Ocean cleaning device succeeds in removing plastic for the first time

[1] The entry is very short on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleuston#Neuston

Interesting assumption but false. The places where fish are located is often pretty dense in fish. That is to say, fish are not evenly distributed. They tend to swim in school of fish, and oceans have vast "desert" areas where the bottom is made of sand and very little else.

The Pacific Garbage Patch is interesting target for cleaning because it has a higher density of plastic compared to other areas. The question is if the density is high. Fishing technique has very little insight to give here beyond technology such as radar and echo sounding, but I am uncertain how effective that would be.

Creating an effective device to clean large swathes of low density ocean is going to require novel designs. For high density areas there are divers, and recreational divers are actually one of the current biggest force in cleaning up water around beaches. The problem is that it does not scale.

Either/or thinking, false dilemma, false dichotomy, false binary

Any of those resonate?

This startup is long on hype and has zero results. Ok they spent tons of money to collect a few lbs of trash. The CEO was on Joe Rogan last month telling everyone he was going to clean up half the patch in 5 years (not even sure what that means since it's constantly growing). How much did those ships cost to run per day though? $50k. So he doesn't even have a working POC if you factor in costs. He's just out there on a premature victory tour, doing more harm than good by convincing people that someone else has solved the plastic problem for them. What a hero.

The great pacific garbage patch -- as mentioned in the article -- is twice the size of Texas, but the garbage density is low: only 4 parts per m3. And only 5% of the garbage is at the surface (10 meters deep or so). That's what makes the cleanup fiendishly difficult. So let's focus on the low hanging fruit first.

So that means we need to be as efficient as possible in fixing this, and cleaning the ocean is much more work compared to filtering the mouths of the 10 or so main polluting rivers in Asia.

Assuming they could scale this to 20,000 trips per year for 6 billion dollars every year, they might reduce the rate of new plastics by 10%. However, this does not scale as it depended on a specific unusual situation.

From https://inhabitat.com/the-fallacy-of-cleaning-the-gyres-of-p... (and Flotsametrics):

> to clean the ocean of floating plastic, you don’t need to go out and get it, it will come to you. Yep, that’s right. Oceanographer Curtis Ebbsmeyer, author of, Flotsametrics [33] describes a rarely talked about phenomena that occurs naturally in the ocean called Gyre Memory. Gyre Memory demonstrates that upon each orbit of a gyre, the gyre will spit out about half its contents. These contents will then either enter another current or gyre or wash up on land. As this repeats, it means that eventually, all the plastic in the ocean will be spit

Slat's reply, from https://theoceancleanup.com/updates/responding-to-critics:

> There is no data to support this statement. Actually, using the best models currently available (the Van Sebille and LebretonModels) we attempted to quantify the natural loss of plastics from the gyres, producing a figure of <0.1%/yr. Based on communication between our modelers and the makers of the models, we eventually decided to exclude this figure from the report, because the models are unreliable near the coast. But it’s safe to say a gyre does not spit out half of its contents per rotation. Unfortunately, it appears that the plastic that’s already trapped in the currents of the gyres does not simply go away by itself.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/06/dumped-f...

Another 9 million tons (8 million metric tons) of plastic waste, including plastic bottles, bags, toys and other items, flow annually into the ocean from beaches, rivers and creeks, according to experts. So 8,000,000/year vs ~36 per month.

In other words they spent 300,000$ and reduced the oceans added plastic load that month by 0.0054%.

Maybe it is correct to think of 40 tons as not a big dent in the problem, but I'm not sure.

70% of large things. 10% of total.

We simply don't have the political will though. So that will fail and so will this.

The current impact is small, but they plan to have loads of these constantly operating - that will cause huge impact.

[1] https://twitter.com/rebeccarhelm/status/1179861389575245824?...

[2] http://www.deepseanews.com/2019/02/the-ocean-cleanup-struggl...

In air, this size is ~ 10µm diameter [1]. In seawater, it should be considerably larger because Reynold's number.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/airborne-pa...

https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15611

> Our model is calibrated against measurements available in the literature. We estimate that between 1.15 and 2.41 million tonnes of plastic waste currently enters the ocean every year from rivers, with over 74% of emissions occurring between May and October. The top 20 polluting rivers, mostly located in Asia, account for 67% of the global total. The findings of this study provide baseline data for ocean plastic mass balance exercises, and assist in prioritizing future plastic debris monitoring and mitigation strategies.

