'Great Pacific Garbage Patch' Can Be Cleaned Within 10 Years, Says Ocean Cleanup Project (yahoo.com) 110
"Six years after sailing out of San Francisco with the ambition of developing the technology to rid the world's oceans of plastic, The Ocean Cleanup returned to San Francisco with the knowledge and know-how to relegate the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to the history books," according to a new announcement from the group.
As the Los Angeles Time describes it, "After three years extracting plastic waste from the notorious Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an environmental nonprofit says it can finish the job within a decade..." Twice the size of Texas, the mass of about 79,000 metric tons of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii is growing at an exponential pace, according to researchers. At current levels, the cleanup would take a decade with a price tag of $7.5 billion, the Netherlands-based Ocean Cleanup said in a press release, announcing the group's intention to eliminate the garbage patch entirely. However, computer models suggest a more aggressive approach could complete the job in just five years and cost $4 billion.
The cleanup vessels deploy enormous u-shaped floating barriers to funnel trash toward a focal point where it can then be loaded aboard and brought to shore... In their three years at sea, the Ocean Cleanup vessels have removed more than a million pounds of trash, representing 0.5% of the total accumulation. "We have shown the world that the impossible is now possible. The only missing thing is who will ensure this job gets done," said Boyan Slat, founder and chief executive of the Ocean Cleanup.
Project founder Boyan Slat said in their statement that "Today's announcement is clear: clean oceans can be achieved in a manageable time and for a clear cost.
"Through the hard work of the past 10 years, humanity has the tools needed to clean up the ocean. We have shown the world that the impossible is now possible... [F]or the first time, we can tell the world what it costs, what is needed and how long it could take. It is time for action."
Next year the group will take "a one-year operational hiatus," according to the announcement — to deploy a new initiative mapping areas of intense plastic accumulation to make extractions "more impactful."
As the Los Angeles Time describes it, "After three years extracting plastic waste from the notorious Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an environmental nonprofit says it can finish the job within a decade..." Twice the size of Texas, the mass of about 79,000 metric tons of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii is growing at an exponential pace, according to researchers. At current levels, the cleanup would take a decade with a price tag of $7.5 billion, the Netherlands-based Ocean Cleanup said in a press release, announcing the group's intention to eliminate the garbage patch entirely. However, computer models suggest a more aggressive approach could complete the job in just five years and cost $4 billion.
The cleanup vessels deploy enormous u-shaped floating barriers to funnel trash toward a focal point where it can then be loaded aboard and brought to shore... In their three years at sea, the Ocean Cleanup vessels have removed more than a million pounds of trash, representing 0.5% of the total accumulation. "We have shown the world that the impossible is now possible. The only missing thing is who will ensure this job gets done," said Boyan Slat, founder and chief executive of the Ocean Cleanup.
Project founder Boyan Slat said in their statement that "Today's announcement is clear: clean oceans can be achieved in a manageable time and for a clear cost.
"Through the hard work of the past 10 years, humanity has the tools needed to clean up the ocean. We have shown the world that the impossible is now possible... [F]or the first time, we can tell the world what it costs, what is needed and how long it could take. It is time for action."
Next year the group will take "a one-year operational hiatus," according to the announcement — to deploy a new initiative mapping areas of intense plastic accumulation to make extractions "more impactful."
Plastic (Score:2)
Just keep using plastic then gather it up every so often after it accumulates in the great garbage patch.
Target (Score:1, Offtopic)
To whom are you speaking? Because the vast majority of it isn't coming from the US, and none of it is coming from Europe.
Re:Target (Score:5, Interesting)
while most of it is plastic waste from asian rivers, a big part of that plastic waste was shipped from the us and eu (and falsely written off as "recycled").
also, gp isn't fingerpointing, so why are you? he is actually quite correct: plastic pollution has a global impact, and we globally keep producing more and more plastic and disposing poorly of it.
my first thought about this initiative was how long it would take for much of that removed plastic to get back to the patch. while it is indeed a good thing to clean the patch, our focus should be on rationalizing plastic use in the first place and hugely improving plastic recycling (which is marginal, regardless of all those green labels) and efficient and safe methods of disposal. unless we achieve that, we simply can't clean up that patch fast enough.
