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Comment by dsabanin | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious. Quotes from the article:

“It happens pretty much all the time if there is a strong rainfall or a storm,”

The phenomenon is not confined to the Dominican Republic, he said, and can be seen in many developing nations with a coastline. “Everybody uses the rivers and the beaches as dump sites.” --

So we're being told that ocean's plastic garbage patch is somehow made out of the contents of landfills around the globe (and western countries) making it into the ocean with rain water. To anyone who has seen a landfill in real life that looks wildly improbable, except for a very minuscule amount of material.

I feel like developing countries using ocean as a waste dump is much more likely to be the true cause of the garbage patch.

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There was a recent study which has been circulating. Most (90%) of the plastics in the ocean that are not related to fishing equipment come from 8 rivers in Asia and then the Nile and Niger rivers in Africa. Mostly due to poor or unregulated waste disposal infrastructures.

Can you link the study? Why do they believe that's the case? Is it just the lack of a waste disposal infrastructure?

A simple google search yields:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plastic-polluti...

https://www.dw.com/en/almost-all-plastic-in-the-ocean-comes-...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plas...

Is this myth still going around? If you read more than the headlines you will see that it is 90% of the plastics coming from rivers are from 10 big rivers, so it is not including any plastic that go directly into the ocean. Not that it would not help to clean up those rivers, but what you do also matter https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plas...

The Scientific American article states that 25% of the plastic pours into the Ocean from 10 rivers. 8 of them in Asia.

You’re being told explicitly that “the garbage comes from the Ozama river that flows into the ocean near the beach”. That’s literally on the page. And then you’re being told that “[in many developing nations with a coastline], everyone uses the rivers and beaches as dump sites”.

Feelings aside, 46% of the garbage in the patch is discarded fishing material: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/great-pacific-garb...

86% of the oceans plastic comes from Asia[1].

[1] https://www.theoceancleanup.com/sources/

This statistic shows that as NA or EU residents, what we do basically does not matter. The plastic waste of Asia will only grow.

What we can do is focus on the cleanliness of our local communities as that is the only place where we can have an effect.

But on the global scale, unless if we manage to strongarm Asia into behaving, it's borderline meaningless.

What would help is to develop a material that is just as good as plastic (or better), degrades easily and is cheaper as well, and then wait for them to copy. Germany basically did this for solar energy.

I think the issue is no matter what policies are adapted outside of Asia, the current status of ocean plastics will remain until Asian countries modify their internal policies.

Such as biodegradable plastics, which can, in some cases, fully decompose in as little as 24 months![1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodegradable_plastic

The point of plastic is that it doesn't degrade. How could you make a bottle that maintains its integrity when storing lemonade but dissolves once it hits the ocean or a lake? There is no useful signal that separates the situations. You could try continuous disintegration, but this requires people accepting part of a dissolving bottle in their drinks.

We could not send our recycling to Asia to deal with and build plants to process it here at home.

Its not the landfills. Its the slums around cities in developing countries. They don't even have roads most of the time, much less effective trash collection. They usually just dump the trash down the hill or through some water drainage. You can clearly see the problem if you go there.

> developing countries using ocean as a waste dump

I thought this was common knowledge by this point. The most polluted rivers in the world are located in India, China, South America, Africa, and Indonesia.

Developed countries don't help by shipping their waste to developing countries and removing the problem from their sight. China recently stopped accepting garbage from California and now the problem is back in the USA.

I understand what you're saying, but now China gets clean rivers, and OUR rivers are a mess and begin pumping garbage and pollution into the ocean. (I guess, since we already pump garbage and pollution into the ocean it might be more accurate to say that we begin to pump more garbage and pollution into the ocean.)

Point is, mankind still has the issue. China is not solving any problems by making us keep our own garbage. They're not helping mankind at all. And neither are we with our penchant for plastic products. I guess I'm just pointing out that the problem has not been fixed, it's been transferred.

The waste generated by countries that have over 1 billion inhabitants each will dwarf the amount of garbage we could ship them even if all garbage storage in the US was outsourced to them.

It's a simple numbers game. 300 million will never produce as much waste as 1 billion.

> 300 million will never produce as much waste as 1 billion.

I dont have the numbers but Americans do produce more trash compared to majority of those billion. Its hard to compete with Americans when you live on $2 per day.

Note that I wrote shipped, not produced. That being said:

Sure, but that doesn't bode well for the future when that population of 1 billion starts elevating more of its people to the middle class.

Yes, poverty means less waste, but the global goal seems to be getting people out of poverty, which increases net pollution.

> China recently stopped accepting garbage

You mean, they stopped buying recyclables? That's fairly different than just accepting raw waste: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/world/china-recyclables-b...

