Whales dying from consuming plastics
adetokunbo.substack.com
adetokunbo.substack.com
I think there's an elephantine clue in there somewhere.
A high proportion of marine platics, and especially ones most dangerous to sea life are fishing gear. Fishing kills the oceans both directly and indirectly. It's unsustainable, and we should stop doing it.
As for the rest, collection is by far the biggest problem, and most of the pollution comes from seaboard cities in developing nations.
Sure the manufacturers should be made responsible for the ultimate fate of their products, but it is not their problem or fault alone, though I think it's fair to say they've used every trick possible to push all responsibility on to others so far.
Recycling was a lie to sell more plastic, recycling industry veteran says: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24714880
Ten Rivers Contribute Most of the Plastic in the Oceans: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19908033
I also notice an disgusting amount of rubbish disposed of on the nearest pavement in developed nations.
Still, that doesn’t compare to every report I heard from people I know personally that went to visit, or had to work, or has families/grow in our former colonies. The waste management is orders of magnitude worse.
Yes , people complain about Rome and SF streets, but those are nothing compared to the reports i’ve heard. It’s another circle of hell entirely.
And remember that most of the world population is from developing nations (well I guess it depends on how you classify china and india, but those are only starting to care about environment now, for the last decade their focus was rapid industrialization, which is the biggest crime to the environment)
Regarding “developed” vs “developing” categorization, I guess most people think about it differently, everyone has their bias and there’s lots of politics involved in the terms. But i would do the divide on whether sustainability/environment is one of the most constant political topics in the country, and most major political parties have to engage with it (to different levels). This means food and shelter are secure (even if prices are hard on people)
And the developed pavement rubbish is collected, or if it's washed into the sewers, it's then filtered out before going to the river/sea. Not so in many developing nations, where it's often either thrown directly into the rivers, or washed there by heavy rains.
31 Mar 2022 — Water companies discharged raw sewage into English rivers 372,533 times last year, a slight reduction on the previous year.
They dont even filter the sewerage before dumping it in rivers. What mades you think that they are picking out all the other detritus?
IMHO it's unlikely, unless they are being exceptionally brazen, that they're skipping the easiest and most easily observable step in sewage processing, filtering out solids.
There’s regulation, there’s fines, there’s enforcement. Waste management companies do try to avoid those, and in some cases with big success. But some business trying their ways out of the laws, is very different from there being no law, no enforcement, no reporting, and bad management just being normal.
I know people that worked in waste management companies, and lawsuits for bad management are real, and most operations run legally, but there is just huge amount of money to in some ocasions break the law. So the big shots call the big shot. Immoral and unethical move, but most people working there don’t get enough opportunities outside those companies so , they just follow along the big shot call. I do know some that left because of not wanting to lie if a lawsuit came. “I want to sleep at night with clean conscience “ . There’s plenty of FAANG engineers with plenty of opportunities outside, but it’s better to do some very ethical questionable stuff there.
The thing is, you can only hide illegal stuff if most of the work you do is legal. But what if you don’t need to hide because there’s no laws or no enforcement? That’s the scenario on plenty of developing nations, the scale of bad waste disposal is just different.
Same with “recycle your clothes” that some fast fashion brands do and pay with vouchers, is just green washing marketing shit to just burn them in international waters.
Free trade between the worlds nations is very pretty, but when accountability is very different in different country you get shit like that. Just outsource illegal stuff.
( on a side note There’s plenty of FAANG engineers with plenty of opportunities outside, but it’s better to do some very ethical questionable stuff there. sure if your visa depends on the job it’s one thing, but plenty can just leave, but paycheck is too good or lifestyle was so inflated, that questionable development is the only thing that pays the bills)
Exactly, free trade was never a level playing field and many nations have taken advantage of the fact.
What annoys me most is that governments still pretend there's no problem and or that they're still pursuing individual free trade agreements without including provisions to cover these environmental issues. By our governments not doing so we are just shifting our 'shit' from our location to some other country with less ridged controls. We are dishonesty freeloading on others and the environment suffers just as much as if we'd not enacted our environmental laws.
I recall this being obvious during the free trade debates of the Reagan-Thatcher era but Big Business had such a stranglehold on governments that there wasn't a snowball's chance of including not only the environmental stuff but also other important stuff such as wages parity, product quality (parity quality on like items)—junk product dumped at super low prices alone killed off many local industries and we still haven't fully recovered. Same goes for safety standards—countries with high standards had to reduce them to the lowest common denominator, and so on.
What still worries me is why the populace at large swallowed this poisonous rhetoric without major objection. Remember, that happened in the 1930s with disastrous consequences. Unfortunately, that tragedy hasn't made the citizenry immune from such rhetoric.
