ever notice the cars towed free signs all over the US? Every tow truck driver in the country knows where to sell a junk car for a few hundred dollars - more if it is running (meaning they can take useful parts off of it instead of just the metal). Between the volume of cars in the country, and the amount of valuable metals in it, it is worth getting equipment to do this.
    - staplers 6y ago
      Even more, 62% of American electricity is from fossil fuel. Electric cars generally outsource fossil fuel burning to industrial areas where the power plants are. Source: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
- FooHentai 6y ago
  I understand it to mean that OF the waste the US exports, 88% of that (unquantified) amount ends up somewhere with inadequate capabilities to handle it. The actual tonnage/proportion of domestically-generated waste being exported I don’t think is referenced anywhere - haven’t gone beyond the article itself yet though.
Isamu 6y ago
From TFA: > This figure is almost double the higher end of the estimates from 2015 and five times more than the lowest estimates in the earlier predictions. > The data included American waste exports that were not accounted for in their previous studies. > Recent developments have shown that much of the plastic waste that is exported does not go through recycling systems and ends up in the oceans.
WalterBright 6y ago
Plastic should be taxed.
- bigbubba 6y ago
  Plastic manufacturers could be made to buy back plastic goods at a rate that would bankrupt them if they're unable/unwilling to reuse or recycle that plastic. This would incentivize the use of less plastic overall, recycleable plastics in general, and the creation of products that remain useful to consumers for longer (to drive down the return of plastic products.)
  - Alupis 6y ago
    In California at least, there's already the "C.R.V" - California Redemption Value. This is effectively a tax, added to every bottle sold, available to be redeemed upon being turned into a recycling center. Even with this, not enough people bother. The real solution is to make our garbage collection far more efficient. Why do we still separate recyclables and garbage into separate bins? As-if regular people can be trusted to do this without fail? Make it automatic, and a lot of this concern will go away.
    - cwkoss 6y ago
      Seems like CRV could be increased to get the target recycling rate desired by legislators pretty easily. If each bottle was $0.50, many more people would separate and sort their recycling to take advantage of this. Would probably have some free beneficial side effects, like less soda consumption and more use of re-usable water bottles.
      - Alupis 6y ago
        Or, we can focus on automated garbage sorting. It shouldn't matter which bin you toss something into, it should all be automatically handled the best way for whatever material it's made from. Increasing CRV disproportionately impacts people with less economic stability than others. Many of us here on HN probably wouldn't miss $0.50, at least enough to be compelled to take the time to properly sort our garbage 100% of the time. Plastic floats, glass and metal sinks. Shred everything and separate it. Machines already exist like this - but everyone wants to focus on compelling human behavior to be a certain way instead of just removing that hurdle completely, which would be better for everyone involved.
supernova87a 6y ago
I mean, this is all very disheartening. First we find out that we haven't been recycling, we've been burying our waste because it's too expensive to reclaim the plastic. Then we find out that 80% of the plastic isn't even ever recyclable, and was a lie from the plastic companies to make us feel better about buying plastics. Now we're shedding more of it into the oceans. This is what happens when it's too cheap to pump oil out of the ground and put it in everything you consume. What do we do about all this? https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/912150085/waste-land https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/912150085/waste-land https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-... https://www.npr.org/2019/07/12/741283641/episode-926-so-should-we-recycle https://www.npr.org/2019/07/12/741283641/episode-926-so-shou...
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  >What do we do about all this? There is no solution other than reducing consumption. Which can most easily be accomplished by increasing taxes on the consumption you want reduced.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    It's also possible to simply ban some forms of products in the event taxes are not enough to destroy demand. I hear lobbying is cheap and has a great ROI.
  - cipher_system 6y ago
    That only reduces the problem a bit though, it's not a sustainable solution. We also need to produce plastics that can and will be recycled. Taxation and legislation could be drivers for improvements.
    - triceratops 6y ago
      > That only reduces the problem a bit though, it's not a sustainable solution. Why not? We lived quite happily with a fraction of the plastic usage 60 years ago. It's possible to continue using plastic for critical use-cases like medicine, or engineering uses like aircraft or automobiles where there are no good substitutes, while phasing out consumer usage. I'd happily take my refillable shampoo bottle, soy sauce bottle, and milk bottle to be filled at the store.
readams 6y ago
It's a misleading headline, since it's really saying that the US exports plastic and the places where it's exported manage to get it into the ocean.
- trepetti 6y ago
  Yes, apparently some US plastic recycling programs amounted to fraud in that they would simply export waste without due diligence about the overseas sites they were shipping them to. There's a reason why "reduce" and "reuse" come first in the old adage before "recycle".
  - merpnderp 6y ago
    Fraud is a strong word. This was common knowledge to anyone interested in how recycling works. Wait until you hear about the mountains of glass sitting around never to be recycled.
    - redis_mlc 6y ago
