Great Pacific garbage patch: giant plastic trap put to sea again
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
The OVI has been able to collect large quantities of plastic, very quickly, because they distributed GPS trackers to various vessels of opportunity. Such vessels volunteered to attach trackers to any debris they encounter while traversing the pacific, allowing the Kwai to sail straight for large clumps of plastic debris.
The ocean plastics issue is a lot more complicated than these cleanup efforts make it seem. Large debris are just the tip of the iceberg. Microplastics, consumption of single-use plastics, the U.N.'s estimate that 600 tons of netting enter the ocean each year, etc. etc. (I want to emphasize those etc's because this list is quite long)
Restoring and protecting the world's oceans requires more resources and I am honestly surprised how difficult it is to raise money to do the things which are required to sustain human life on earth. Utterly baffled. We launch satellites into space to broadcast 4K boxing to the last mile, but engineering new packaging materials, and zero-waste systems for distributing those packages is just beyond the pale.
One reason for The Ocean Cleanup's current work is to get the larger parts now, before they degrade to microplastics.
I have a suspicion that when The Ocean Cleanup says "the device had no environmental impact" they really are saying they did not find any entangled animals in the ghost nets they concentrated.
It could be a matter of a dumping ground for nets in one place and it floats around oceans while the unlucky animals getting caught in net bring net to sea floor.
It depends on the type and size of the net. Dermochelys coriacea can weight 500Kg easily
a) An obvious solution that would protect fisheries, and save the lives of thousands of marine birds, turtles, seals and whales, would be to change by international laws the matherial used in nets to made it more degradable in some points
b) Another partial solution could be to build shredder ships
c) And I suppose that anything that would replace part of the expensive fuel spent by very big war ships (aircraft carriers, etc) would save millions of dollars. Equipate this floating cities with secondary motors able to burn plastic instead gas would increase dramatically the autonomy of those ships, reduce the temptation to get ride of the garbage dumping it in the open sea, and would benefit also the environment, something that can be used to improve PR also.
b) and c) could be combined in one solution allowing the shredder ships reducing their cost per hour at sea
All they would need is to equipate ships with big particle filters like black boxes to store ALL the dioxins and noxious substances until real decontamination in appropiate ports. Modern cars have yet this technology.
Some plastics are reciclable and could be sold and used as an economic resource instead as garbage.
Just my 2 Cents
Shredding the nets? Wouldn't this just make it a microplastics issue?
Ghost nets gradually wipe top predators that reproduce slowly. This has a noxious and permanent effect in the ecosystems, hitting specially hard the animals affected more by microplastics: small larvae and small fishes.
In marine ecosystems there is always a cascading card house effect. More predators not tangled in nets -> more big fishes eaten -> more small fishes survive. Even more important, more turtles alive to eat jellyfishes (wich gobble fish larvae and eggs but ignore microplastics). In the end the current influence of microplastics over small species would decrease compensated by a lower predation pressure.
Heavy cetaceans on the other hand can store incredible amounts of nasty substances on its fat for many years. Microplastics would affect them less than the current ball of 50 Kg of bags blocking the stomach and leaking chemicals.
Small plastic portions could have much more probability of passing trough the digestive system of big vertebrates without blocking it also. Would be safer for ship navigation also (Lose nets can tangle in boat propellers).
The rest are going off to other parts of the world. The reuse problem is still unsolved.
That said, a large chunk of waste is also exported abroad, and nobody knows (or, wants to know) what happens then - no longer our problem.
It's ambulance at the bottom of the cliff stuff, by definition of being a cleanup op, but hell, they're trying and I hope they work out how to make a meaninful difference.
Also, if it works, why not dump more plastic into the sea. After all, apparently we can simply fish it out again.
And even if we were only attention constrained, a project that doesn't work would draw attention away from more promising ideas.
In comparison, plastic is actually mostly just an aesthetic issue.
In the same way, you could claim we have no plastics problem, because we don't need plastic. That would be the same logic as saying we don't need oil because we could use solar power.
Maybe in theory it is possible, but it is not a reality yet.
And it is not even proven that it is possible, either. Solar power is not zero impact, either, it may just have a slightly smaller CO2 footprint than oil.
You are hopelessly naive. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Yes, solar panels exist. That doesn't prove you can fulfill all our energy needs using them. And it doesn't tell you anything about their CO2 footprint.
There is also the tiny problem of energy at night, that has no good solution yet.
It's like saying burning oil is mostly bad because of the visual aspect of smog. It's not.
https://scholar.google.de/scholar?q=microplastic+endocrine+d...
https://scholar.google.de/scholar?q=microplastic+effect+on+h...
There actually lots of other toxic and non-digestible things floating in the sea, not the least life forms who defend against predators by producing toxins. Therefore it seems unlikely that plastic will be that much worse.
And anybody got a citation for the harm done by this 'garbage patch'? Not just documentation of its existence. What effect, beyond the positive one of providing anchor points for algae etc in the life-rich upper meter.
It gives the impression that such a thing could make even the slightest dent, and it gives those who sell single use plastics a reason to say "see, it's under control!".
"There isn't really a problem is there? Aren't there boats that pick the plastic up out of the ocean?" - silly as that might sound to you and I, that's the core message that many would pick up on, and other would amplify.
A quixotic fools errand.
- Stop dumping/polluting waters
- Clean up what is out there
Boyan and his project cater for the second one and they're trying to solve a real, existing problem. Others are trying to solve other problems.
What's wrong with that?
It's pointless and sends a false message that "cleaning up the problem" is even vaguely possible. That false message will be picked up and amplified by "big plastic" companies like CocaCola to convince the public that they aren't in fact ruining the earth with their single use plastics.
It has people like you convinced that it's possible to "clean up what is out there". It's not.
If the tap broke in your kitchen and poured thousands of gallons of water on to the floor every minute, would you start mopping that up like crazy, as fast and hard as you can? Or would you first turn off the tap?
I will take time - maybe two generations - and then these children’s will understand that throwing plastic away (like you see in many countries) is just bad. I think it gives everyone deep down a sense of accountability...
I think that projects like this will put hard numbers to how difficult and expensive "mopping" is and possibly learn something from the trash that is being collected. Then we know that each plastic straw, bag or bottle costs this much to collect from the ocean and we know that x percent end up there. Then use the data to support initiatives to inform policy.
While some people focus on changing policies can and should do impact at the source of the problem, other people focus on engineering solutions for fighting the existing problem. Not everyone can become a policy maker/politician - so please cut those at least trying some slack.
This is the pacific ocean - it takes up about a third of the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pacific_Ocean_-_en.png
When I visited the very remote pacific ocean, there was plastic everywhere. On remote islands, every ten feet were plastic bottles and garbage, in the water - everywhere.
The idea that any number of dedicated garbage collection ships, given all the resources in the world, could clear this up, is just completely ridiculous.
>>> It won't clear itself up
And neither will we - it's impossible, and distracts from the real task at hand which is to stop the flow, stop the creation of it.
To solve the problem we must relentlessly point the spotlight back on the companies that are creating this endless flow of garbage.
Started taking it out, or started not putting it in the first place?
They should disperse iron oxide dust downstream while they're at it.
Calling it a garbage patch make it sound like not a big deal, some one can just go out in a boat and clean it, the problem is the whole ocean is filled with tiny plastic particles its a literal ocean of garbage not patch.
Where he's floating adrift and have him run into one of this things pylons. They could have him pop-up on a screen in a monitoring lab.