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Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)
- bsedlm 4y agoby this point, being able to eat (like in crimes of the future), or at the least, resist eating plastics and other toxic ubiquitous substances (PFAS) seems like the most viable strategy.
- taeric 4y agoLest the headline not be obvious, this is industrial fishing gear.
- digdugdirk 4y agoJust to expand for those who haven't read the article - These types of nets are specifically designed to catch and trap sea life, so cause outsized damage to ecosystems than their size/weight/volume might suggest. The images you might see of a turtle with a 6-pack ring around a flipper are nothing compared to the damage a torn off chunk of a trawler's net might cause.
- koheripbal 4y ago...and in case anyone isn't clear - over half of it is from Chinese fishing fleets.
- recycledmatt 4y agoIt is 50,000 tons per year. In plastic recycling terms, not that much volume. A very large plastic recycling facility can do about 200,000 tons in a year. http://intelligentliving.co/worlds-largest-climate-neutral-plastic-recycling-plant-2023/ http://intelligentliving.co/worlds-largest-climate-neutral-p... A tractor trailer hauls roughly 20 tons - so all the sea nets in the world in a year could be hauled by 2,500 trailers. Not that much in the scheme of things.
- dakr 4y agoFrom the article: "Unlike other forms of marine debris, fishing gear is specifically designed to catch marine life. Under certain conditions, derelict gear can continue to catch and kill organisms for years."
- recycledmatt 4y agoThe issue is economic incentives do not align. The fisher can bring it back to shore and probably have to pay to dispose of it in a landfill. Or they can drop it in the ocean for free, while creating a negative externality.
- recycledmatt 4y agoIf someone setup a fund to pay fisherman 5 cents a pound to bring their nets back, and then they would deal with disposal, they could avert most of this. No one has stepped up with $50 million a year tho to solve this.
- fleddr 4y agoMaybe you missed the part where it's IN THE OCEAN.
- notch656a 4y agofloating recycling center then. Believe there's a video somewhere of one in the Charles River or something.
- recycledmatt 4y agoThere is one in Baltimore!
- adrianN 4y agoNot a terrible quantity in one year, but the stuff essentially never disappears, so you have to sum over all years starting from a couple of decades back to the hypothetical future date where we finally manage to stop polluting (or killed all marine life). That adds up to a lot of garbage.
- csmpltn 4y agoWhat about boats with fiberglass hulls?
- picture 4y agoHulls of boats generally don't just go missing or left behind. And, the fiberglass doesn't cause as much damage as high surface area fishing nets. I remember reading that the paint can be an issue though, as there are added particles to get the aesthetic glimmer that will get into the water over time
- speed_spread 4y agoAnti-fouling paints applied to hulls contain organometallic chemicals that are, by design, toxic to marine life. This is to prevent algae and molusk to attach to the hull, slowing the boat over time and requiring extensive cleanup. You can imagine the effect these paints have when they chip off.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- csmpltn 4y ago> "Hulls of boats generally don't just go missing or left behind" But do they release ("leach"?) microplastics into the ocean? Especially when degraded over time?
- randycupertino 4y agoHave you heard the "glitter conspiracy" re: boat paint being the world's #1 highest commercial user of glitter? Curious how much microplastics in the food chain comes from glitter being consumed by fish. https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/duw480/glitter_mystery_possibly_solved_by_the_endless/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/duw480... https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2019/11/08/the-great-glitter-mystery https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2019/11/08/the-great-glit... https://www.thecut.com/2018/12/who-is-the-mystery-glitter-buyer.html https://www.thecut.com/2018/12/who-is-the-mystery-glitter-bu...
- dark-star 4y agoIt is so obvious, and has been known for years, yet the EU banned plastic straws because of the waste in the oceans, so now every drink tastes like a schoolbook. Well done EU...
- pas 4y agoif there were a post with "Single use plastics account for an alarming amount of plastics in the oceans" would you think otherwise? both are a problem. the industrial fishing nets degrade slower, the microplastics (that then likely bioaccumulates) comes from all sources.