      If by "mountains of glass" you mean "landfilled", then yup. It's not well-understood that municipal recycling requires private contractors to bid on the waste stream, and if they can't make money on it, it all gets landfilled like the good old days. At least consumers are now trained to separate it. Those can grifters are likely the real recycling heros of our time. Make it easy for them to find them.
threatofrain 6y ago
It's sad because even if US Democrats have the momentum to make a clean sweep of government, it's unclear if they have the political currency to pursue a green agenda, especially when economy/Covid are the top two issues. A large-scale plan will likely dampen the US economy in the short term at time when voters want short term wins. It will fall on the rest of the world lead on ecological responsibility & technology, while the US becomes an increasingly odious neighbor.
- bgorman 6y ago
  In many states voters can put initiatives directly on the Ballot. For example the state of Washington had a carbon tax on the ballot in 2016, however voters rejected it. Until these issues actually resonate with voters, it is unlikely change will come.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- creato 6y ago
  - Plastic pollution has little to do with climate change. - "5 times more" says nothing about the absolute amount. According to https://www.plasticethics.com/home/2019/3/17/the-countries-polluting-the-oceans-the-most-with-plastic-waste https://www.plasticethics.com/home/2019/3/17/the-countries-p..., 5x more means moving up to be tied with Sri Lanka on the global list. It would take another 5x to match the worst offender. - Other posts in this thread are pointing out that the headline is misleading in several ways.
  - rocgf 6y ago
    This is the logic that I love to see.
- lopmotr 6y ago
  Why are you confusing plastic in the ocean with climate change? To some extent, solutions to each of the two issues exacerbate the other. There's no single right way to manage the environment. That's why nobody is doing it the way you want, because it's not "right" by all measures.
wnissen 6y ago
I hope there's a bit more detail than that. I have seen numbers in the past that the US and Europe together represent only a relatively small amount of plastic, but perhaps not if you account for transfers of recycled material. I thought the major contributor was abandoned nets, though.
rshnotsecure 6y ago
The author of this article is "Bonface Landi". His bio describes himself as a mentor to up-and-coming writers. I can find no evidence of his existence online outside of his bio on the linked site, another site that describes him instead as "her", and a LinkedIn page with no profile photo and 1 connection. Who is this person? "Bonface" is also not a plausible first name.
- jfim 6y ago
  Does it matter? The original source [0] is the first link in the article and is much more detailed than the short summary article.
- bigbubba 6y ago
  Bonface seems to be a first name used in some parts of Africa.
  - rshnotsecure 6y ago
    That is correct but the spelling of that name would be "Boniface".
    - bigbubba 6y ago
      I think that's what the name is ''supposed'' to be, but a web search revealed a number of people seemingly named 'Bonface', spelled that way.
yazaddaruvala 6y ago
Check out the Ocean Cleanup Project, it definitely cannot be the only solution, but it is one solution towards reducing ocean plastic. I know it seems crazy daunting, and even impossible, but they are excited and entrepreneurial so I support their efforts to help the problem. I'm especially excited about their Rivers[1] project, and their recent sunglasses[2] made from plastic they removed from the Pacific ocean (worth noting, only 95% of the product is recycled from the ocean). Disclaimer: No affiliation, but I like what they do, have donated in the past, and just bought 2 pairs of their sunglasses. [1] https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers/ https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers/ [2] https://products.theoceancleanup.com/ https://products.theoceancleanup.com/
- orev 6y ago
  I don’t disagree that there’s a problem, and removing plastic from the environment is definitely a good thing to do, but if reclaiming plastic when it’s all in one place (the transfer stations, landfills, or even the cargo containers) and easy to collect, how can it possibly be sustainable to skim it out of the ocean?
  - yazaddaruvala 6y ago
    (Not a convincing answer, but it’s my answer) Because this group is motivated to accomplish it. lol, sadly we were lied to, and apparently no group has really cared about cleaning up land based plastic. And I kinda fall into this bucket too. If you told me someone hurried the plastic, I’d be a bit sad “but ok”. Meanwhile, I love the idea of the ocean being clean, and am happy to pay the X% extra to buy sunglasses or whatever to help fund cleaning the ocean up.
preommr 6y ago
Our supply chain needs to be improved. There are so many things that we can buy in bulk. Something like bringing your own container for hand soap that then gets filled up at a dispenser. Even better, we could start regularly circulating certain deliveries at scheduled intervals. So every two months, a truck with all the soaps comes around to neighborhoods delivering to people that registered for a delivery on their app.
- crispyporkbites 6y ago
  Or you could not use liquid soap altogether ;-) it has no benefits over bars of soap that last far longer and don’t require plastic packaging. Reduce, reuse, recycle - in that order
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  It doesn't exist (at any real scale) because there's no impetus for it to exist. As long as there's no real premium to go to the store and buy single-use products, people are going to continue defaulting to that.
dang 6y ago
Url changed from https://inhabitat.com/u-s-contributes-5-times-more-ocean-plastic-than-previous-estimates/ https://inhabitat.com/u-s-contributes-5-times-more-ocean-pla..., which points to this.
effnorwood 6y ago
It doesn’t
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