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hugely improving plastic recycling (which is marginal, regardless of all those green labels)
What is the problem with recycling? Is it a technical challenge, that we don't know how to recycle? Or is it a combination of economics and practical technology, i.e., that we know how to recycle but don't have a profitable way to do it?
I believe the problem is the latter. The big criticism directed at the plastic manufacturers is that they have always known that recycling wasn't profitable and therefore would never happen without governmental push/support. Pushing recycling was purely a marketing gimmi
Re:Target (Score:5, Insightful)
It is economic.
It's way cheaper to landfill plastic or dump it in a river than to recycle it.
To make recycling happen, it needs to be subsidized. But that is dumb because the money spent on subsidies would be far more effectively spent on other things like wind turbines and solar panels.
Plastic recycling is a fraud. It's not happening, and it isn't gonna happen in the future.
We put our plastic waste on bunker fuel burning container ships and send it to Asia, where it's dumped in the ocean. Then we feel good about ourselves for being environmentally responsible.
The solution is to stop using so much plastic crap in the first place. But if we continue to use it anyway, the best solution is to landfill it.
I've cut most single-use plastic out of my life. It isn't that hard.
Re: Target (Score:1)
Re:Target (Score:5, Insightful)
[Setting aside the fraud issue, which is huge.]
There is a significant technical challenge. Recycling aluminum isn't much more complicated than melting it down, letting most of the impurities (like label ink) burn off, skimming the dross off the top, then casting it into new billets. Paper and glass are almost that easy, too.
Most plastics, especially thermoplastics like PETE (#1), can't be melted down the way metals can. Worse, they have a large number and amount of impurities, including intentional additives for color, strength, opacity, etc., in addition to the unwanted crap found in other recyclable materials. None of those additives can be cost-effectively isolated and filtered out. What this means is that the only practical way to recycle most plastic is to grind it up and use it as an alternative to wood for things like benches, decking, and whatnot.
IMO we should stop thinking of plastic as recyclable, and concentrate on reuse. For example, our local recycling takes any plastic with a numeric marking, 1 through 7, but prescription bottles are explicitly not accepted. They instruct us to throw those in the trash. That's often more plastic by weight into a landfill than the weight of the medication it contained! OTOH, there is no reason other than profit that those bottles, mostly made of polypropylene (#5) couldn't be washed, sanitized, and reused, maybe dozens of times.
Another example is bulk consumer products. Again, there is no reason other than profit that, say, liquid laundry detergent couldn't be sold like gasoline: Bring your own bottle, fill it, and pay by the liter. Liquids like milk are tougher for sanitary reasons, but could still be practical. In my ideal world, the only legal single-use plastic packaging would be for medical supplies and other life-critical applications.
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While I agree, I don't think the answer is to recycle plastic. The answer is to replace plastic with other substances such as glass, metal, and biodegradable bioplastics. The problem is that plastic is so cheap, and companies go for the cheapest option.
What's needed is intelligent regulation. While it might increases prices a few pennies, in truth, it probably lowers the long term cost. Typical of corporations, they are
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You're right about that; I forgot to mention substitution for non-plastic packaging. In fact, while I was writing that, I was remembering the time I went to the Iowa State Fair sometime in the 70s, and saw the first demo of plastic soda bottles. We all looked on in amazement as the guy tossed a full bottle on the concrete floor, then jumped on it, and it didn't break! We all had cleaned up the remains of dropped half-gallon glass soda bottles countless times.
So: Has someone come up with a stronger kind of g
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Thanks for the info on Superfest. I never heard of it before. I'd probably pay twice the price over normal glass even though it's pretty rare I drop a glass. That could be a viable market, but doesn't really help with the single use problem.
Unfortunately, from a manufactures point of view, it's hard to compete with plastic. It's super cheap, and as you pointed out, stompable. Maybe at some point, bioplastic might be cheaper, and could take over. If it's close enough, governments might be able to s
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Bring your own bottle, fill it, and pay by the liter.
We can't even get people to bring their own shopping bags. My mother has dozens of reusable shopping bags in her car, but she keeps forgetting to bring them into the store, so she just buys more.