The likelihood of your trash ending up in the ocean depends entirely on where you live and how your trash gets processed.

The only part of your statement that's somewhat correct is that rivers in developed countries carry less plastics to the oceans compared to developing countries. But "very little" is creating a false impression of the problem.

Processing disposable plastic waste is a problem that can be avoided by... not using disposable plastics at all. This is first and foremost a moral choice: whether or not we want to put the health of the ecosystem of which we are part above our own personal short-term convenience.

Thailand banned the use of disposable plastic bags this month:

https://phys.org/news/2020-01-thai-retailers-single-use-plas...

You'd think that the Thai would oppose the ban. That's not what's happening if you gauge the sentiment on social media:

https://www.boredpanda.com/unusual-ways-people-dealing-plast...

Except that the plastic waste of certain countries tends to get "exported" to these places and then dumped there - if it doesn't get dumped into the ocean before it can even get there.

The poorest places don't tend to generate so much plastic waste because it is mostly a by-product of "luxury goods" (read: trash) in developed countries bought by clueless consumers.

For instance I will never understand the people who buy plastic-wrapped pre-sliced "salami" that hardly resembles the real thing in anything but name. I recently saw croissants(!) getting sold off the shelf in a supermarket. How the hell do you even make that work? Of course they were wrapped in plastic. I don't even want to know how they them make them last long enough. No way they're still crisp outside if the whole thing hasn't turned into a rock.

I feel like some people will buy something not despite it being a plastic wrapped faint imitation of the real thing - but because it is.

Daily, I see people getting rid of the plastic wrapping around their new cigarette pack by throwing it out the car window or just dropping it straight to the ground. It's that type of plastic that makes its way to the city's runoff which makes its way to streams/rivers/lakes/oceans/etc. After any significant amount of rain, there's a few places I can drive by to see where the trash from throughout the city has washed into the grassy areas around bends in creaks/rivers. It's a good visual example of where the plastic pollution is originating.

So apply what I wrote and you get: eat less fish.

Since this is HN, people will talk about pros and cons of eating fish, but there's only one reason people create fishing nets. If people consume less of things that damage the environment, we will produce less of it and therefore damage less of it. If some populations have to eat it, most can still eat less. I last ate fish in 1990.

Why do we have to pretend that all coastal cities are equally at fault when this is clearly not true? Are people afraid its somehow racist? It has nothing to do with race but with certain governments that just don't care. It's become a pet peeve of mine when charges of racism is used to deflect political criticism of governments.

In the US dumping trash in rivers is a crime and will get you in serious trouble: large fines, seizure of trucks and equipment, maybe even criminal charges.

Except if you live in Asia or a developing country, which is a large percentage of the world population. After traveling through that region I can honestly say that I am not surprised to see so much plastic in the oceans. People dump trash in the water, throw plastic bottles on the ground, waste and recycling infrastructure is largely non-existent. Even in richer middle tier countries like China people just toss their plastic into the rivers.

It's the sort of thing that could be done in a blanket fashion within a couple of years if a major government just stepped up and said "no bullshit plastic waste everywhere".

That is to say - it's preventable as soon as a major government says so.

Unfortunately none of them seem to have the balls. It's fine and dandy to spend multiple years on political fluff (see UK), but god forbid we make any serious changes in packaging regulation.

https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/10/two-minute-mayon...

If you have an immersion blender, it takes literally 2 minutes, and is fool-proof. Doing it other ways, such as manually or a food processor is a little trickier. I've done this way now for a while and never need to buy mayonnaise anymore. Kenji has a vegan recipe too using aquafaba if you're in to that.

My bulk food store sells soy sauce, soap, and other things into containers I bring.

With mayonnaise, you might consider my solution for oil: stop buying it. I haven't used oil in years and eat a lot more nuts. Everyone's tastes are unique, but I love this trade.

Everything else in my pantry is either purchased infrequently or requires a lot of work to make myself that I've moved on to other things. Instead of trying to create those things, I try to reduce my use of them. Making mayo or ketchup isn't worth it IMO (mustard is easy though), and they're not particularly healthy either, so I just try to reduce how much I eat them.