170 points by hochmartinez 6y ago

staplers 6y ago

I'm assuming this means we export 80% of our waste? Wondering how the anti-globalist populace feels about this.

Isamu 6y ago
Further down it says 9% of our waste is recycled, and our exports should come out of that.
dx87 6y ago
It makes me feel like shipping it overseas was a way to keep from having to deal with it. If we have to deal with our own garbage, then maybe we'll care about reducing the amount we produce.
- Alupis 6y ago
  Is this not the same with most (all?) electric car drivers? "Look how clean my car is, zero emissions!" Completely ignoring the open pit rare earth mineral mines that are incredibly harmful for the environment, but are necessary for manufacturing these batteries? The mines are in China though, so we don't worry about it.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    Batteries are recyclable. Cars are currently recycled at end of life more than just about anything else. Ever notice the cars towed free signs all over the US? Every tow truck driver in the country knows where to sell a junk car for a few hundred dollars - more if it is running (meaning they can take useful parts off of it instead of just the metal). Between the volume of cars in the country, and the amount of valuable metals in it, it is worth getting equipment to do this.
  - staplers 6y ago
    Even more, 62% of American electricity is from fossil fuel. Electric cars generally outsource fossil fuel burning to industrial areas where the power plants are. Source: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
FooHentai 6y ago
I understand it to mean that OF the waste the US exports, 88% of that (unquantified) amount ends up somewhere with inadequate capabilities to handle it. The actual tonnage/proportion of domestically-generated waste being exported I don’t think is referenced anywhere - haven’t gone beyond the article itself yet though.

Isamu 6y ago

From TFA: > This figure is almost double the higher end of the estimates from 2015 and five times more than the lowest estimates in the earlier predictions. > The data included American waste exports that were not accounted for in their previous studies. > Recent developments have shown that much of the plastic waste that is exported does not go through recycling systems and ends up in the oceans.