It seems to me that until we citizens find some way of protecting and immunizing ourselves from the snake oil salesmen then we're bound to repeat similar mistakes next time around.
I don't see how your insinuation that my comments are pro plastic-corp-marketing is valid in any way.
I've said the fishing industry should end.
And that manufacturers should be responsible for the life-cycle of their products, but that of course the rest of society needs to play their part in that, unless we force coke etc to employ garbage-collection departments, etc, etc.
Or we can just ban plastics entirely, but honestly, plastic is used for a reason, and for example a plastic bag is highly efficient, especially when it's used multiple times (as all mine are), and then as temporary storage, bin liners, etc.
I'd like also to note that although the headline is 'Coke', which I assume is mostly PET bottles (quite recycleable), Unilever is also in the list. IMHO cosmetics, soaps, detergents are the actual worst manufacturers when it comes to plastic waste, and seem to be avoiding the spotlight, compared to plastic bags, straws, etc.
And I'm not saying this is the only problem, far from it.
We do still have to deal with consumer plastic waste, but we can't just blame manufacturers for that, as the main problem is that it isn't collected properly.
Sure, manufacturers should make less (but we should demand less), make it more easily collected, and be held responsible for the fate of their products; maybe taxed based on re-useability, etc.
But it's quite simplistic and just misses the real issues to blame coke for dead whales.
To bootstrap that, a decent (truly effective) deposit should placed on bottles (and drink cans) to ensure they are returned—not the piddling amount of 10c or so as some authorities have mandated but at least 50c, perhaps even a dollar.
If plastic bottles (and cans) are retained then the mandated deposit should be at least double that for glass bottles. A high differential deposit between glass and plastic would provide incentive for drink manufacturers to run with glass, so too consumers. I'm aware there will be some instances where plastic bottles/cans may have to be retained for convenience and or safely reasons, this too is covered by the large difference between plastic and glass containers.
Plastics on packaging can be taxed at a higher rate than say 'rottable' cardboard.
Yes, I know this doesn't cover everything but placing deposits on drink bottles is a no-brainer—and an effective start. It's simple and effective, especially so when the deposit is high enough. It's worked in the past when Coca-Cola only had glass bottles—so it ought to be no big deal for the company to return to what it once did very successfully (I can remember when glass Coke bottles were not only returned but were also recycled—some bottles had been reused so many times that the shine and luster had been lost from their prominent edges by them bumping against each other).
This all boils down to a battle between large corporations such as Coca-Cola (who want to maximize profits at the environment's expense) and the legislature. If people really care about the environment then they should lobby their democratic representive for such changes. Just leaving the lobbying to the Coca-Colas of this world—who'll be lobbying the counter position—will get us nowhere.
Adding the facility would cost, but then any attempt to clean up the environment won't come free. If we want to make progress we should get used to the fact.
EU has been pushing for standardization for things like chargers, let's hope they keep it up and force more and more companies/industries to abandon vendor lock-in (for physical products).
It's pretty rare to see any of these things discarded in the street.
PET bottles and aluminium cans are much better than glass because they can be compacted for transport and subsequent recycling.
Here, I've always considered my vote never to be a full vote but rather a half one with Big Business holding the other half. Right, our democracies are no longer such.
On the matter of plastic being better than glass for compaction etc. Maybe so where you are but that argument falls flat when having to deal with wine bottles the vast majority of which across the world are still glass and are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Any return to glass for non alcoholic drinks would load onto and enlarge existing glass wine bottle disposal methods.
That said, I'd equally include wine bottles in the deposit charge. This would stop tons of them ending up in landfill and eleswhere—the glass would then be recycled.
However, a lot of wine is now sold in bag in box or even in Tetrapack style cartons. These cartons and boxes are also recycled in the same bin as cardboard and paper, the plastic internal bag is separated by the consumer and a sack of plastic is collected by the local authority every two weeks.
Side note: I bought a Yetti Rambler(tm) insulated bottle, one of my favorite things in this world. I've not bought a bottled since.
I agree the reasoning is non-sensical but the target should remain.
Coca-Cola produces 110 _billion_ PET bottles a year. [0]
And virtually all the plastic produced by Coca-Cola is 'new' plastic made from Crude Oil.
It is absolutely beyond cynical for companies like Coca-Cola to promote recycling/sustainability and then virtually not use any recycled pellets to feed their gargantous bottle production.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/cokes-re...
Not in the UK. They've been using rPET[1] for some time and are now increasing the rPET content to 100% in their smaller bottles.
https://www.packagingnews.co.uk/news/environment/recycling/c...
