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Comment by normalperson | Hacker News Reader

90% of the plastic in the ocean comes from Africa and Asia. First world countries put their garbage, generally speaking, into garbage dumps.

This EU rule will do nothing.

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First, comments like yours is how nothing ever gets done.

Second, you use citation-free statistics that are misleading. How much plastic waste from Asia is from "recycled" US and European ("first world", to use your dog whistle) plastics?

edit: to repeat myself, How much plastic waste from Asia is from "recycled" US and European ("first world", to use your dog whistle) plastics? - the research that 90% of the plastic waste in the oceans comes from 10 rivers is such common knowledge that the NY Post is one of the top hits if you search for this. Plastic from those rivers comes from ostensibly "recycled" western plastics, so this is actually very meaningful policy from the EU.

Here is the paper the statistic is based on.

https://twin.sci-hub.tw/7148/507066f35e75c25d1b1e160ada5693c...

ABSTRACT: A substantial fraction of marine plastic debris originates from land-based sources and rivers potentially act as a major transport pathway for all sizes of plastic debris. We analyzed a global compilation of data on plastic debris in the water column across a wide range of river sizes. Plastic debris loads, both microplastic (particles <5 mm) and macroplastic (particles >5 mm) are positively related to the mismanaged plastic waste (MMPW) generated in the river catchments. This relationship is nonlinear where large rivers with population-rich catchments delivering a disproportionately higher fraction of MMPW into the sea. The 10 top-ranked rivers transport 88−95% of the global load into the sea. Using MMPW as a predictor we calculate the global plastic debris inputs form rivers into the sea to range between 0.41 and 4 × 106 t/y. Due to the limited amount of data high uncertainties were expected and ultimately confirmed. The empirical analysis to quantify plastic loads in rivers can be extended easily by additional potential predictors other than MMPW, for example, hydrological conditions.

It’s worth pointing out that this is a single study, and I’m unsure of the accuracy of their methods of inference and sampling. The link to a previous comment in this thread implies that it’s incorrect, so keep that in mind as well.

> First, comments like yours is how nothing ever gets done.

The politician's fallacy, is a logical fallacy of the form:

1. We must do something

2. This is something

3. Therefore, we must do this.

There's also the all-or-nothing fallacy, where you don't do anything because it's not perfect.

>The EU's research on the topic says about 150,000 tonnes of plastic are tossed into European waters every year.

>That is only a small contributor to the global problem, with an estimated eight million tonnes of plastic entering the world's oceans annually. And once there, plastic can travel great distances on ocean currents.

That's 1.875%. Furthermore, single use plastics make up slightly less than half of that amount.

How meaningful is this again?

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45965605

I'm going to assume good faith and spell this out plainly:

1. People in the US, Europe, Australia, et al. "recycle" plastic.

2. The recycling companies in these regions export commingled and low quality plastics to reprocessors in China

3. The commingled low quality recycled plastic can't be reprocessed economically, and ends up in a river.

At any rate, the EU number you cited as well as NA numbers are about to rise, because China cut the world off from dumping it's garbage there: https://e360.yale.edu/features/piling-up-how-chinas-ban-on-i...

That is probably the reason for this plastic disposables ban, and more that are to come.

Comments like yours are how ineffective policies get put in place which do little to nothing while simultaneously burning out the drive to change by making people feel hopeless. Just because you can identify a problem doesn't mean any effort to resolve is a good one.

Here is a HN comment from 3 months ago that includes extensive research on the subject. More specifically, much of the plastic waste in the ocean looks to be from merchant shipping abuses, not single-use plastic litter.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18731627

Yes, we also need a worldwide ban on plastic fishing nets, and their replacement by something which biodegrades.

Pretty hard political problem though.

Just coming back from India. They've banned plastic bags and containers in any established store here, at least in the city I went to. Perhaps these countries have started taking more concrete steps than whatever it is thats leading the west?

And it caused quite many problems for them when they made that change.

How so and in what way? Just stating something without even the slightest bit of explanation is hardly believable.

Plastic was invented and became highly used because of its convenience and affordability, both to produce and ship. Do you really need peer reviewed data to entertain the idea that removing plastic could cause the inverse to be true? Because if not I'd ask for your studies that show transitioning away from plastic not being a huge obstacle.

> 90% of the plastic in the ocean comes from Africa and Asia

You might find this reddit comment interesting, because it debunks this statistic.

https://www.reddit.com/r/badscience/comments/aj0idr/debunkin...