WalterBright 6y ago

Plastic should be taxed.

bigbubba 6y ago
Plastic manufacturers could be made to buy back plastic goods at a rate that would bankrupt them if they're unable/unwilling to reuse or recycle that plastic. This would incentivize the use of less plastic overall, recycleable plastics in general, and the creation of products that remain useful to consumers for longer (to drive down the return of plastic products.)
- Alupis 6y ago
  In California at least, there's already the "C.R.V" - California Redemption Value. This is effectively a tax, added to every bottle sold, available to be redeemed upon being turned into a recycling center. Even with this, not enough people bother. The real solution is to make our garbage collection far more efficient. Why do we still separate recyclables and garbage into separate bins? As-if regular people can be trusted to do this without fail? Make it automatic, and a lot of this concern will go away.
  - cwkoss 6y ago
    Seems like CRV could be increased to get the target recycling rate desired by legislators pretty easily. If each bottle was $0.50, many more people would separate and sort their recycling to take advantage of this. Would probably have some free beneficial side effects, like less soda consumption and more use of re-usable water bottles.
    - Alupis 6y ago
      Or, we can focus on automated garbage sorting. It shouldn't matter which bin you toss something into, it should all be automatically handled the best way for whatever material it's made from. Increasing CRV disproportionately impacts people with less economic stability than others. Many of us here on HN probably wouldn't miss $0.50, at least enough to be compelled to take the time to properly sort our garbage 100% of the time. Plastic floats, glass and metal sinks. Shred everything and separate it. Machines already exist like this - but everyone wants to focus on compelling human behavior to be a certain way instead of just removing that hurdle completely, which would be better for everyone involved.

supernova87a 6y ago

I mean, this is all very disheartening. First we find out that we haven't been recycling, we've been burying our waste because it's too expensive to reclaim the plastic. Then we find out that 80% of the plastic isn't even ever recyclable, and was a lie from the plastic companies to make us feel better about buying plastics. Now we're shedding more of it into the oceans. This is what happens when it's too cheap to pump oil out of the ground and put it in everything you consume. What do we do about all this? https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/912150085/waste-land https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/912150085/waste-land https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-... https://www.npr.org/2019/07/12/741283641/episode-926-so-should-we-recycle https://www.npr.org/2019/07/12/741283641/episode-926-so-shou...

lotsofpulp 6y ago
>What do we do about all this? There is no solution other than reducing consumption. Which can most easily be accomplished by increasing taxes on the consumption you want reduced.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  It's also possible to simply ban some forms of products in the event taxes are not enough to destroy demand. I hear lobbying is cheap and has a great ROI.
- cipher_system 6y ago
  That only reduces the problem a bit though, it's not a sustainable solution. We also need to produce plastics that can and will be recycled. Taxation and legislation could be drivers for improvements.
  - triceratops 6y ago
    > That only reduces the problem a bit though, it's not a sustainable solution. Why not? We lived quite happily with a fraction of the plastic usage 60 years ago. It's possible to continue using plastic for critical use-cases like medicine, or engineering uses like aircraft or automobiles where there are no good substitutes, while phasing out consumer usage. I'd happily take my refillable shampoo bottle, soy sauce bottle, and milk bottle to be filled at the store.

readams 6y ago

It's a misleading headline, since it's really saying that the US exports plastic and the places where it's exported manage to get it into the ocean.

trepetti 6y ago
Yes, apparently some US plastic recycling programs amounted to fraud in that they would simply export waste without due diligence about the overseas sites they were shipping them to. There's a reason why "reduce" and "reuse" come first in the old adage before "recycle".
- merpnderp 6y ago
  Fraud is a strong word. This was common knowledge to anyone interested in how recycling works. Wait until you hear about the mountains of glass sitting around never to be recycled.
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    If by "mountains of glass" you mean "landfilled", then yup. It's not well-understood that municipal recycling requires private contractors to bid on the waste stream, and if they can't make money on it, it all gets landfilled like the good old days. At least consumers are now trained to separate it. Those can grifters are likely the real recycling heros of our time. Make it easy for them to find them.

threatofrain 6y ago

It's sad because even if US Democrats have the momentum to make a clean sweep of government, it's unclear if they have the political currency to pursue a green agenda, especially when economy/Covid are the top two issues. A large-scale plan will likely dampen the US economy in the short term at time when voters want short term wins. It will fall on the rest of the world lead on ecological responsibility & technology, while the US becomes an increasingly odious neighbor.