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Recycling isn't even a technical challenge, hasn't been since the 1970s. It's a financial one. You can pump new plastic feedstock out of the ground for almost free (oil). Recycling is competing with almost free. Good luck with that.You could reduce the cost of recycling by 99% and it would still be twice as expensive as pumping new stuff out of the ground. There's an ocean of it under 20+ countries.
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while most of it is plastic waste from asian rivers, a big part of that plastic waste was shipped from the us and eu (and falsely written off as "recycled").
Well it doesn't matter now, does it. Since all modern problems are the fault of the US, we're going to clean it up, and now those countries can treat the oceans like a sewer, and suffer no consequences, and we'll foot the bill. This is the vbest possible outcome, they pollute, US gets blamed, and the world is much better for them, and they can still blame us we are the designated problem.
Why are you complaining?
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Since all modern problems are the fault of the US, we're going to clean it up
we who? "the ocean cleanup" is dutch a project, privately funded from around the world. you muricans can't even clean up your own shit from your front door. :o)
jokes aside, playing the victim much? i don't blame america for everything, only for running around the planet toppling governments and starting wars. oh and enabling genocide. yeah, that's blame for a lifetime, but otherwise americans are quite admirable. actually, in that regard the europeans were much, much worse during the colonial era, particula
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Since all modern problems are the fault of the US, we're going to clean it up
we who? "the ocean cleanup" is dutch a project, privately funded from around the world. you muricans can't even clean up your own shit from your front door.
Don't you even read what you write? Allow me to refresh your memory. You very explicitly wrote exactly this:
" a big part of that plastic waste was shipped from the us and eu (and falsely written off as "recycled").
If you don't believe that I quoted exactly what you exactly wrote, go back and parse what you wrote.
I trust that you do know that this isn't the USA and the EU as the sole sources of plastic, and the rest of the world our victims
And next, please explain the business model is that these vi
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plastic waste traffic changes a lot over time. currently eu and japan are actually the biggest offenders. i cited eu in my first post, as an eu citizen i have no problem admitting that. so what? the us has exported millions of tons of it and still does.
https://www.ban.org/plastic-wa... [ban.org]
https://www.visualcapitalist.c... [visualcapitalist.com]
your outburst just for mentioning the us in this scenario seems a bit infantile to me but be my guest. however, the implication that developed nations do not know full well what happens exactly
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plastic waste traffic changes a lot over time. currently eu and japan are actually the biggest offenders. i cited eu in my first post, as an eu citizen i have no problem admitting that. so what? the us has exported millions of tons of it and still does.
https://www.ban.org/plastic-wa... [ban.org]
Calling me infantile or the other names people like to use - mon ami, I of course am infantile. I'm an asshole as well. i get called that a lot, so I might as well own it.
Doesn't matter to me. I'll just note that I've never called you names. But I still am having a rather big problem understanding exactly why an easily recyclable product like most plastics is thrown in rivers, and then ends up in the oceans. In these countries, recycling can be a profit center.
As my example, You will note that the Phi
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Calling me infantile or the other names people like to use - mon ami, I of course am infantile
i literally wrote "your outburst just for mentioning the us in this scenario seems a bit infantile to me". i assumed any adult would register the difference between the qualification of an expression or action and the subject.
Doesn't matter to me. I'll just note that I've never called you names.
i didn't either. you are playing the victim again. first because i somehow offended you because i mentioned the us among the countries who export pollution, and now claiming i'm calling you names which i didn't. i would appreciate if you just don't do that as it doesn't make communicat
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Calling me infantile or the other names people like to use - mon ami, I of course am infantile
i literally wrote "your outburst just for mentioning the us in this scenario seems a bit infantile to me". i assumed any adult would register the difference between the qualification of an expression or action and the subject.
Well, you do you. I have no need to discuss anything with anyone who calls me infantile and tries to backpedal and never called me infantile
You can have the last word here - I kinda suspect it is really important to you.
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farewell, then.
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That misses the fact that plastic also tends to disintegrate into smaller and smaller bits. That makes it easier to get into the food chain.
