4 ms·

Trash from encampments is negligible when you realize how many plastics are just dumped into the ocean

• slownews45 5y ago
  Not where I live. The trash from encampments is pulled up and down the shoreline (tons of bird and other life) with every tide. It's noticeable. Tons of plastic in ocean for sure, but less noticeable unless you are in asia where the rivers and coastal areas are crushed with trash at times. It's just weird our focus is on a plastic straw being disposed of in a restaurant. I mean, the amount of plastic bags in the shipping boxes I see on my street each trash day - mindboggling (airbags amazon and others use).
  • emn13 5y ago
    Apparently the type of plastic is quite relevant; but whether straws are worse than air-bags for shipping... who knows. But perhaps more relevantly, however unsightly this whole plastic soup is, I kind of doubt the impact is anywhere near that of climate change, and I'm concerned these kind of issues serve as a kind of feel-good distraction. Maybe that's too pessimistic; maybe the world can deal with plastic soup and climate change and forever chemicals and animal welfare and whatever at once. I'm just not very confident of that.
• lumost 5y ago
  If you consider how much refuse you generate per day per household member - and then consider that an encampment has next to no sanitization infrastructure, It becomes obvious that the encampment will generate orders of magnitude more waste in the ocean per capita vs. ordinary households. I wouldn't be surprised if the litter ratio was 10,000:1 or more.
  • alexilliamson 5y ago
    What? People in houses are probably using more plastic than people who don't have money for a house. They have more money to spend, and a large % will go to plastic, on average.