Who is telling you all the ocean's garbage /plastic patches are from landfills? I haven't read that personally. The evidence I've seen points to general litter, things falling from garbage receptacles, and in addition developing nations with very lax cultural norms around garbage. I don't think landfills are in the picture as one of the top factors.

It's definitely a belief that's out there. I've argued with people about it before. For example, jdavis703 and Reason077 seem to believe that material sent to the landfill will end up in the ocean. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17410483

God forbid I use a straw, though.

Explain the inconvenience you're experiencing because you can't get a straw?

It's a step forward, a small one at that, but it's progress. I don't understand those complaining - they usually fall back to people with disabilities, and yet establishments will still have straws on-hand for those folks.

I don't know if the parent comment was complaining of inconvenience.

Straws are a trivial step forward, and I don't think we shouldn't feel better because of it and think we've done something meaningful.

Straw bans are a particularly easy topic to make fun of, because of some internet analysis that Starbucks' solution uses more plastic than using straws.

It was “some Internet analysis” — by a 9 year old apparently? — that got the ball rolling on this latest legislative fleecing.

Banning straws are a non-trivial step backwards which will lead to more pollution IMO.

It’s a mockery of real steps which could be taken that would have orders of magnitude more effect on actual pollution levels.

If you think banning straws are an actual benefit, I think you’ve left science behind and moved on to politics.

> establishments will still have straws on-hand for those folks

Not everywhere, they won't. Santa Barbara just passed a straw ban without any exceptions for disabled people who actually need plastic straws. In other places, it's still legal for restaurants to keep straws around for those who need them, but the restaurants don't all know that.

From what I can tell, reading what straw-using disabled people have to say about this, it's as frustrating for them as if there were suddenly a ban on toilet paper in public restrooms. They absolutely need this disposable item, and they have never needed to carry their own before, or ask about it in advance. Now all of a sudden they're stuck having to be super-prepared at all times they're out in public, or they risk not being able to meet a basic bodily need.

How hard is it to carry a metal straw with you? You hear news about the ban, and you put a couple plastic ones in your bag until the metal one from amazon arrives.

Why are people so helpless? Jesus christ, it takes half a second to figure out this solution for yourself.

How hard is it to carry some TP with you? NBD, right? So you wouldn't mind having to take your own with you everywhere you go?

> Why are people so helpless?

I... you are literally talking about disabled people. A decent society should have some care for the needs of these people, and not ignore them when they tell us what is important to them.

Toilet paper and drinking straws are not equivalent. TP is biodegradable and EVERYBODY needs it. If stores were to stop carrying TP, then everyone would need to carry it around and that's silly.

Disabled people aren't helpless, they generally will do everything they can up until their disability stops them. I'm really struggling to think of a disability where someone would be prevented from putting a straw on their persons.

Don't listen to me on this, listen to actual disabled people: https://www.eater.com/2018/7/19/17586742/plastic-straw-ban-d...

I read your article, thanks for sharing. Just because she is disabled doesn’t mean she can’t change too. I understand that disability makes change difficult, but I think these issues are important enough that the struggle to change is worth it.

There are solutions to her problems, she just doesn’t want to change. The solutions she presents are regressive (“keep plastic straws behind the counter”) or dismissive (“don’t take away MY straws, take away someone else’s plastic”). I understand and I sympathize but I want to reduce plastic usage more than I want her to maintain her drinking strategy.

> How hard is it to carry a metal straw with you? You hear news about the ban, and you put a couple plastic ones in your bag until the metal one from amazon arrives.

Metal straws are dangerous due to for many disabled people due to the risk of injuring themselves by biting down involuntarily because of the same disabilities which necessitate their use of straws in the first place. For many others, the inflexibility of metal straws mean that they do not actually enable them to drink independently.

> Why are people so helpless? Jesus christ, it takes half a second to figure out this solution for yourself.

It is indeed very easy to think of this approach. For people with disabilities which make metal straws unusable or dangerous, it probably doesn't take very long to think of why it isn't a solution for them.

(As a minor aside, as a person lacking any such disability: metal straws can be quite a painful experience with hot beverages. Although I'm given to understand that it's traditional in Argentina with mate, and my Argentine in-laws seemed much more comfortable doing so at a higher temperature than I was, so I guess it is probably possible to get used to that.)

If we were to answer every use case every time we need to make a societal change, then nothing would get done.

The scope of people you mention with that disability is very very small. And still, they could work around metal by using a piece of rubber on the tip. Hell, someone could invent a special straw just for disabled people (we could make it longer and more flexible, you might call it a tube!).

Instead of ripping apart my lay ideas and complaining about our attempts at fixing climate change, perhaps we ought to be thinking of better solutions for our friends with disabilities. Because ultimately, climate change will take the lives of people with disabilities before it takes the lives of able-bodied people.

