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My thinking on plastics recycling has evolved several times over the years. One concept that influenced me is the idea that plastics contain carbon. To bury pla

My thinking on plastics recycling has evolved several times over the years. One concept that influenced me is the idea that plastics contain carbon. To bury plastic somewhere where it will never decompose is, essentially, a form of carbon sequestration. There is some tipping point where the energy necessary to transport and recycle plastic might be outweighed by the net removal of carbon through simple burial. Another thing that radically changed my mind about ocean plastics is that most all of it comes from a handful of rivers. The solution to ocean plastics isn't to eliminate or recycle all plastics, or even to filter it out of the oceans. Rather, we just have to to stop a small handful of countries from dumping garbage into their own rivers. https://ourworldindata.org/ocean-plastics https://ourworldindata.org/ocean-plastics

turtles3 3y ago
> Another thing that radically changed my mind about ocean plastics is that most all of it comes from a handful of rivers. The article you linked specifically states that this was previously thought to be true, but is not. It does however point out that per-capita ocean plastic polluters are not evenly geographically distributed.
- XorNot 3y ago
  1,656 rivers is still not a lot of rivers for 80% of all ocean plastic though considering the actual total number of rivers in the world. Because the key bit of data there is that ocean-borne plastic is not primarily coming from beaches, or city storm run-off (at least in modernized areas) in an even distribution but is very obviously a product of local regulation (and in turn suggests that other measures - like foreign aid or imposing standards of behavior on local companies with foreign suppliers/subsidiaries would likely solve the problem). The issue is no one's truly freed themselves from the "individual sacrifice" narrative of environmental remediation: the desire is to accuse people on an individual basis of ruining the world, and requiring all solutions to involve individual consequences for their "sins". There's much less enthusiasm for the reality, which is that other then some slight changes in tax allocation we might be able to just solve the entire problem and give a slightly improved standard of living anyway (i.e. people in wealthier cities generally like their waterways and beaches not to be clogged with trash).
krunck 3y ago
Carbon sequestration for carbon that should never have been pumped out of the ground in the first place? Maybe just don't make plastics from petroleum. Leave it in the ground. Better yet, make plastics from 100% bio-sourced polymers(carbon from CO2 in the atmosphere) and bury those. That would be effective sequestration.
- XorNot 3y ago
  There is absolutely no reason we shouldn't use oil to make plastic. The entirety of the problem with CO2 in the atmosphere is from the use of oil as combustible fuel. Like "shouldn't have been pumped from the ground in the first place" -- what? (also ignoring that historically oil was discovered literally just coming up out of the ground on it's own).
  - mplewis 3y ago
    Are you saying that we don't pump oil out of the ground intentionally?
brikym 3y ago
That's simplistic thinking narrowing it down to a few countries. In reality there are a bunch of western countries that send their 'recycling' to 'recycling specialists' in poorer countries. An in reality the western countries are just dumping all their waste over the fence and pretending that it's being recycled. Also you seem to ignore all the health problems that come from plastics like disrupting the endocrine systems in animals. I wouldn't be surprised if a petrochemical company is behind that article because they tend to push PR (propaganda) that shifts the blame away from the source of the problem which is them.

turtles3 3y ago

> Another thing that radically changed my mind about ocean plastics is that most all of it comes from a handful of rivers. The article you linked specifically states that this was previously thought to be true, but is not. It does however point out that per-capita ocean plastic polluters are not evenly geographically distributed.

XorNot 3y ago
1,656 rivers is still not a lot of rivers for 80% of all ocean plastic though considering the actual total number of rivers in the world. Because the key bit of data there is that ocean-borne plastic is not primarily coming from beaches, or city storm run-off (at least in modernized areas) in an even distribution but is very obviously a product of local regulation (and in turn suggests that other measures - like foreign aid or imposing standards of behavior on local companies with foreign suppliers/subsidiaries would likely solve the problem). The issue is no one's truly freed themselves from the "individual sacrifice" narrative of environmental remediation: the desire is to accuse people on an individual basis of ruining the world, and requiring all solutions to involve individual consequences for their "sins". There's much less enthusiasm for the reality, which is that other then some slight changes in tax allocation we might be able to just solve the entire problem and give a slightly improved standard of living anyway (i.e. people in wealthier cities generally like their waterways and beaches not to be clogged with trash).

krunck 3y ago

Carbon sequestration for carbon that should never have been pumped out of the ground in the first place? Maybe just don't make plastics from petroleum. Leave it in the ground. Better yet, make plastics from 100% bio-sourced polymers(carbon from CO2 in the atmosphere) and bury those. That would be effective sequestration.

XorNot 3y ago
There is absolutely no reason we shouldn't use oil to make plastic. The entirety of the problem with CO2 in the atmosphere is from the use of oil as combustible fuel. Like "shouldn't have been pumped from the ground in the first place" -- what? (also ignoring that historically oil was discovered literally just coming up out of the ground on it's own).
- mplewis 3y ago
  Are you saying that we don't pump oil out of the ground intentionally?

brikym 3y ago

That's simplistic thinking narrowing it down to a few countries. In reality there are a bunch of western countries that send their 'recycling' to 'recycling specialists' in poorer countries. An in reality the western countries are just dumping all their waste over the fence and pretending that it's being recycled. Also you seem to ignore all the health problems that come from plastics like disrupting the endocrine systems in animals. I wouldn't be surprised if a petrochemical company is behind that article because they tend to push PR (propaganda) that shifts the blame away from the source of the problem which is them.