> This milestone means Coca-Cola will have increased the amount of recycled plastic material in smaller bottles from 50% to 100%. Coca-Cola’s use of recycled plastics in Great Britain now saves 29,000 tonnes of virgin plastic each year – the equivalent of 2,292 double decker buses.
Using recycled plastic is still more expensive than new plastic, so unless they are willing to take the profit hit this is mostly talk with little walk and only in the markets where it will make a difference for their bottom line.
This is solved by simple regulation. Put a levy on new plastic to the point where reusable is cheaper. The only impediment is political will and that can be changed by citizens lobbying their parliamentary reps.
Companies are not victims of consumers they are actively lobbying against environmental regulations.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/plastic-packaging-...
[2] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-collect-your-packaging-da...
1) You are putting a bunch of plasticizers and all sorts of chemicals in the mix that you probably don't want to get volatile.
2) You have to spend extra fuel (coal/gas/wood) getting a furnace up to the right temperature to incinerate this. (You can't really startup a fire with plastic).
It's a huge ship to turn. The best answer is to stop drinking Coke and drink water instead. We're the ones buying it.
Governments and regulators should regulate this out of existence. Unfortuntely they are for the moment spinelessly lobbyable.
Asking consumers to curb comsumption is a fool's errand, ask consumers to demand their representatives defend the environmental interests of everything on this planet.
No. You're overlaying a victim mentality onto the situation, where there was none.
I don't know why you believe that us trying to get "spinelessly lobbyable" governments and regulators to fix this is a good idea, but that it's a "fool's errand" for us to drink less Coke until they fix it.
Our spending is much more directly effective (and cost-effective) vote for companies to change than voting for professional representatives to make speeches at them.
To me this is one of the big arguments in favor of plastic bottles. Hydrocarbons locked up as plastic waste in landfills seems far preferable to me to it ending up as CO2 in the air, especially as it displaces the energy and therefore carbon intensive processes of creating glass or aluminium bottles.
Of course in an ideal world we'd recycle every aluminium can I'd much prefer people use those. But in the US at least we only recycle 50% of aluminium cans but are far better at making sure waste ends up in landfills so at our margins I'd prefer people use plastic bottles to aluminium cans. If we could get aluminium cans recycling rates up to 90% I think that would flip my preferences and I'd love for us to figure out how to do that. And not every country can afford to have garbage can around that are collected, sweep trash from the street and dispose of it, or even have landfills at all. And in those places the calculus is different.
Fishing gear killed the whale. Coca-cola has nothing to do with it.
If you want to rid the ocean of the vast majority of its trash, station a person to monitor each fishing boat, and permenently plug up all the rivers in asia that empty into the oceans. The vast majority of ocean garbage comes from asian rivers and fishing boats.
Stop shipping all the rubbish to Asia.
Fishing (eating) killed the whale.
"... fishing takes 2.7 trillion fish from oceans globally each year. If this rate of fishing continues, the oceans will be “virtually empty” by 2048, according to marine biologist Dr Sylvia Alice Earle."
https://earth.org/facts-from-seaspiracy/
"More than 640,000 tonnes of nets, lines, pots and traps used in commercial fishing are dumped and discarded in the sea every year, the same weight as 55,000 double-decker buses."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/06/dumped-f...
> If you want to rid the ocean of the vast majority of its trash, station a person to monitor each fishing boat
Doesn't work. There is 4.5 mil fishing boats in the world. On some of them there are people monitoring by-catch (protect dolphins & turtles), but it doesn't work (corruption, death threats, system inefficiencies etc.).
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14152756/ - Seaspiracy movie talks in length about this problem
> Coca-cola has nothing to do with it.
"While Coca-Cola topped the list of the wastage in a dozen countries including Bangladesh, Argentina, Malaysia, Kenya and Turkey, PepsiCo topped the list in both the US and India as the top polluter this year."
"The soft drinks company had, in 2019, admitted that it produces 3 million tonnes of plastic packaging a year — equivalent to 200,000 bottles a minute."
https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/2022/11/15/coca-cola-i...
"With Coca-Cola and her allies producing so much plastic, eight million tons of plastics every year end up in the ocean, eaten by whales ..."
https://adetokunbo.substack.com/p/whales-dying-from-consumin...
Replacing fish meal with fly meal.
You are no doubt correct about the source of the majority of the trash but we can't start pointing the finger until we've cleaned up our own mess.
Explain to me again how coca cola caused a whale to ingest fishing gear?
I'm not particularly pro plastic waste, but I'm forced to infer from this article that the whale died from ingesting fishing gear, and the author used plastic waste as a stick to beat the largest brands with.