Any issue can be explained away by claiming it is "very very small" - including the matter of straws. I'm skeptical that use of plastic straws by developed countries will ultimately cause enough climate change to kill disabled people as your comment implies. Let's not confuse litter and climate change. That kind of hyperbole does not help.

Environmentalism would be better served if environmentalists focused on deeper solutions and did not waste societal attention and resources on distractions of negligible outcome. Black-and-white thinking and choosing to die on every hill only serves to breed false self-satisfaction and alienate potential supporters.

Totally fair, it was a hyperbolic comment. But environmentalism takes many small steps to achieve, it’s not done overnight in one fell swoop. If we fight all of these small steps, then it never moves forward. We need to “die on this hill” so that we don’t die on a bigger hill much later.

We need to think about a world without throw-away plastic. Banning plastic straws is an exploration in to that world. If it turns out that there is absolutely no way to live in a world without plastic straws, then I am sure the ban will be undone. But I think we can get ahead of this challenge, it’s not that big.

A better approach compared to banning things currently needed by disabled people and then, once disabled people object, saying "well, we need to develop better alternatives for disabled people, but we can't let these issues get in the way" would be to first develop alternatives and then, once there are good alternatives that are actually usable and safe for disabled people, ensuring their availability as part of the same policies that reduce or eliminate the use of the environmentally problematic things.

There's no reason why the needs of disabled people must conflict with taking care of the environment. The apparent conflict in this situation was introduced because people developed their environmental policy proposals without any awareness of or care for the interests and needs of disabled people: if we do not account for the effects of policies on disabled people when deciding which policies to prioritize and how to implement them, some policies will look artificially more appealing because of our inattention to some of their costs and the policies we do choose to pursue will end up implemented in needlessly harmful ways simply because we weren't paying attention to whether we ended up causing harm to some people.

> Santa Barbara just passed a straw ban without any exceptions for disabled people who actually need plastic straws

Reusable straws (both plastic and metal) are available, as are paper and non-paper compostable straws. I don't know of any disability that requires people to use single-use-but-stays-around-forever straws.

If businesses aren't accommodating disabled patrons with any of the legal, readily available, reasonable solutions available, that seems like an ADA issue, though anyone who needs or wants straw should probably be proactive in preparing themselves in case facilities fail, which is simple enough to do.

I suspect the problems here are transition issues that'll disappear fairly soon (and will probably be dealt with better in the future as new jurisdictions adopt bans but have the benefit of seeing where the transition was rocky in the early places.)

> Reusable straws (both plastic and metal) are available, as are paper and non-paper compostable straws. I don't know of any disability that requires people to use single-use-but-stays-around-forever straws.

Many of these alternatives are usable in some contexts for people with some disabilities requiring them to use straws, however, they're all also dangerous or unusable to some disabled people (paper straws can be a choking hazard, rigid straws of all kinds are dangerous for people with tics or other conditions that may lead to them biting down involuntarily, non-paper compostable straws pose allergy risks and are rarely labeled in such a way as to communicate whether they contain possible allergens, several types of reusable or compostable straws can be dangerous in sufficiently hot drinks) and disabled people with some combinations of conditions can end up having all of the alternatives potentially unsafe for them, save disposable non-compostable plastic.

> anyone who needs or wants straw should probably be proactive in preparing themselves in case facilities fail, which is simple enough to do.

That would be simple for most abled people to do, yes. It would be less simple for those disabled people for whom fetching a straw they brought with them and putting it in their drink would require assistance, which, as it happens, are also people who are rather likely to need straws to drink.

> I suspect the problems here are transition issues that'll disappear fairly soon

You don't seem to be aware of the problems that disabled people have been pointing out, so I think your suspicion may not be very well founded here.

How about if I'd rather drink acid drinks like Coke (when I do) without damaging my teeth?

What about my freedom of choosing whether I'd use straws or not?

Please explain to me how you can drink without the liquid touching your teeth. Do you stick the straw directly down your throat?

uh? I minimize the contact to my teeth, I guess?

Afaik, Acid damage to teeth is mostly from long term effects of acid produced by bacteria on the teeth, not acidic liquids that transit through the mouth.

In any case, disposable plastic straw bans do not affect your freedom of choosing whether you use a straw or not.

It's not all good banning straws - Starbucks, for one, is finding out it uses more plastic with their new lids[1][2][3][4].

Sure, they're more recyclable, but a big part of the problem is many people don't throw their Starbucks cup in the recycle bin as it is! So, more plastic is being manufactured and used, and maybe some of it will be recycled... not such a clear cut win after all...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jul/23/starbucks-s...

[2] https://reason.com/blog/2018/07/12/starbucks-straw-ban-will-...

