So you're saying with bubble barriers in just 10 places (as opposed to all around the world), we can clean up 90% of ocean trash from dumping? That's amazing. A lot easier than trying to get China et al. to implement more "actual municipal trash pickup and urban trashcans etc." The first world could crowdfund the barriers. I'll help.
We don't need new solutions. Developed countries have already solved the problem of river trash with waste management, but since it's not glamorous enough, people only fund these well meaning flashy projects that could create more environmental harm than they prevent.
I've seen it repeated over and over as if it were true, but it's not.
> reporters come here thinking this is the destination for old laptops exported from the United States [..] But this isn’t the destination at all. The computer shops are.
> According to the United Nations Environment Programme, 85 percent of the e-waste dumped in Ghana and other parts of West Africa is produced in Ghana and West Africa
I think "produced" is a massive misnomer here. For as far as I know, there are no high-tech electronics factories in Africa. What the 85% figure refers to, I guess, is the part of the waste that was part of the local economy before ending up at the dump. But from the first quote, that still means the site is filled with discarded items from the US and Europe, just not directly.
Isn't reuse the ideal situation?
Not to mention e-waste vs plastic trash are rather different topics.
I repeat what I said: First world countries do not deal with trash by sending it to second world countries, despite being oft repeated, this is not actually true.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/piling-up-how-chinas-ban-on-i...
It very much is true. In the context of this discussion, the bubble barrier works on plastic pollution, so we're talking about plastics and recyclables.
So because they bought it, they value it, which means they are not just dumping it wholesale.
> the bubble barrier works on plastic pollution, so we're talking about plastics and recyclables.
But we are not talking about plastic from the US or Europe, rather we are talking about local plastic. Because, as I said above: China is not dumping random plastic in rivers, they value the plastic because they paid for it.
(Yes, there is some waste mixed in, that needs to be disposed of, however that's a minor amount compared to waste in general, and especially compared to local waste. If you need a ref on that see my other comments in this thread.)
In summary almost zero plastic from the US or Europe ends up in the ocean via a third world country. That's simply not how it happens. If you want to solve this problem you need to look elsewhere instead of blaming first world countries as you did in your earlier post.
And then what happens? I'm sure they don't "use every part of the buffalo," so to speak.
Can you think of any major environmental project funded by foreigners that just goes in and successfully helps out?
They don't work because they're seen as an affront to the nation's autonomy. It's not seen as help. It's seen as invasion.
I'm not even joking: in Brazil most of the population believes that any effort by US private citizens/charities to purchase land in the Amazon to protect it is just a front to make a future US military invasion of the Amazon easier. It's ludicrous to Americans, but it's just "common sense" to Brazilians.
Careful, this is about hating the inhuman Chinese who enjoy putting rubbish everywhere. If you think to hard the whole idea might fall apart. Facts and thinking things through kill ideas like this.
Chinese people as a whole, no, but the Chinese Government is literally putting millions of people in in humane concentration camps. I believe the criticism China gets is well beyond justified.