To people trying to get me on board with your cause. Misleading me tends to undermine any good arguments you may have had. If you think you're right, be honest.
Just regulate packaging. Make standards for packaging and the world will be a better place I believe.
And reusable/with a deposit, like water bottle in Germany, that would be perfect.
Aluminum is 100% recyclable into whatever it was before. I guess just don't have the same standards for what recyclable means or should mean.
IMHO plastics just go into a stupid microplastic generation pipeline grinding cycle.
PP, usually ready meal and microwave trays, at the moment can't use recycled material and still be certified for food contact. I think much of that goes into things like traffic cones and building materials.
Have a look at https://egreen.co.uk/brochure/index.html#p=32 for an example of clear drinks cups made from 100% post consumer waste.
Polymers can degrade, but if it's well managed then generally not a problem and I think it can be recycled more times than paper. Each time that is processes the fibres are broken so it the strength is affected. The lowest grade is toilet tissue which has almost no strength compared to something like virgin Kraft with very long fibres.
One thing to consider is recycling is advancing at a phenomenal rate, what was the case five years ago may no longer be an issue.
I agree, to a point. My initial comment was related to the "100% recyclable" bit. The aluminium certainly is, the can itself isn't just aluminium though. This wasn't to say that cans aren't better, merely to draw attention to the fact that it's never as simple as we might like (and bisphenol-A, one of the common ingredients in the epoxy lining, is pretty awful stuff).
To focus on the task at hand. On the puzzle that needs solving. To study, think, engineer, etc.
We learn to focus in school. People who are good at focusing get good grades and make lots of money.
Unfortunately focus has a horrible flipside. To focus is also to ignore. When you focus on one thing you ignore 1000 other things.
That 1000 things. That's basically the whole world. Rendered invisible by our wonderful trick of focus.
That invisible zone, that's where we dump our shit, where the torture is conducted, where the rotting dying billions reside.
Nobody talked about organic-plastic/bioplastic. They are definitely better. What do you think?
Also, I'm amazed how we created this wonderful urban water infrastructure, but more and more people are buying bottled water to drink at home. Why aren't water filtering systems more widespread?
No, blame the lack of effective regulation to keep capitalism under ethical control.
Yes, blame capitalist for lobbying very effectively to stop legislated regulation that would keep them ethical.
Yes, blame us, the citizenry, for letting our political representatives be influenced by capitalists so protecting their interests instead of ours.
And government is responsible for the recycling of materials, NOT Coca Cola (which supplies drinks in glass, metal, and plastic containers - all recyclable).
Coca-cola is certainly culpable here, since they have the disposable funds and political power to develop recyclable containers or enable the sale of beverages using reusable containers.
You have disposable funds, you MUST give it to what I deem to be important. Thanks.
Put another way, what happens right now is that (some) people tell Coca-Cola to "do X, not Y", but actually punish them for doing X and reward them for doing Y.
But at this point we know that the status quo isn't working. Coca cola is knowingly contributing to a system that isn't working. That for me is the important point.
If for example coca cola brought out biodegradable bottles that promise to break down in landfill that's good. They're engaging with the problem etc. If it later turns out that they give off a dangerous toxin, then they need to fix that. They did something with the best of intentions, that isn't in question. But it didn't work out as expected, and they need to fix that.
How much of that recyclable trash is dumped? Why does it end up in waterways, and eventually the ocean?
That's a problem that's completely separate from the plastics industry. It's a problem of individual responsibility - which is the ‚elephant in the room' for so many people in this discussion.
The amount of garbage ending up in oceans proves definitively that humans don't care.
This completely disregards the recyclability of that garbage. It doesn't matter how much effort the producers put into making their products 'green'. The problem is with filthy, apathetic consumers. How do we fix that?
How far should a company go to make its products disposable in a responsible way? They're already recyclable!
So the responsibility passes to the consumer: I've witnessed countless instances where recyclable items are put into general trash (or littered). It's unacceptable! Well, for me it is - but not for many (MANY!) average consumers.
And how does that trash end up in rivers and the sea? Hint: it wasn't Coca Cola company.
It's up to municipal authorities (with direction from central government) to provide recycling facilities, and to enforce recycling for those ignorant/recalcitrant/idiot consumers who can't/won't follow basic instructions.
And it's up to central government to appropriately punish the irresponsible dumping of trash.
That's a long trail of responsibility, necessitating some really tough choices and actions. Easier to just blame the company, right? That's a pathetic argument.
It should be a closed system, from producer to consumer to recycler. That system is incomplete! Fix it!