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Just keep using plastic then gather it up every so often after it accumulates in the great garbage patch.
You are marked as flamebait, but now China, the Philippines and Thailand have no limits or issues with ending their practice of dumping as much plastic as they like. We can clean up their mess and they don't have to pay a penny This is a pretty big win for them.
Sometimes on Slashdot, flamebait is level 5 insightful!
Not if I can help it (Score:1)
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Hold my beer...then throw it in the ocean.
I am truly sorry to be the person to have to explain to you that if you're drinking beer out of plastic bottles, you are doing it wrong.
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Beer containers just like milk containers tend to be very recyclable. So much so, deposit schemes exist.
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Beer does not come in plastic bottles though. Glass (which is infinitely recyclable, and aluminum (also basically infinitely recyclable) are the materials used in beer packaging.
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http://tiny.cc/plasticbeer
Re: Not if I can help it (Score:2)
Glass bottles aren't allowed at the beach
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It they were "very recyclable" somebody would pay me for my old bottles. They don't. I have to pay the recycler.
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Economically recyclable and very recyclable are very different things. Glass can be recycled forever, but processing glass is expensive. It costs more to process then it can be sold for usually. Aluminum on the other hand is recycled all the time as it is vastly cheaper then mining and refining.
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Sounds like something that's probably true, and yet, nobody is willing to buy my meagre supply of empty cans and transport them for free, let alone pay me for them.
Re: Not if I can help it (Score:2)
As a kid I used to fund my summer fun by going to the park and collecting all the aluminum beer cans. Two local places paid good money for it. Reynolds as in Reynolds Aluminum and Miller as in Miller Brewing (now part of Molson Coors)
Even back in the 70s those companies saw the economic value of recycling aluminum.
BTW, the cans were heavier back then. About 14 to the pound. We'd gather up a few bags and have enough for days of lunch and snacks.
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the cans were heavier back then. About 14 to the pound.
Maybe that's why they aren't worth recycling anymore. Not enough metal in them anymore for it to be worth transporting and cleaning them.
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Hold my beer...then throw it in the ocean.
I am truly sorry to be the person to have to explain to you that if you're drinking beer out of plastic bottles, you are doing it wrong.
+1 Funny (if I had Mod points) - but true
Re: Not if I can help it (Score:2)
Show me where they use plastic bottles for that.
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Plastic cups.
Stadiums don't usually trust sports fans with glass bottles.
Re: Not if I can help it (Score:2)
They're not bottles then?
Re: Not if I can help it (Score:2)
So now you have a glass bottle and still a plastic cup?
How about you fuck off you cunty bumpkin?
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Lighten up, Francis... (Score:3)
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Interceptor (Score:5, Informative)
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Makin' it disappear... (Score:4, Insightful)
The Ocean Cleanup returned to San Francisco with the knowledge and know-how to relegate the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to the history books,"
Will it never return?
Are we ending the use of single-use plastics? Are we cleaning up the plastics getting dumped around southeast Asia? Are we stopping people from dumping their trash into the ocean?
If the answer to any one of these questions is no, then the GPGP will continue to exist.
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Are we ending the use of single-use plastics?
Single use plastics aren't the cause of the patch - throwing them into the ocean is. Straws, cups, bags, etc that are properly sent to landfills are fine.
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To a first approximation, the GCGP is made up of fishing and construction debris. Buoys alone make up nearly 60% of the patch, by weight. All single-use plastics make up less than 15% of the patch. Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov], Table S2.
Not saying as we shouldn't reduce single-use plastics, and keep them from winding up in the ocean — we absolutely should! But accountability for the fishing industry is where the margins are for eliminating the GCGP.
And that's super hard —a ton of fi
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Sigh, GPGP. Why does my brain do the typo over and over again
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The Ocean Cleanup returned to San Francisco with the knowledge and know-how to relegate the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to the history books,"
Will it never return?
That's an excellent question. I'm generally pro-environmentalism but I'm also anti-bullshit.
They're saying the patch is growing exponentially, yet they're saying they can erradicate it in a decade. This isn't an infection that you spray some antibiotics on and it dies. It's not growing through breeding. Its growth and accelerating growth can only because of increased input materials.
