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Relevant: https://hwfo.substack.com/p/an-illustrated-guide-to-plastic-straws https://hwfo.substack.com/p/an-illustrated-guide-to-plastic-... TL;DR: The bulk of

Relevant: https://hwfo.substack.com/p/an-illustrated-guide-to-plastic-straws https://hwfo.substack.com/p/an-illustrated-guide-to-plastic-... TL;DR: The bulk of plastic entering the oceans comes from China, India, and Southeast Asia; it's still somewhat the US's fault since we dispose of a lot of plastic per capita and send much of our recycled plastic there; accordingly, the author claims, Americans should generally throw plastic in the garbage instead of recycling it.

RobertRoberts 5y ago
Relevant quote from that page: > And zero plastic thrown in a garbage can in the United States enters the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  And I’m not even in an area that drains into the Pacific Ocean. Last i checked there wasn’t much of a problem at all of plastics flowing down the Mississippi, but I still have to drink out of godawful paper straws.
sa1 5y ago
This is only looking at river waste. The major contributor to plastic waste in the ocean is fishing gear. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/06/dumped-fishing-gear-is-biggest-plastic-polluter-in-ocean-finds-report https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/06/dumped-f...
- tfehring 5y ago
  That's a good point, but "the major contributor" seems like a stretch. That article claims 640,000 tonnes/year of fishing equipment end up in the ocean, which is ~8% of the 8 million tonnes/year of overall plastic waste that end up in the ocean according to https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/30/paddling-in-plastic-meet-the-man-swimming-the-pacific-garbage-patch https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/30/paddling-in-...
  - sa1 5y ago
    This might be true, but it seems commonly described as the major contributor because it's 40-70% of floating plastic and macroplastics. On the other hand, microplastics sink to the ocean bed. https://hillnotes.ca/2020/01/30/ghost-fishing-gear-a-major-source-of-marine-plastic-pollution/ https://hillnotes.ca/2020/01/30/ghost-fishing-gear-a-major-s... I'm not sure which has more environmental impact.
    - colechristensen 5y ago
      Plastics that do actually sink to the ocean bed are actually carbon sinks, a good thing as long as they don’t do so much damage to the ecology on the way down. The two major carbon sinks which really matter are building up global living biomass (i.e. replanting forests) and getting carbon locked in sediment on the ocean floor (by building up living ocean biomass that rains down on seafloor areas which are actively building up sediment.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  Yep... but politicians ban plastic straws and then brag how they're saving the planet, while those guys can do whatever they want.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - azinman2 5y ago
    It was meant to be just a starting point of removing one use plastics that are in the background of daily life. The trend ought to continue.
    - colechristensen 5y ago
      Or it’s a meaningless gesture meant to appear to be doing something because it’s visible but only annoying people and building opposition for something otherwise quite important. It makes you feel good if you already like it, but really builds an easy win for opposition by demonstrably doing nothing of substance while making life a little more unpleasant. In other words it serves only to be divisive and give an opportunity for people to have strong opinions about something irrelevant; which is actually the point of much of politics, cement your support base by getting people riled up about inconsequential and thus risk free issues.
      - mitigating 5y ago
        "builds an easy win for opposition by demonstrably doing nothing of substance " It has some effect and if you want a big change sometimes it's better to start small. For example, if you wanted to get in shape you start by running a small distance. "In other words it serves only to be divisive and give an opportunity for people to have strong opinions about something irrelevant; which is actually the point of much of politics, cement your support base by getting people riled up about inconsequential and thus risk free issues." This is even more disturbing; you think that people on the left (and yes I'm just going to name the sides here) want to help the environment solely to anger the right? I have never met anyone who cares about the environment admitting to me their only and true motive is to anger the opposition. Is the reason you think this because that's your motive? For example "owning the libs". It is because you can't possibility be wrong about environmental policies that the other side must have another motive? Do pickup truck owners roll coal on cyclists because they think cyclists are out there riding just to shove that fact in their face? That they are putting all that physical effort as virtue signaling?
latchkey 5y ago
I spent 4 years living in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. It is literally in the culture to just throw shit into the ocean, rivers, everywhere. It is painful to watch how bad it is.
- standardUser 5y ago
  The US was just like that before the environmental movement made it unacceptable a few decades back.
  - Isamu 5y ago
    When I was a wee lad the soda cans were not yet engineered to retain the opener ring, and at every national park or scenic view there would be thousands of soda can rings, in addition of course to the millions of cigarette butts.
    - Isamu 5y ago
      [edit in response to the almost random downvote that I seem to get at first] Point is that soda can engineering responded to the embarrassment of the ubiquitous littering and made a product that took care of it. The evolution of the soda can in my lifetime is very interesting, starting with steel cans, then aluminum, the retained opener, the elimination of the separate bottom, and finally the ever reducing top diameter and wall thickness to reduce the material use. Cheers!
- siruncledrew 5y ago
  That’s spot on, it’s like seeing a scene of deja vu from the 1960s where people didn’t give a second-thought about throwing garbage anywhere until the EPA and Clean Water Act entered the scene. People get used to it being “a thing” in their lives, and just don’t have the awareness or infrastructure for better disposal.
- theptip 5y ago
  Right - and the thing most folks don’t realize is that when you “recycle” your plastic it gets shipped to those countries. (Used to get shipped to China until they blocked exports of low-quality recycling stock). I’m increasingly persuaded by the thought that putting plastic in a landfill domestically would be much better for the environment than our current recycling program.
cik2e 5y ago
Agreed on throwing plastic away. It's safer in a landfill than having it sold to a SE Asian country where it may be dumped in the ocean or burned out in the open. Plastics can safely wait in our landfills until the day comes when it makes economic sense to dig them up and use them in one way or another.
Railsify 5y ago
I think each country should take responsibility for their own waste, just as each individual should take responsibility for their own actions. If we all do that and stop looking to our neighbors to clean up our messes, the world will be a better place. When Americans recycle, we certainly don't understand it gets shipped to Asia and dumped in the ocean. Let's not indoctrinate our citizens to believe it's their fault that Asian countries dump crap in the ocean, you're not doing the Americans who look to the media for training on what to think any good.
- rp1 5y ago
  I agree with the first part of what you said: individuals should take responsibilities for their actions. You don't just get to claim ignorance that your actions are having negative consequences. Therefore, it's irresponsible to recycle plastic in the US and you should throw it away.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- spats1990 5y ago
  >I think each country should take responsibility for their own waste, Only one country is home to the Coca-Cola Company, the world's largest producer of plastic waste.
  - nradov 5y ago
    The plastic bottles for Coca-Cola are manufactured all around the world. They don't ship much bottled Coke from the US to other countries.
    - spats1990 5y ago
      The franchises follow policy set by Coca-Cola headquarters, right? You're splitting hairs here.
      - nradov 5y ago
siruncledrew 5y ago
It’s a good thing many Americans now have more willingness or emotional drive to care more about the environment, but the US really needs to rip the band-aid off on the recycling falsehoods passed down from the 1980s. It creates a false image that “it’s ok to consume as much as you want, as long as you recycle!” - as if all those Coke and Deer Park bottles go straight from the blue bin right back to the beverage factory, meanwhile they get packed on a giant polluting ship and sent halfway around the world to a poor country then get dumped into the ocean. Out of sight, out of mind. Unfortunately in this case - what goes around, comes around. We should use our collective ecological motivation to create systems that actually address the biggest polluters, which means not just letting them pass the issue on or give a shrug like there’s nothing they can do.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Just the bottled water craze alone is terrible. Drinking water should come from the tap, and if what comes from your tap is not drinkable you should fix that rather than to pay 100 fold what it should cost per liter of potable water to the likes of Coca Cola.

