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The life has, like it or not, integrated with the trash. Adhered to it; put spores on it; coated it. Remove the trash - remove some fraction of the life. Not t

The life has, like it or not, integrated with the trash. Adhered to it; put spores on it; coated it. Remove the trash - remove some fraction of the life. Not trying to be standoffish. Just being aware that the law of unintended consequences will bite you in the ass every time.

deleted 3y ago
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dingnuts 3y ago
I'm sure you, random Redditor, er, Orange Site Commenter, are an expert on both the topic and the design of the mechanism in question If only Boyan Slat had thought to ask you first
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  Oh, this project is widely criticized over its entire existence. Don't rely on some commenter on HN for sure. Do your own research. It won't take long.
stephen_g 3y ago
Hopefully this has already been researched to quantify the amount of life using plastic as a habitat. Intuitively though it just seems like it's going to be such a tiny, tiny fraction that the concern is basically not worth thinking about compared to the problems of ocean garbage...
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  The garbage patch is a soup of pepper-sized plastic flakes. You go there, you don't even know it's a problem until you take water samples and sieve them with a fine mesh. Just as it's so easy to think of the ocean as fish and whales, it's easy to think of garbage on a human scale - yogurt cups, straws, shopping bags. That assumption leads us astray from the actual nature of the problem. Keep it out, with this device, sieving rivers. A brilliant solution. Not so applicable to the open ocean. That's all I said, am saying, and am finished repeating.
titzer 3y ago
It's a concern, but it's orders of magnitude better to clean up the garbage than not clean up the garbage. Like, the entire foodchain being decimated by choking on floating garbage kind of difference. I mean, if you want to optimize for a soup of green goo and floating cottage cheese containers, that isn't exactly "leave no trace".
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  The 'garbage patch' is a soup of plastic flakes. Not like river trash; nothing at all like river trash. To the degree this enterprise can remove pepper-sided particles of plastic floating near the surface, it will impact microscopic organisms almost exclusively. To the degree it does not clean at that level, it is not an ocean-cleanup device. River garbage is, I think (and I began by saying) a brilliant solution. Keep it clean, rather than clean-up-after. Almost all the garbage comes from humans on land after all.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

dingnuts 3y ago

I'm sure you, random Redditor, er, Orange Site Commenter, are an expert on both the topic and the design of the mechanism in question If only Boyan Slat had thought to ask you first

JoeAltmaier 3y ago
Oh, this project is widely criticized over its entire existence. Don't rely on some commenter on HN for sure. Do your own research. It won't take long.

stephen_g 3y ago

Hopefully this has already been researched to quantify the amount of life using plastic as a habitat. Intuitively though it just seems like it's going to be such a tiny, tiny fraction that the concern is basically not worth thinking about compared to the problems of ocean garbage...

JoeAltmaier 3y ago
The garbage patch is a soup of pepper-sized plastic flakes. You go there, you don't even know it's a problem until you take water samples and sieve them with a fine mesh. Just as it's so easy to think of the ocean as fish and whales, it's easy to think of garbage on a human scale - yogurt cups, straws, shopping bags. That assumption leads us astray from the actual nature of the problem. Keep it out, with this device, sieving rivers. A brilliant solution. Not so applicable to the open ocean. That's all I said, am saying, and am finished repeating.

titzer 3y ago

It's a concern, but it's orders of magnitude better to clean up the garbage than not clean up the garbage. Like, the entire foodchain being decimated by choking on floating garbage kind of difference. I mean, if you want to optimize for a soup of green goo and floating cottage cheese containers, that isn't exactly "leave no trace".

JoeAltmaier 3y ago
The 'garbage patch' is a soup of plastic flakes. Not like river trash; nothing at all like river trash. To the degree this enterprise can remove pepper-sided particles of plastic floating near the surface, it will impact microscopic organisms almost exclusively. To the degree it does not clean at that level, it is not an ocean-cleanup device. River garbage is, I think (and I began by saying) a brilliant solution. Keep it clean, rather than clean-up-after. Almost all the garbage comes from humans on land after all.