bgorman 6y ago
In many states voters can put initiatives directly on the Ballot. For example the state of Washington had a carbon tax on the ballot in 2016, however voters rejected it. Until these issues actually resonate with voters, it is unlikely change will come.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
creato 6y ago
- Plastic pollution has little to do with climate change. - "5 times more" says nothing about the absolute amount. According to https://www.plasticethics.com/home/2019/3/17/the-countries-polluting-the-oceans-the-most-with-plastic-waste https://www.plasticethics.com/home/2019/3/17/the-countries-p..., 5x more means moving up to be tied with Sri Lanka on the global list. It would take another 5x to match the worst offender. - Other posts in this thread are pointing out that the headline is misleading in several ways.
- rocgf 6y ago
  This is the logic that I love to see.
lopmotr 6y ago
Why are you confusing plastic in the ocean with climate change? To some extent, solutions to each of the two issues exacerbate the other. There's no single right way to manage the environment. That's why nobody is doing it the way you want, because it's not "right" by all measures.

wnissen 6y ago

I hope there's a bit more detail than that. I have seen numbers in the past that the US and Europe together represent only a relatively small amount of plastic, but perhaps not if you account for transfers of recycled material. I thought the major contributor was abandoned nets, though.

rshnotsecure 6y ago

The author of this article is "Bonface Landi". His bio describes himself as a mentor to up-and-coming writers. I can find no evidence of his existence online outside of his bio on the linked site, another site that describes him instead as "her", and a LinkedIn page with no profile photo and 1 connection. Who is this person? "Bonface" is also not a plausible first name.

jfim 6y ago
Does it matter? The original source [0] is the first link in the article and is much more detailed than the short summary article.
bigbubba 6y ago
Bonface seems to be a first name used in some parts of Africa.
- rshnotsecure 6y ago
  That is correct but the spelling of that name would be "Boniface".
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    I think that's what the name is ''supposed'' to be, but a web search revealed a number of people seemingly named 'Bonface', spelled that way.

yazaddaruvala 6y ago

Check out the Ocean Cleanup Project, it definitely cannot be the only solution, but it is one solution towards reducing ocean plastic. I know it seems crazy daunting, and even impossible, but they are excited and entrepreneurial so I support their efforts to help the problem. I'm especially excited about their Rivers[1] project, and their recent sunglasses[2] made from plastic they removed from the Pacific ocean (worth noting, only 95% of the product is recycled from the ocean). Disclaimer: No affiliation, but I like what they do, have donated in the past, and just bought 2 pairs of their sunglasses. [1] https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers/ https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers/ [2] https://products.theoceancleanup.com/ https://products.theoceancleanup.com/

orev 6y ago
I don’t disagree that there’s a problem, and removing plastic from the environment is definitely a good thing to do, but if reclaiming plastic when it’s all in one place (the transfer stations, landfills, or even the cargo containers) and easy to collect, how can it possibly be sustainable to skim it out of the ocean?
- yazaddaruvala 6y ago
  (Not a convincing answer, but it’s my answer) Because this group is motivated to accomplish it. lol, sadly we were lied to, and apparently no group has really cared about cleaning up land based plastic. And I kinda fall into this bucket too. If you told me someone hurried the plastic, I’d be a bit sad “but ok”. Meanwhile, I love the idea of the ocean being clean, and am happy to pay the X% extra to buy sunglasses or whatever to help fund cleaning the ocean up.

preommr 6y ago

Our supply chain needs to be improved. There are so many things that we can buy in bulk. Something like bringing your own container for hand soap that then gets filled up at a dispenser. Even better, we could start regularly circulating certain deliveries at scheduled intervals. So every two months, a truck with all the soaps comes around to neighborhoods delivering to people that registered for a delivery on their app.

crispyporkbites 6y ago
Or you could not use liquid soap altogether ;-) it has no benefits over bars of soap that last far longer and don’t require plastic packaging. Reduce, reuse, recycle - in that order
hombre_fatal 6y ago
It doesn't exist (at any real scale) because there's no impetus for it to exist. As long as there's no real premium to go to the store and buy single-use products, people are going to continue defaulting to that.

dang 6y ago

Url changed from https://inhabitat.com/u-s-contributes-5-times-more-ocean-plastic-than-previous-estimates/ https://inhabitat.com/u-s-contributes-5-times-more-ocean-pla..., which points to this.

effnorwood 6y ago

It doesn’t

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]