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- Alupis 4y agoThe data the plastic straw bans were based on was entirely made up by a 9 year old[1][2][3] for a school report. Entirely made up, based on nothing. Yet... here we are with plastic straw and bag bans... Let's think about that for a minute while we contemplate all of the similar "data driven" bans we endure. [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/07/18/anti-straw-movement-based-unverified-statistic-500-million-day/750563002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/07/18/anti-straw-mo... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/business/plastic-straws-ban-fact-check-nyt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/business/plastic-straws-b... [3] https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-no-evidence-for-governments-plastic-straw-claims https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-no-evidenc...
- hairofadog 4y agoIf you'd like to see anecdotal impacts, you can watch the sad yet thrilling and satisfying YouTube channel Ocean Conservation Namibia, which features a team that captures seals and untangles them from fishing gear: https://www.youtube.com/c/OceanConservationNamibia https://www.youtube.com/c/OceanConservationNamibia
- dakr 4y agoNot to minimize the impact to ocean life and the environment, but lost fishing gear costs money. The upside of which is that there is direct financial incentive to recover lost gear. I know nothing about this space, but a former coworker started a company about ten years ago in part to allow fishers to track and recover their gear: https://www.blueoceangear.com/ https://www.blueoceangear.com/
- dmurray 4y agoI would say the bigger incentive is not to lose the gear in the first place, but even that doesn't seem to be enough.
- dakr 4y agoIn some kinds of fishing, it seems they deploy nets and then collect them later, so this would help them not lose it in the first place. Also, location information is always good to have and is useful for more than just finding lost stuff.
- RajT88 4y agoOne report I read was that much of it was discarded as it got too damaged to use. So hardly an accidental loss.
- belorn 4y agoIt depend a lot on the kind of fishing operation. At small scale the fishing gear is a large part of the investment. This is why repairing nets is a large part of those peoples time. Tracking is a nice technological solution, through at small scale the money is tight and local knowledge usually mean that they know where the net is by memory/intuition and keeping track of where the winds/currents are going. Large scale fishing fleet however do not generally repair fishing nets, especially trawlers. It not economical to spent time and manpower for it, and since they are out at sea for weeks/months there isn't any space. The law require them to dispose broken nets at landfills but that is a cost center. As such it is suspected is that they just intentionally throw the nets over board.
- albatross13 4y agoYou guys haven't seen anything yet: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2022/august/pandemic-face-masks-could-harm-wildlife-for-years-to-come.html https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2022/august/pandemic-fac...
- epistasis 4y agoTo place this in context, it's 50,000 tons/year of fishing waste, versus 200,000 tons/year of microplastics from car tires: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/14/car-tyres-are-major-source-of-ocean-microplastics-study https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/14/car-tyre... Further, microplastics enter the ecosystem far easier than the bulky big plastic from fishing gear, so the tire microplastics should be far more concerning to people. It's really weird how cars get a pass for so much. Try to live a life without a car, and people think you are weird, and pass laws preventing you from building a community that is accessible without a car (at least in the US). And that's before we get to the violent deaths caused by car crashes, or the wheezing deaths caused by COPD, or the quality years of life reduced by asthma from cars...
- kohanz 4y agoI'm not sure if it was your intent, but that comparison makes the fishing output seem even more outsized to me, given the size of the auto industry.
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- josho 4y agoFrom a damage perspective the two couldn't be more different as well. Lost fishing gear is large bulky items that trap & kill sealife, damage habitat, etc. Whereas we aren't entirely sure what downsides micro-plastics have, I'm sure over time we'll discover issues. But, where we stand today we know that we have a clear and present danger from the fishing gear.
- bilekas 4y ago> I'm sure over time we'll discover issues. But, where we stand today we know that we have a clear and present danger from the fishing gear. Whereas today, we already see the present danger of micro plastics.. Just because fishing takes part on 80% of the globe as opposed to the <20% we drive on, I think the numbers are worse. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2022.827289/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2022.8272... https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/microplastics-are-in-our-bodies-how-much-do-they-harm-us#:~:text=In%20laboratory%20tests%2C%20microplastics%20have,microplastics%20and%20impacts%20on%20health https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/micro.... Maybe lets not disregard the downsides just yet. EDIT: Both are bad.. Plastic isn't helping anyone. Marine or mammal .
