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Comment by elevaet | Hacker News Reader

This is one of the better outcomes for plastics floating around in the oceans that I can think of. Melted and lumped into rocks it won't tangle living organisms, and it should be more inert than if it were ground into micro-particles due to far less surface area.

It's even more beautiful than tangled nets and other plastic debris.

I'm not trying to defend it mind you, we really really need to do a better job of keeping plastic out of the oceans.

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> we really really need to do a better job of keeping plastic out of the oceans

This was really hammered home to me on a trip I took a couple of months ago. I was on an uninhabited island and, while the island as a whole was beautiful, the beaches were all COVERED in plastic debris from the high-tide line upwards. It was really quite shocking to see.

I knew that there's a lot of plastic floating in the oceans, but I hadn't considered how much of it gets washed ashore. It doesn't accumulate if there's someone around to clean it up, but in uninhabited areas it's devastating. I wouldn't have believed how bad things are if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.

I wrote about the whole trip here, scroll down about halfway for a photo of what I'm talking about:

https://blackshaw.substack.com/p/desert-island

same here. I was so shocked at how beautiful thailand island beaches were ruined that for the first time in my life i considered joining an ngo...

The largest contributors for plastic inputs to oceans are commercial fishing and a few rivers in Asia.[1]

I often feel powerless when a call to action is cloaked with the phrase "we must do ${something}" Some data at least gives me a concrete talking point if I ever talk to my local congress /parliament representative.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/ocean-plastics

This narrative, i.e that the global plastic pollution in the ocean is primarily caused by a handful of Asian countries is misleading. It ignores the role of countries in the global north for overproduction of plastic and for exporting plastic waste to developing countries in the guise of trade. It also frames the problem as a "problem elsewhere", as if there is little a consumer or their local congress for that matter in global north can do.

You can do your part by not putting plastic in the recycling. Put it in the trash instead where it goes to safe, well regulated American facilities.

I have totally lost faith in recycling anything other than aluminum/glass/some paper in single stream recycling.

> Put it in the trash instead where it goes to safe, well regulated American facilities.

Is this verified? I have a theory (and haven't bothered to investigate so that one's on me) that a lot of recycling is just parceling it up and exporting it to landfill or incinerators abroad.

Mind you, the plastics found in the ocean should be traceable back to their origins; they may be from e.g. Asian rivers, but if the origin is from the US or Europe you know whose fault it is.

China said didn't want to recycle plastics. It did pile up in US while figured out where to send it. I don't think the US waste processors have found another place to send it so it is going to landfill. There might have been some plastics that got trashed by foreign recyclers but it shouldn't be common thing now.

The solution is to have more regulations about where US waste processors can send recycling to prevent sending to dubious places that throw it away. It is better if recycling goes to the landfill in US instead of playing hot potato.

Speaking of playing hot potato, the Khian Sea saga is one of the more egregious cases of trying to dump waste on the next sucker until finally they dumped it in the ocean. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khian_Sea_waste_disposal_incid...

Yeah, by we I certainly don't mean you and I, but the greater collective of humanity. And we do all play a part in that, in myriad ways.

Did you look at the article- it is tangled nets mixed with sand/stones. They still look capable of snagging small creatures. The location is next to a turtle nesting site.

Yes I read the article, and I think it's sensible to say that fishing nets melted down into nuggets are much safer for turtles (and other life) than when they are loose and intact.

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