Maybe I’m the only one, but I like this project. Yes, we need to prevent plastic from going in in the first place, but what about al the plastic that’s already there? There’s a lot of it. Does this system address every single issue? No. (Like the plastic that’s more than 3 meters down). But to me this seems like an “and” project. Let’s prevent plastic from entering AND try to remove it. Let’s get rid of the top layer AND develop a solution for the lower depths. Let’s try this AND another idea.
At least they are trying something rather than twiddling their thumbs and conducting studies and not taking action because the thing isn’t perfect. The oceans are in a dire situation and action needs to be taken.
Maybe this thing doesn’t work. Maybe they have to start over. Maybe someone else comes up with something better. Great! Do that.
People pointing out that it might harm marine life. Ok I get it. You know what else harms marine life? Damn near everything else humans put into the oceans too.
At this point the oceans are basically screwed if someone doesnt start trying to fix something. And to the people pointing out that it’s a waste of 20 mil, come on. 20 mil is basically nothing and it’s no skin off your teeth. Better than money went to this than making more juceros or whatever other dumb ideas that get a lot more funding than 20 mil, and have no possibility of a net upside.
20m is a drop in the ocean (sorry!) compared to what other projects get funded with. To me, climate change is like the white walker threat in the Game of Thrones series. Everyone's squabbling over petty politics while the real threat gets increasingly worse.
I'm actually annoyed that they only got 20m. A few weeks ago, I sat in as a judge for a university startup challenge. The students were given all semester to build a product and present their attempts in commercializing it. I was seated next to another startup founder and we both came to the same conclusion. The projects that had a social good / environmentally positive objective were the ones we WANTED to support but the least attractive investment wise. Social good has little intrinsic market value. Investors want to invest $1 and make $10 - that's grossly incompatible with these kind of projects. Ironically, it's probably where we need the best minds and investment focused on.
Props to to this guy for trying something, and inspiring others to contribute to the project. I hope there's more like him...
Fun (or actually not fun at all) fact „winter is coming“ and the endless game of thrones is actually George Martins metapher for climate change and our reaction to it.
I've heard that before but is it confirmed anywhere?
If so it doesn't seem like a very good analogy. In GoT the characters almost all ignore the white walker threat because they don't believe it exists. But most people do agree that climate change is real and will get worse. The apparent lack of action is not due to lack of belief but rather, lack of any obvious options for how to address it that aren't as bad or worse than the effects of climate change itself, i.e. massive shutdowns of industry and transport that would just as apocalyptic in impact as a rise in sea levels would.
If Martin wanted his story to be a metaphor for climate change (which I personally doubt, maybe he retconned that later), then he should have been depicting his characters as mostly believers in the threat even when they couldn't see it, because books told them it'd happen, and the arguments would all be about how to defend the kingdoms. Instead he wrote a story where the game of thrones continues so long because they don't really believe the white walkers exist at all until they literally turn up at the wall. Speaking of which, what's the wall meant to be a metaphor for, if it's about climate change? I can't think of anything we've built that's meant to stop climate change but which turns out to be ineffective.
I can’t answer as to Game of Thrones, but with regard to people believing in climate change, it is useful to consider what changes they have made to their lives or compromises they have made to see whether they really believe it.
So for example, some friends who are big believers in climate change, tell people that they make the sacrifice of buying a Tesla and a Prius, and bought their “retirement” house directly in the middle of an area that is directly in an area that is likely to have flooding issues in the 30y timeframe. They are both late thirties.
Do they believe in climate change? Or do they say they do?
> But most people do agree that climate change is real and will get worse.
President Trump does not believe that burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change. He may not be "most people" (in fact most US voters voted against him) but he is the one setting policy, and his efforts right now are on combating the Democrats, not climate change.
This kinda makes me hope there's not a good ending and everyone dies because they couldn't get their shit together. I didn't like the last season (which advances beyond the books) because it was getting all too idk, tropey.
Glad it's not positioned as a warning - 1984 and Brave New World are both happening as we speak despite the warnings.
But people gotta have their Alexas and their Google Maps man. Their webcam & mic enabled smart TVs and their cloud connected thermostat. I mean, c'mon, how could anybody live without it?
( Not a vegan, just sick of picking up the check for the meat industrial complex )
Don't forget the massive amount of subsidies we give to the meat industrial complex so they can develop antibiotic-resistant bacteria, destroy the earth, make people work in reprehensible conditions, and make our people sick and overweight!
> The projects that had a social good / environmentally positive objective were the ones we WANTED to support but the least attractive investment wise.
It seems that we need governments to incentivize the private sector, or fund these projects directly.
Arguably this is where the Billionaires and others that have "made it" should be spending their wealth. Trying to fund these social and environmental projects.
One underappreciated point about this is that there’s no reason to think billionaires would be good at this.
Billionaires who made their fortune through their own invention or business acumen are exceptionally good at making money and protecting wealth. That doesn’t mean they are good at producing a different instrument of value, like some measure of environmental health or social well-being. You pretty much have to convert those social problems into a format where it’s an inescapable wealth problem if they don’t solve it. But if you leave it up to their discretion, they’ll either lack focus because they are focused on making or protecting wealth, or they’ll be out of their depth trying to generate non-profit outcomes which is a skill they don’t have.