[3] https://www.thekitchn.com/starbucks-no-straws-new-lids-more-...

[4] https://www.vox.com/2018/6/25/17488336/starbucks-plastic-str...

Explain the benefit.

Straws are too small to be processed by recycling facilities. They just get tossed.

Even if the Starbucks lids are larger, they can be recycled because they can be caught by the recyclers.

Leptospirosis is the reason people are trained from childhood to require drinking straws in many parts of Asia. Rats piss on bottles and cans, and the bacteria their urine contains kept alive due to the ice used to keep them cold. So if you refuse the straw while on holiday, remember it is flu like symptoms with a high chance of death.

> Explain the inconvenience you're experiencing because you can't get a straw?

Simple, I like using straws. Now I can't get one. It's not a small step forward, it's a minuscule step forward. Nothing significant has changed except peoples silly image of themselves.

Why does it need to be inconvenience, why not just preference? The detrimental effects of straw usage in the US are extremely minimal. We are basically going through a stage where we ban all straws in the country because of a sad photo of a turtle from Costa Rica.

> Explain the inconvenience you're experiencing because you can't get a straw?

Do you have young children? If you do, you know very well the inconvenience of not having straws.

How about know anyone with facial nerve paralysis like Bells Palsy where they need a straw to drink without spilling liquid all over themselves?!

Carrying your own straws won’t help if the lid isn’t designed to take one.

The straw ban is just more faux outrage virtue signaling bullshit which makes people think they are doing something that is helping, so that when it comes to actually doing something worthwhile they don’t bother because — yah! No more straws!

Sometimes I am terribly disappointed in the way these movements develop, percolate through false narratives, fake stats, and outright lies, and then when exposed as grandstanding bullshit the argument shifts to; but at least it’s something?

Actually, the truth? It’s not something. It’s a step backwards (see Starbucks). It’s draining, it’s inconvenient, and it saps goodwill from a lot of people who really would be willing to make meaningful changes... but instead we’re out there banning straws and banning serving water at restaurants without having to ask.

Sigh.... </rant>

Should modern countries stop making improvements until the developing ones catch up? We still consume far more than those countries, meaning how we manage resources can cause large swings.

Correct - for instance, we could have diverted all the resources we used to ban straws into educational anti-waste programs in the biggest offender countries.

Is that landfill claim a bit of a strawman (pardon the pun)? I've seen little to nothing about it being the result of landfills, and everything about it being a result of the culture of disposable plastics. We're all to blame for disposable plastics.

I think the point is that disposable plastics are not an issue if they end up in landfills.

I'm not sure how popular that claim is, but I've heard it multiple times. Especially as part of the eco-protective initiatives.

I was able to find this example[1]:

"Even if you live hundreds of miles from the coast, the plastic you throw away could make its way into the sea. Once in the ocean, plastic decomposes very slowly, breaking down in to tiny pieces known as micro plastics that can be incredibly damaging to sea life. 80% of plastic in our oceans is from land sources – but what does that really mean? Where is it coming from?

There are three main ways the plastic we use every day ends up in the oceans."

"1. Throwing plastic in the bin when it could be recycled. Plastic you put in the bin ends up in landfill. When rubbish is being transported to landfill, plastic is often blown away because it’s so lightweight. From there, it can eventually clutter around drains and enter rivers and the sea this way."

"2. Littering Litter dropped on the street doesn’t stay there. Rainwater and wind carries plastic waste into streams and rivers, and through drains. Drains lead to the ocean!"

"3. Products that go down the drain Many of the products we use daily are flushed down toilets, including wet wipes, cotton buds and sanitary products."

At no point they mention the fact that some countries are just using ocean as a landfill and that causes 90% of the pollution of it.

[1]: https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/how-does-plastic-end-ocean

Fair enough, but none of those are about items actually in the landfill. It's about the process of getting there. And even with recycling, a large percentage is sent to China, India, and other nations where its custody is uncertain.

The single raindrop never feels responsible for the flood. Whether it's CO2, plastics, CFCs, etc, our individual contributions might be tiny in the grand scheme of things, but together make a difference. The best thing we can do is change the culture of single-use disposables and export that to other nations.

To me it's like code optimization.

You may spend a lot of time optimizing the code responsible for 1% of run time, or you may spend that same time optimizing the code that takes 60% of the total run time.

That said, I'm not saying we should not work to reduce the pollution everywhere.

Those numbers are outdated. More recent studies show that 46% is discarded fishing gear: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/great-pacific-garb...

I think it’s absurd that we look for biodegradeable plastics as a solution when we could simple legislate common containers and reuse them. How much must we sacrifice because brands want to differentiate on the shape of the bottle instead of on what’s inside it and on the label?

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