RobertRoberts 5y ago

Relevant quote from that page: > And zero plastic thrown in a garbage can in the United States enters the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre.

colechristensen 5y ago
And I’m not even in an area that drains into the Pacific Ocean. Last i checked there wasn’t much of a problem at all of plastics flowing down the Mississippi, but I still have to drink out of godawful paper straws.

sa1 5y ago

This is only looking at river waste. The major contributor to plastic waste in the ocean is fishing gear. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/06/dumped-fishing-gear-is-biggest-plastic-polluter-in-ocean-finds-report https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/06/dumped-f...

tfehring 5y ago
That's a good point, but "the major contributor" seems like a stretch. That article claims 640,000 tonnes/year of fishing equipment end up in the ocean, which is ~8% of the 8 million tonnes/year of overall plastic waste that end up in the ocean according to https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/30/paddling-in-plastic-meet-the-man-swimming-the-pacific-garbage-patch https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/30/paddling-in-...
- sa1 5y ago
  This might be true, but it seems commonly described as the major contributor because it's 40-70% of floating plastic and macroplastics. On the other hand, microplastics sink to the ocean bed. https://hillnotes.ca/2020/01/30/ghost-fishing-gear-a-major-source-of-marine-plastic-pollution/ https://hillnotes.ca/2020/01/30/ghost-fishing-gear-a-major-s... I'm not sure which has more environmental impact.
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    Plastics that do actually sink to the ocean bed are actually carbon sinks, a good thing as long as they don’t do so much damage to the ecology on the way down. The two major carbon sinks which really matter are building up global living biomass (i.e. replanting forests) and getting carbon locked in sediment on the ocean floor (by building up living ocean biomass that rains down on seafloor areas which are actively building up sediment.
ajsnigrutin 5y ago
Yep... but politicians ban plastic straws and then brag how they're saving the planet, while those guys can do whatever they want.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- azinman2 5y ago
  It was meant to be just a starting point of removing one use plastics that are in the background of daily life. The trend ought to continue.
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    Or it’s a meaningless gesture meant to appear to be doing something because it’s visible but only annoying people and building opposition for something otherwise quite important. It makes you feel good if you already like it, but really builds an easy win for opposition by demonstrably doing nothing of substance while making life a little more unpleasant. In other words it serves only to be divisive and give an opportunity for people to have strong opinions about something irrelevant; which is actually the point of much of politics, cement your support base by getting people riled up about inconsequential and thus risk free issues.
    - mitigating 5y ago
      "builds an easy win for opposition by demonstrably doing nothing of substance " It has some effect and if you want a big change sometimes it's better to start small. For example, if you wanted to get in shape you start by running a small distance. "In other words it serves only to be divisive and give an opportunity for people to have strong opinions about something irrelevant; which is actually the point of much of politics, cement your support base by getting people riled up about inconsequential and thus risk free issues." This is even more disturbing; you think that people on the left (and yes I'm just going to name the sides here) want to help the environment solely to anger the right? I have never met anyone who cares about the environment admitting to me their only and true motive is to anger the opposition. Is the reason you think this because that's your motive? For example "owning the libs". It is because you can't possibility be wrong about environmental policies that the other side must have another motive? Do pickup truck owners roll coal on cyclists because they think cyclists are out there riding just to shove that fact in their face? That they are putting all that physical effort as virtue signaling?

