Comment by clay_the_ripper | Hacker News Reader

Comment by clay_the_ripper | Hacker News Reader

clay_the_ripper

It seems like a lot of comments are debating the relative merits of which solution will work, whether this is the right solution, pointing out this doesn’t address the entire problem et al.

What about AND?

work on reducing plastic waste AND try to get it out of the water. Deploy this solution, try it AND iterate on it. Do this AND the next idea AND the next. Keep trying things until you find the right solution.

It seems to me that this project does a lot more good than harm, even if it doesn’t work, it paves the way for solutions that might.

The amount of naysaying and nitpicking here is depressing. Is it perfect? No. Does it address every problem? No. Is it a start? Yes.

How many times has the right solution been the first thing someone tried? Rarely. But you keep trying stuff until you find something that works.

At least this guy is DOING something rather than endlessly debating how to fix it.

It’s easy to be an armchair engineer saying you could dream up 10 better solutions. Well great, go do it then.

Props to this kid and his organization for taking action on a problem to try and do some good in the world.

Not to mention that this project brings additional attention to the problem. The more attention there is the more likely it is that politicians will take up the matter and strive for a political solution to the source problem.

And even if that doesn't happen, getting rid of even a small amount of pollutants from the ocean can't be a bad thing, can it?

I live on a peninsula and our beaches are covered in plastic. Over the last couple of years people litter pick most weekends, but to me it is hopeless. There is so much. You could spend ten thousand man hours a day cleaning and on the next tide the beach would be full again. Its just crazy how much crap there is in the ocean.

Imagine how much plastic is in one garbage truck, now chop it up into small, 5cm bits. Now spread it across a beach, try to pick that up. It takes all day.

We need machines to help us.

I live near the beach in Japan. I admit that I don't go and pick up plastic off the beach. I definitely should because it's not really an onerous task. I'll try to schedule it occasionally (I mean, I'm near enough that I can actually walk to the beach, anytime I want).

However, on the beach near me, there isn't much garbage. And pretty much any day I go, there is a group of students picking up garbage on the beach. When I used to work at the school, each home room would have beach days where they go and pick up garbage. And each club has beach days where they go and pick up garbage.

I live on Suruga bay, so it's not right on the Pacific and I'm sure that cuts down a lot of the garbage. But just with the local high school sending 20 people down there practically every day, it seems to keep it under control.

It's one of those cultural things. There is garbage everywhere because we don't have a culture to clean it up. We feel like we shouldn't have to. We feel like it should be someone else's job. Maybe that's true and maybe it's not, but a consistent effort by a small group of people can make a big difference.

If you pick up all the plastic on the beach and put it into either general waste or plastic recycling bins, what percentage will actually end up back in the sea or in open landfill somewhere?

modify some farming equipment. First separate sand from plastic by washing it then float it though a vibrating tank to sort it. What part of the technology belongs on the tractor will have to be figured out over time.

If you separate it by type and size properly it can just be sold/recycled.

While it could be commercially viable I do think money should be pumped in from other sources. Preferably from [remaining] industries creating and using the materials found.

I'm not sure what sort of beach you are imagining, I assume a long sandy one.

Ours are rocks, cliffs, deep bays, long sandy beaches that there is no way in hell they'd allow diggers or tractors on (conservation sites)

I'm glad to see this project is trying. There is a lot of fear over this cleanup method. Perhaps due in part that the proposal is new and hasn't proved itself effective yet. The suggestion is if it fails then it will add more garbage to the ocean than was removed.

I suspect most of the concerns are stemming from how quickly they are trying to move. The apparent afterthought of how this will impact wildlife while collating the debris, and early failed trials with mild weather. These are good critiques. I'd like to see answers for those issues, out a plan proposed to investigate and about for these concerns. I don't think it's reasonable to push all of that on a company that's trying, without offering some support or an alternative.

Do you have any sources about the wildlife concern? I was under the impression that the impact was negligible compared to the potential benefit.

Also, re: adding more plastic than was removed:

While that may be technically correct if it doesn’t work, the way I see it is this:

-this project:

-potential benefit to the oceans: high

-potential risk to the ocean: comparatively low

—99.9% of companies we debate about on this site:

-potential benefit to the oceans: zero

-potential risk to the oceans (assume here we are talking about any company that creates or purchases, directly or indirectly, any kind of plastic): high

On that alone, it seems like the risks far outweigh the benefits.

I also think if you think about the types of companies you see created every day: delivery services, manufactured products of any kind etc. All those companies have the externality of potential plastic waste. For example a delivery startup is going to be purchasing plastic spoons or plastic food boxes. No one is sitting around criticizing them for potentially adding plastic to the oceans. We all talk about economics and scale and product and software. But that company is almost certainly adding to the growing problem of plastic in the oceans without providing any upside.

Meanwhile this company is proposing launching large objects that could become waste in the oceans, yes. Although they are satellite tracked and I’m sure could be removed easily. But the upside is removing way more waste than they are discharging. So it seems worth the risk to me.

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