- painted-now 4y agoThis was also my key takeaway from watching "Seaspiracy" on Netflix
- mattlondon 4y ago> More than 100 million pounds of plastic from industrial fishing gear pollute the oceans each year—threatening marine life ... does the actual fishing itself not ultimately also threaten said marine life?
- colechristensen 4y agoFishing can be done sustainably, and is in some fisheries.
- dmbche 4y agoThat's definitely a claim but I assure you no human being has a clue of how to manage the ocean - it's kind of ludicrous. And by the fact that the ocean is so large, it industrial fishing is notoriously impossible to regulate - meaning that even if you "fish sustainably", it doesn't really matter - a large part of the market remains and will remain unregulated, by nature.
- colechristensen 4y agoThat’s a bit excessive. No human knows how to manage fish populations?
- steve_adams_86 4y agoWe aren’t managing to do it yet. Even here in Beautiful British Columbia, Canada, we are doing an abysmal job and constantly shifting goal posts to claim we’re succeeding. I used to believe it until I began reading salmon reports and various population studies for species like rockfish and lingcod, key commercial species. Our definition of sustainable is essentially “not completely shitting the bed”. We’re supposed to be a model of sustainability. I don’t have much faith. We’re also talking about sustaining populations that have already been decimated in the last 150 years. Let’s not pretend the numbers we’re trying to hit resemble anything like healthy. It’s an incredible disservice to ourselves and future generations to pretend industry standards for sustainability are anything more than an excuse to squeeze more juice out of a dried up fruit.
- pcj-github 4y ago100 million pounds of lost gear by the fishing industry is such a ridiculous underestimate that, judging by some of the comments here, make people believe this number to be somehow OK. The fishing industry has been dodging responsibility for ocean pollution and habitat destruction for forever, good to see more research that people can use to put pressure on them to actually give a s** and change their ways.
- jandrese 4y agoThe crazy part about this is how this is the fishermen shitting where they are eating. All of the ocean pollution contributes directly to collapsing fish populations, which puts them right out of a job. Why doesn't the appeal of "if you keep doing what you're doing you won't be able to keep fishing, and your children definitely won't be fishermen" work? I get that they are trapped in the cycle of overfishing, but it seems like cutting back on the pollution is a first step everybody could take.
- klabb3 4y ago> it seems like cutting back on the pollution is a first step everybody could take. Just a simple tragedy of the commons I guess. The obvious steps towards sustainable fishing involves either higher cost or lower yields in the short-medium term. The few who would be willing to would go out of business. Since fish don't generally respect borders, the same dilemma occurs even between countries. If you voluntary give up your yield, other countries get more. The only way I know to solve this is to properly price externalities, Milton Friedman style.
- steve_adams_86 4y agoA lot of fishers where I live blame the damage on previous generations. They aren’t the problem, it was the people before them. They talk about how sustainable their practices are (despite stocks decreasing every year). We had massive glass sponge reefs. They were destroyed by trawlers. That’s prohibited now. I suppose we’re expected to believe the industry wouldn’t be trawling today if they were allowed to, but I don’t buy it. Although the glass sponges were nurseries for untold millions of fish and their prey, and those stocks are so incredibly depleted and unable to recover, they still fish every single bit of quota they can and fight tooth and nail to increase quotas. Many complain that they aren’t allowed to trawl, too. I suppose what it comes down to is that everyone thinks they are the exception. Even our meat eating practices on land are so resource intensive and absurd, but no one things they are complicit in an activity like what we’re seeing with fishing. None of this is sustainable, but we’re all participating and all very sure it’s someone else’s fault. Really, sustainable fishing at our population scale seems like an absurd notion.
- wil421 4y agoPatagonia sells a few items are are made from recycled fishing nets. I have a hat and swim trunks made from it.
- steve_adams_86 4y agoThey also sell apparel treated with pfoas/pfas which are gradually polluting the ocean more and more, indefinitely.