latchkey 5y ago

I spent 4 years living in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. It is literally in the culture to just throw shit into the ocean, rivers, everywhere. It is painful to watch how bad it is.

standardUser 5y ago
The US was just like that before the environmental movement made it unacceptable a few decades back.
- Isamu 5y ago
  When I was a wee lad the soda cans were not yet engineered to retain the opener ring, and at every national park or scenic view there would be thousands of soda can rings, in addition of course to the millions of cigarette butts.
  - Isamu 5y ago
    [edit in response to the almost random downvote that I seem to get at first] Point is that soda can engineering responded to the embarrassment of the ubiquitous littering and made a product that took care of it. The evolution of the soda can in my lifetime is very interesting, starting with steel cans, then aluminum, the retained opener, the elimination of the separate bottom, and finally the ever reducing top diameter and wall thickness to reduce the material use. Cheers!
siruncledrew 5y ago
That’s spot on, it’s like seeing a scene of deja vu from the 1960s where people didn’t give a second-thought about throwing garbage anywhere until the EPA and Clean Water Act entered the scene. People get used to it being “a thing” in their lives, and just don’t have the awareness or infrastructure for better disposal.
theptip 5y ago
Right - and the thing most folks don’t realize is that when you “recycle” your plastic it gets shipped to those countries. (Used to get shipped to China until they blocked exports of low-quality recycling stock). I’m increasingly persuaded by the thought that putting plastic in a landfill domestically would be much better for the environment than our current recycling program.

cik2e 5y ago

Agreed on throwing plastic away. It's safer in a landfill than having it sold to a SE Asian country where it may be dumped in the ocean or burned out in the open. Plastics can safely wait in our landfills until the day comes when it makes economic sense to dig them up and use them in one way or another.

Railsify 5y ago

I think each country should take responsibility for their own waste, just as each individual should take responsibility for their own actions. If we all do that and stop looking to our neighbors to clean up our messes, the world will be a better place. When Americans recycle, we certainly don't understand it gets shipped to Asia and dumped in the ocean. Let's not indoctrinate our citizens to believe it's their fault that Asian countries dump crap in the ocean, you're not doing the Americans who look to the media for training on what to think any good.

rp1 5y ago
I agree with the first part of what you said: individuals should take responsibilities for their actions. You don't just get to claim ignorance that your actions are having negative consequences. Therefore, it's irresponsible to recycle plastic in the US and you should throw it away.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
spats1990 5y ago
>I think each country should take responsibility for their own waste, Only one country is home to the Coca-Cola Company, the world's largest producer of plastic waste.
- nradov 5y ago
  The plastic bottles for Coca-Cola are manufactured all around the world. They don't ship much bottled Coke from the US to other countries.
  - spats1990 5y ago
    The franchises follow policy set by Coca-Cola headquarters, right? You're splitting hairs here.
    - nradov 5y ago

siruncledrew 5y ago

It’s a good thing many Americans now have more willingness or emotional drive to care more about the environment, but the US really needs to rip the band-aid off on the recycling falsehoods passed down from the 1980s. It creates a false image that “it’s ok to consume as much as you want, as long as you recycle!” - as if all those Coke and Deer Park bottles go straight from the blue bin right back to the beverage factory, meanwhile they get packed on a giant polluting ship and sent halfway around the world to a poor country then get dumped into the ocean. Out of sight, out of mind. Unfortunately in this case - what goes around, comes around. We should use our collective ecological motivation to create systems that actually address the biggest polluters, which means not just letting them pass the issue on or give a shrug like there’s nothing they can do.

jacquesm 5y ago
Just the bottled water craze alone is terrible. Drinking water should come from the tap, and if what comes from your tap is not drinkable you should fix that rather than to pay 100 fold what it should cost per liter of potable water to the likes of Coca Cola.