Collecting the trash is a good thing. Pretending there's an end in sight is deceptive.
Have I news for them (Score:2, Informative)
Re: Have I news for them (Score:2)
And do what with it? (Score:3)
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Best way (with current technology) to get rid of this kind of (random and dirty) plastic is to burn it and generate energy from it. Obviously taking care of toxic fumes while doing it. It is pretty much oil in solid form. There are plenty of locations around the world that do this already, so you just need to deliver the trash to one of them.
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The solution is to burn it at higher temperatures, but I assume that makes it an energy-negative process and we'd apparently rather choke on pollution than pay the full real costs of using plastics by recycling them properly.
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Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
You can solve that problem with a hotter burn.
There is a better reason not to burn plastics; they are very stable and every single plastic can be recycled without sorting through fluid bed pyrolysis. It is not profitable, so we do not do it, but it is not really a money-loser either. It about breaks even. We need to make it absolutely mandatory to recycle all plastics, and we need to make the cost of doing that the responsibility of the person manufacturing the plastic products. (Not just the corporation
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Re: And do what with it? (Score:2)
It's not viable if you have to make a profit.
But we don't expect roads to make a profit.
So clearly we are capable of understanding that things which aren't profitable can be necessary
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Re: And do what with it? (Score:2)
Yes, it's a sham when they say they can't recycle plastics, and you fell for it, and here you are telling me how gullible I am. GTFOH.
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https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11... [npr.org]
https://www.cbc.ca/documentari... [www.cbc.ca]
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/c... [cbsnews.com]
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That is why you use an afterburner followed by a scrubber. It's a straight forward problem long since solved. The energy from the afterburner still ends up in the boiler so you didn't lose anything there.
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Landfill is better than the ocean. Plastic in the ocean degrades and breaks up into microplastics, which get into everything.
Re:And do what with it? (Score:4, Informative)
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Also, a lot of plastic being dumped in the "future recycling" section of landfills is allegedly going to be dug up and recycled once better recycling and computer vision sorting is invented. Or maybe it was until people forget about it.
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Getting it out of the ocean is no doubt a good thing, but it what do you do with then?
Dump it in the rain forest.
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Re: Build tetrapods (Score:2)
But you need the hedgehogs on the beach to defend against invaders.
See: Czech hedgehog
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First, clean up the rivers (Score:4, Informative)
Almost all of the plastic in the ocean comes from just ten rivers [scientificamerican.com]. Eight of those are in Asia, two are in Africa. As long as those countries continue to use their rivers as unrestricted trash and sewage dumps, there is only a limited benefit to any serious clean-up.
Re:First, clean up the rivers (Score:5, Informative)
False! This is an example of how scientific reporting shortening summaries has led to a completely incorrect and unfounded conclusion in the minds of people. That Scientific American used this article as a source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [nih.gov] the conclusion was that almost all plastic in the ocean *coming from rivers* comes from just 10 of them.
The entire study was based only on plastic movement down rivers. It did not in any way shape or form analyse the source of plastic in the oceans beyond rivers.
Yes cleaning up rivers is important. There are additional studies that show some 70% of plastics is land based. The remaining 30% of plastic in the ocean comes from within the ocean (e.g. discarded fishing nets). Additionally from land based sources a not insignificant portion is coastal rather than river based rubbish.
But still we need to clean up rivers. If you clean up those 10 rivers you are well on the way to solving maybe 1/3rd of the problem, after you discount the rubbish reporting (pun intended) of scientific media.
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Question, if just ten rivers make for most of the river plastic, isn't it far-fetched to assume that the rest of the land based sources (coastlines) would come from the same countries?
The point of this is let's kick some ass and make those dirty bastards stop being dirty bastards.
Oh, but that would make people mad at us, wouldn't it. The ones with money as opposed to all the rest. Much easier to make the average Joe's life harder for not a tenth of a percent of the same impact.
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Question, if just ten rivers make for most of the river plastic, isn't it far-fetched to assume that the rest of the land based sources (coastlines) would come from the same countries?
