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FWIW, I have long wondered where all the plastic trash in the ocean was coming from. A recent video [1] from Mark Rober was very enlightening: the trash from po

FWIW, I have long wondered where all the plastic trash in the ocean was coming from. A recent video [1] from Mark Rober was very enlightening: the trash from poor communities (without collection services) gets picked up by rain and wind and flows into waterways. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXDx6DjNLDU&t=353s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXDx6DjNLDU&t=353s

titzer 5y ago
I've seen stuff like this firsthand. It's hard to say for sure what makes up the bulk ocean-wide. A major issue is government corruption. It's highly likely that western money dumped into places like this to help improve the situation gets gobbled up by various boondoggles that do not end up making a dent. Case in point, I spent weeks in Fiji cleaning up garbage. The town got a grant from the central government for some hundreds of thousands of dollars to help their sanitation issues. They bought one garbage truck. Meanwhile, people were burning garbage in their backyards, or down the street, because they didn't want to pay the taxes associated with garbage service. And plenty would just dump on the beach at night. That was Fiji, which has a boatload of tourist money coming in and is rapidly developing. In Africa, shit looks bleak.
- stephen_g 5y ago
  I've been enjoying watching (and supporting on Patreon) this American expat on YouTube [1] who is trying to solve this problem (both getting better garbage management in, and stopping rubbish getting washed into the ocean) where he lives on an island in the Philippines. The booms he's designed out of tires and bottles to put across the canals and block bottles and other plastic being washed out to sea seem to work very well - similar to what The Ocean Cleanup are doing with their 'Interceptors' but cleaned out by paying some locals with baskets and nets instead of a very expensive looking machine. 1. https://www.youtube.com/c/TropicalOceanCleanup https://www.youtube.com/c/TropicalOceanCleanup

titzer 5y ago

I've seen stuff like this firsthand. It's hard to say for sure what makes up the bulk ocean-wide. A major issue is government corruption. It's highly likely that western money dumped into places like this to help improve the situation gets gobbled up by various boondoggles that do not end up making a dent. Case in point, I spent weeks in Fiji cleaning up garbage. The town got a grant from the central government for some hundreds of thousands of dollars to help their sanitation issues. They bought one garbage truck. Meanwhile, people were burning garbage in their backyards, or down the street, because they didn't want to pay the taxes associated with garbage service. And plenty would just dump on the beach at night. That was Fiji, which has a boatload of tourist money coming in and is rapidly developing. In Africa, shit looks bleak.

stephen_g 5y ago
I've been enjoying watching (and supporting on Patreon) this American expat on YouTube [1] who is trying to solve this problem (both getting better garbage management in, and stopping rubbish getting washed into the ocean) where he lives on an island in the Philippines. The booms he's designed out of tires and bottles to put across the canals and block bottles and other plastic being washed out to sea seem to work very well - similar to what The Ocean Cleanup are doing with their 'Interceptors' but cleaned out by paying some locals with baskets and nets instead of a very expensive looking machine. 1. https://www.youtube.com/c/TropicalOceanCleanup https://www.youtube.com/c/TropicalOceanCleanup