I think reducing waste should involve a more complete review of our lifestyle, not just replacing items one by one. For example, I only really use mayonnaise when making certain sandwiches, and I only eat those sandwiches because they're convenient and semi healthy. Instead of figuring out how to make mayonnaise more ecologically sustainable, I instead look for more healthy foods that I can make more convenient, like salads, burritos, and sir fry, all of which don't need mayonnaise.

- the more money we spend on <thing> the more <thing>’s manufacturer has to lobby for its continued existence

- the more we standardize that product as “normal” we make regulating it less politically viable (see blowback re: plastic straws)

How Authoritarian of you, what other area's of life should the governments of the world control for everyone denying them their human right of choice?

It is sad to me that as civilization "advances" more and more people want to go back to a time where people were subjects of their government, instead of free people. I know it has only been a few hundred years of human civilization where people have had any kind of freedom, why are we so willing to give all of that up?

The types of invasive regulations that will require increasing food costs, as well as lowering shelf life for every day people will cause massive problems for not only the poor but the middle class as well.

What is next mandatory vegan artisanal organic diet to save the climate? Each meal having to be hand picked by a local farmer that day.

I see the egg vendors at the farmers market filling cartons that people bring, then stacking the cartons they brought the eggs in, I presume to reuse.

My top strategy is to lose taste in such things, like everyone I know looks at cigarettes. People's diets are their business, but I used to eat a lot of those things and now find them not remotely like food.

[0] which celebrates "unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research", mostly papers with totally absurd-sounding titles. https://www.improbable.com/ig-about/

The associated Luxuriant Flowing Hair Clubs for Scientists is possibly even more awesome. https://www.improbable.com/hair/

More energy in production for paper while true, also means that with solar and other renewable getting cheaper, that argument will be a distraction.

The grocery store near me used to wrap up all the meat from their in house butcher in paper with a string - it was neat. Now they wrap it in plastic on those styrofoam trays. But to make it worse, they wrap each individual item in plastic, so if you buy a few pounds of chicken you end up with about 6 individual containers of chicken. Its insane.

That said, plastic bags do reach rivers in the west - far more than other plastic packaging. It might only be 1/10th of 1%, but that’s still a million bags a year clogging our rivers in the UK alone (at least until the number reduced)

https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/plastic...

For instance, it's been documented that most non final nuclear waste in France goes to sit in large open vats in eastern Europe. As far as the French nuclear industry is concerned, it's being "recycled".

Plastic kills wildlife, disrupts our systems, and such. Mentioning climate is a red herring. Actually, it isn't since plastic production takes energy and its profits contribute to drilling fossil fuels.

plastic helps us reduce food waste, and food waste is a contributor to climate change. reducing plastic usage where it's unnecessary is obviously good, but plastic isn't inherently bad. sometimes it really is the best solution, even in single-use form.

Alas this appears to be false. Plastic is being exported to Thailand et al for "recycling", since china has stopped accepting lowgrade rubbish.

This means that when they "process" it, can can endup being dumped in rivers, or blown by the wind. https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/uk-plastic-polluti...

Now, one can argue that plastic is a permanent store of carbon. The problem is that we continue to produce plastic, which releases loads of carbon.

So unless we reduce, reuse, and as a last resort recycled, we are continue to have issues.

In any case, these are totally orthogonal operations. Both should be optimized.

I do not believe that the "political route" of taxation and violence is the best way to "avoid the mess", in fact I believe that will only prolong and increase the mess and do nothing to avoid it.

Governments are ineffective and inefficient, all government solutions are based on threats of violence, and we know from centuries of history violence is not the solution to any problem, thus government is not the solution to any problem

GOVERNMENT: If you think your problems are bad, just wait until you see our solutions

What is needed is action. Not only government action but individual action, right now.

An example: Plastics used by supermarkets to pack fruits and veg. Arguably that should be banned. But equally supermarkets wouldn't do it if people didn't buy all the same. So let's just stop buying fruits and veg packed in plastic. It might mean not buying anything for some time, but we'll survive. That's called putting your money where your mouth is.

I'm curious now