- wil421 4y agoThey are getting rid of them by 2024. https://www.patagonia.com/our-footprint/dwr-durable-water-repellent.html https://www.patagonia.com/our-footprint/dwr-durable-water-re...
- nimbius 4y agoas someone who fishes the Atlantic twice a year, the wisest advice I ever got was to replace your line every year or two, especially if its left in an unconditioned room or in the sun.
- steve_adams_86 4y agoThis is commercial gear, though it’s a great idea to keep recreational gear in good shape. It’s a huge shame to lose tens of meters of line attached to a fish which will then be eaten by a predator, and so on. A lot of needless waste and suffering.
- trident5000 4y agoEdit: wrong math, disregard Not to downplay this issue (its important). But I sort of dont believe the estimates. Theres 4.6 million fishing vessles globally. That would be 22 tonnes per vessel or 46,000 pounds. I dont see 1 vessel producing 46k pounds of plastic waste per year unless they are literally dumping their fishing nets into the ocean purposefully and repeatedly.
- elihu 4y ago100 million pounds divided by 4.6 million fishing vessels is about 22 pounds per year. I think you confused tons with pounds.
- trident5000 4y agoShoot you're right.
- paulcole 4y agoSo today the wheel of who-do-we-blame-for-fucking-the-earth settles on commercial fishermen. The reality is that the actual wheel points at me and you and everyone we know (and everyone we don’t). If you’re reading this, the lifestyle you’re living is very likely incompatible with a planet that isn’t ravaged by climate change. You’ve got to make drastic changes to how you choose to live and do everything you can to get everyone else to make drastic changes to how they choose to live. Don’t like the sound of that? It’s OK, just blame those darn fishermen for leaving plastic in the oceans.
- steve_adams_86 4y agoOne of the most dramatic changes an individual can make is switching to a plant based diet. Don’t support fishing, don’t support animal agriculture, and you’re way ahead. Not only in energy expenditure but resource utilization as well. It’s a stunning difference.
- Gordonjcp 4y agoDoesn't shipping plant-based food around the planet cause massive climate change? PLant-based diets only make sense if you live somewhere where it's ecologically cheaper to eat plants than animals. This doesn't work, for most of the world.
- paulcole 4y agoShipping anything around the world causes massive climate change. > This doesn't work, for most of the world. Yes, other than significant parts of Asia, North America, South America, Africa, and Europe this is a non-starter.
- Gordonjcp 4y agoTell me you don't know where food comes from without saying you don't know where food comes from.
- WorkLobster 4y ago
- Ocean7585 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_Conservancy#Big_business_ties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_Conservancy#Big_bus... Big business ties The Nature Conservancy has ties to many large companies, including those in the oil, gas, mining, chemical and agricultural industries.[42] As of 2016, its board of directors included the retired chairman of Duke Energy, and executives from Merck, HP, Google and several financial industry groups.[43] It also has a Business Council which it describes as a consultative forum that includes Bank of America, BP America, Chevron, Coca-Cola, Dow Chemical, Duke Energy, General Mills, Royal Dutch Shell, and Starbucks.[44] The organization faced criticism in 2010 from supporters for its refusal to cut ties with BP after the Gulf oil spill.[45][46] Writer and activist Naomi Klein has strongly criticized The Nature Conservancy for earning money from an oil well on land it controls in Texas and for its continued engagement with fossil fuel companies.[47][48] The Nature Conservancy responded by arguing that it had no choice under the terms of a lease it signed years prior with an oil and gas company and later came to regret.[47] In 2020, Bloomberg published an article claiming that some of the companies (such as JPMorgan Chase, Disney, and BlackRock) that purchase carbon credits from The Nature Conservancy were purchasing carbon credits for forests that did not need protection.[49]
- koheripbal 4y agoThis has absolutely nothing to do with the article. Also, almost all large corporations donate to all major charities - that's standard corporate governance. It doesn't mean they somehow influence or undermine articles like this. Selecting the oil companies alone from the list of donors to imply there's some influence operation going on is highly misleading.