80% of river plastic pollution entering the oceans stem from 1000 rivers

theoceancleanup.com

16 points·EndXA··5 comments

Stop producing plastic bags and go back to selling soft drinks in refundable glass bottles would probably make a big dent.

The extra energy needed for glass production and transportation of heavier glass bottles would have to be factored in somewhere though.

There have been stories in the news which have raised awareness about how Canada exports their recycling/trash to the Philippines.[0] The Philippines seems to pollute heavily, based on this map. Given this data, it seems counterproductive to send waste to the highest polluting countries, since they are obviously not able to process their existing burden.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93Philippines_was...

I was guessing China would have the worst rivers, but that map also puts the spotlight on India. It's easy to see that general region isn't doing good. This seems like a good way stop plastics before they reach the ocean.

India does not surprise me after having been there. A lot of very poor people and infrastructure that has not grown with the population.

Like a 10 minute drive (I was not a driver) from the offices of pretty famous western companies one could see improvised disposal sites for trash; sometimes burning and people going through them and seeing what they can find.

There seemed to be way too little organized trash pickup so people just threw their trash somewhere and after a while either the government acted or people decide to burn it to get rid of it.

I assume if there is a river nearby many will take that option instead of burning it.

Great job, ocean cleanup very interesting data right here. Tracking the problem in that way is more of a first principles approach. Happy that Mexico is so low on the amount.

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