Yes it is far fetched. For one, the rest of the waste comes from either the coast or from the fishing industry. The countries owning those 10 rivers are a tiny minority of both of those. Did you know that in the EU plastic bottles must as of this year retain the lid on the bottle when unscrewed? Do you want to guess why that was the case? Because the problem of plastic waste entering the oceans was being enough that the EU imposed a block wide solution. Just because that person on the other side of the wate
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Unsurprisingly, they have considered this and have programs to address this. https://theoceancleanup.com/te... [theoceancleanup.com]
$4 Billion is peanuts (Score:3)
If Bezos, Musk, Gates, Buffet, etc. want a measurable impact for their philanthropy - this is a no brainer they should fund. It is also right up the alley of something the Gates Foundation would back.
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If Bezos, Musk, Gates, Buffet, etc. want a measurable impact for their philanthropy - this is a no brainer they should fund. It is also right up the alley of something the Gates Foundation would back.
What would be the measurable impact? Removing tons of plastic from the oceans is a good thing but you can't exactly tie it to lives saved or improved. The research seems to still be out on the actual impact of microplastics in the food/water supply.
Re: $4 Billion is peanuts (Score:2)
There is ample that plastics are harming ocean ecosystems.
Many of the projects funded by charitible organizations have nebulous impacts. It's one of the areas the Gates foundation prioritizes very highly... that the money spent has measurable outcomes with progress that can be tracked.
The impact of this work is immediately quantifiable and measurable. That should make it attractive to these organizations.
Unrealistic promises for fundraising purposes (Score:4, Informative)
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There's a check in the mail today.
That's what I need - somebody to love!
We just won't eat on Sunday.
Gotta buy him a limousine.
Somewhere to live, somewhere to pray!
Black Sabbath - TV Crimes
Not if India and Southeast Asia ... (Score:2)
... keep filling it up again.
Just sayin'.
exponential growth? what's the growth rate? (Score:1)
"is growing at an exponential pace" - what's the growth rate? 0.001% a year growth is a lot different than 10% a year growth which is a lot different than 100% a year growth.
Also, exponential growth with a high-but-not-sustained growth rate isn't that impressive: We saw that in COVID, where active-case rates were on track to double every few weeks but that high growth rate didn't last very long.
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If I have 20n^2 + 100 and simply n^2. We just call it a growth rate of O(n^2) for suitably large amounts of n.
The cynic in me feels that it doesn't matter much what the initial conditions or even the coefficients are for this exponential growth rate are when we typically wait 30+ years before doing anything about environmental problems.
Is it actually exponential? I doubt it. Maybe it's something like n^1.001 ?
(I didn't bother looking up the research, I was hoping someone would post a summary and save me the
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Yea. I think it's an issue in statistics combined with the low-detail reporting in science journalism. If you start with nothing and add 1, the slope of the line looks really steep. Linear versus exponential growth look similar if you are only looking at a small section of the graph.
What I want is a model that has some predictive power. And I don't buy that the growth of ocean plastic is exponential indefinitely, or will remain so for very long if it is
at all currently. The real world is never truly
I miss milk bottles (Score:1)
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I prefer milk bags. You reuse a pitcher, often for decades. And they weigh less and save quite a bit on transportation and processing. They use a fraction of the plastic that a plastic bottle does, and they simply fold up into your waste basket instead of taking up a lot of space. Theoretically you could make a compostable version of the bag as it only has to exist on the order of the shelf life of milk.
China (Score:2)
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Think of the wildlife (Score:2)
What about all the ecosystems that have built up around the plastics?
"Discovery of a thriving ecosystem of life at the Great Pacific garbage patch in 2022 suggested that cleaning up garbage here may adversely remove this plastisphere"
A lot of sea life needs structures to thrive. We're building them homes.
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They are not saying they want this money, they are carefully saying this is how it would cost for someone to do it. It could be best implemented through the UN-EP, or governments from Asia-Pacific area.
Re:'Non Profit' wants 7.5 Billion. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:'Non Profit' wants 7.5 Billion. (Score:4, Insightful)
What happens when one year in
They are several years in. They have presented the data of what it costs to do the work. That's what this is based on.
Re: 'Non Profit' wants 7.5 Billion. (Score:2)