Plastic in the ocean comes from roughly 3 sources: industrial equipment, microfibres from clothing, and land-based waste carried into the sea by rivers.

The 90% figure only applies to this last one.

This says that by weight, only 8% of the pacific garbage patch is microplastics and that the majority is fishing gear with fishing nets accounting for 46%.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/great-pacific-ga...

It is still better than doing nothing. It also will promote materials that are a better fit for recycling.

In the case of banning plastic bags, certain areas have seen an uptick in feces in areas because the homeless were using the bags for defecation and sanitation. The ban he had an impact, detrimental to the point where a first world nation is on track to have preventable disease outbreaks. There are cost benefit analyses that should be done prior to saying that a ban is better than nothing.

Homeless sanitation is not independently sufficient justification to support heaps of littered disposable plastic bags everywhere.

There are many other possible ways to address this problem.

And yet none of those will be done, but we'll still continue with the ban. After all, it's the thought that counts.

Imagine that “free plastic bags” had never been a thing.

There are homeless people without adequate toilets. Would you suggest “let’s fill our world with heaps of littered plastic bags, because some homeless people might be able to use them as portable toilets” as a remedy?

No, that would be an absurd solution.

Yeah, instead we would have no solution at all and would just consider the higher amount of disease to be just a part of life. Homelessness isn't a new problem, it's simply one we don't do anything about. So these ideas of "we could do X to fix it" don't matter. We're not going to do them.

Do (almost) nothing directly. But it may facilitate similar things in other countries/regions. It may stimulate, and the experience can also help executing policies. New technologies or methods can also be developed first. So I could be more meaningful than it looks like.

If we do not start it first, who will? Look for example at Eastern Europe where no sorting was just few years ago and today it works, and it's much cleaner. Same will happen in other societies.

Banning those items, presumably, will create incentives to find alternatives.

If we are lucky, some ecologic friendly alternative that makes economic sense will appear and will extend outside the EU. If we are very lucky, that hypothetical alternative could be extended to other uses of plastics.

The real problem is that plastics are just too convenient. We are just too comfortable to change anything. Applying evolutionary pressure to the economy could generate better solutions.

The reality is that the replacements will use up more energy than the plastic things. For example ceramic cups require more energy for transport, and chemicals for washing up.

How do we know the replacements will use more energy? Because they are more expensive. If they weren't, they would already be used now instead of plastics.

y, I used to think this way. We went on a river clean up(major river in the midwest), they take you in a small boat up river and drop you off. I wasn't expecting we would not accomplish much. 8 of us a mix of kids and adults we collected a huge pile of trash and debris from the edge of the river. The volunteer group comes by and picks up all the piles of trash the groups collect while we are eating lunch and piles it up in the parking lot. The twenty groups that went out made a huge difference. It was an amazing amount collected.

A lot of small efforts can make a huge difference. I think setting a good example in the first world will translate world wide.

Never underestimate the tiniest effort/gesture.

We also do a road side cleanup, I assure you the first world doesn't put all their garbage in the trash. It's amazing what people will just throw out their window.

If we saw more people on the green side doing this I think we'd see a much more willing world of people eager to transition. Unfortunately most would rather beat their chests and get outraged than lift a finger.

I've also picked trash in the Midwest. Days and days of walking the land and having another team collect the bags as you did. Its rewarding work.

Even if it doesn't end up in the ocean, there's less street and countryside litter. I noticed a change in the local environment when they banned plastic bags in my town, I'm in favor of this change as well. Single-use plastics are gross!

Can we do something about cigarette butts next?

The laws, technology, and culture associated with green initiatives, are a huge undertaking. When a country leads with these, they make it easier for others to follow.

And it also creates resentment in the people that live in said country, because their quality of life is affected. This could lead to situations where the public won't accept future environmental efforts.

1) Where did you get that number from?

2) How do you expect people to implement laws to protect the environment if you don't start with yourself?

It will not solve the entire problem, therefore it will do nothing.

90% of the junk we consume is built in Asia.

90% of the trash we produce is shipped back to Asia and Africa for """recycling""".

Sometimes it's good to take a few steps back and a good hard look at ourselves before blaming china / africa / russia / whoever_as_long_as_it_isn't_me.

First world countries are the root cause of China's and Africa's pollution. Why do you think everything is delocalised there ? Because rich EU/US companies want to help the poor locals ? Or because it's cheap af and there are next to no regulations concerning pollution ?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/tomorrow/electronic-wast...

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/burning-truth-...

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