Imagine if we put an earned wealth cap of $1 billion dollars of total worldwide assets, and then we said that to exceed that wealth cap, youhave to reach specific societal level social and environmental wellness milestones. Kind of like Elon Musk’s current Tesla compensation, but applied to all billionaires.
No family businesses, no offshore accounts, no shell companies, no way to leave wealth in non-cash assets. You hit 1 billion, any increase of wealth beyond it from any source is immediately seized by the government and held in untouchable escrow until you demonstrate hitting societal wellness outcomes.
Of course it’s an unrealistic proposal. I’m just saying if we couldn’t enforce something like that, then asking billionaires to solve world crises is like asking a professional basketball team to win the gold in synchronized swimming.
Apparently it'd cost $4.7tn [1] to deploy enoug low-carbon tech worldwide to keep us within 2 degrees, and the top 1% collectively have $127tn [2], $26.5tn of which is hidden in offshore tax havens [3].
Presumably that $4.7tn estimate will now have to go up since it was from 2015, but still.
If billionaires were that bothered they would have addressed the problem by now. They're not coming to help us, they're building spaceships so they can leave.
Why not setup a foundation so that the money is not an investment, but a contribution. People with that kind of money are always looking for ways to not pay taxes on it. Set up a charitable foundation where the 1% look to lower their tax liability can donate. The foundation can specialize in hiring crews to go collect ocean trash. How is it not a win-win. I know I'm over simplifying, but seriously, how is this not a thing?
Yes, running trash removal from the ocean is not profitable, so nobody will want to invest. So solve the problem by coming at it the other way. Even if it only gets enough money for a couple of years worth of operation, to an early comment's point, isn't that better than nothing?
On the scale that is required to clean up the ocean, removing plastics harms marine life. Ocean plastic aggregates marine animals; it's not like picking up trash on the beach. I've had experience removing ghostnets from the oceans, and there's no way an unsupervised system is going to be able to collect these debris without by-catch. The haste required to meet the 5-year 50% removal goal also guarantees by-catch. The fact that the ocean is already full of man-made hazards, does not convince me that adding more man-made hazards will help us to reach sustainability goals: food security for communities dependent on the ocean animals; preventing plastic from entering human bodies through the food, air and water supplies.
Also, I'm very curious what the ocean cleanup means by 50%. 92% of the plastic in the north pacific gyre is microplastic, which the system is incapable of collecting.
In cases like this, ideas and their development don't come for free, and subtract resources to truly addressing the problem.
When it comes to ocean cleaning, technological solutions are very attractive, because the population likes to think that they push a button, lay on a sofa, and the oceans get cleaned.
Assuming we want to address the symptom and not the cause (in other words, if we want to clean the garbage in the ocean rather than preventing it to enter in the first place , which is still better than not taking action), there is a simple and valid solution, but it's not attractive, since there are no buttons to push, and it involves sweat: cleaning the beaches.
The article is top-to-bottom interesting. Two limited extracts:
> So far, we’ve taken one gyre cleanup advocate across the South Atlantic, from Brazil to South Africa. We had 22 days of storms with seas in excess of 30 feet at times. By the time we got to the other side, some 30+ days later, he’d abandoned his hope of cleaning the gyres once he realized how big a ‘place’ we’re talking about. What I find astonishing is that out of all the gyre cleanup proponents I’ve met, none of them have ever been to the gyres.
> the sea is one giant corrosive force. Even on just a month-long sail across The South Atlantic, we tore our sails twice, broke some rigging, and utterly destroyed a wind-powered generator—all due to the force of nature.
Thanks for linking this, that’s an interesting article. I was not aware of the link between beach cleanup and gyre cleanup.
I guess my general perspective is that:
1. I am not arguing that slats solution is the best solution or the only solution. I think that if it drives awareness of the issue and eventually leads us to a better solution, then it’s a success in a backwards kind of way, even if it doesn’t “succeed”
2. Concerns about its potential harm I think are a bit overblown. In real terms, what are we talking about in terms of bycatch and how does that compare percentage wise to “bycatch” from other human activities? (Shipping, commercial fishing, coastal development, climate change?). The impacts from those things are huge, so I doubt that this system is really going to make that big of an impact comparatively.
3. Complaints about the money that could have gone to other better things are also a bit invalid. I’m willing to bet that most of that 20 mil would not have gone to other solutions anyway. So it’s not taking money from other things in reality.
> 1. I am not arguing that slats solution is the best solution or the only solution. I think that if it drives awareness of the issue and eventually leads us to a better solution, then it’s a success in a backwards kind of way, even if it doesn’t “succeed”
Critial positions argue that there are already valid solutions, and that boom-based technologies (and similar) are a lost cause. In this perspective, improvements to the latter technologies are nothing short of quixotic.
> I’m willing to bet that most of that 20 mil would not have gone to other solutions anyway. So it’s not taking money from other things in reality.
20 millions, in the form of beach cleaning, would have cleaned a lot of garbage from the ocean[s].
> When it comes to ocean cleaning, technological solutions are very attractive, because the population likes to think that they push a button, lay on a sofa, and the oceans get cleaned.
Please don't dismiss that. Here's a simple fact about humanity: the more people you need ask for something, the less likely it is that it's going to happen. Coordinating humans at scale is one of the hardest social problems[0]. Technological solutions are attractive precisely because they sidestep the need to get everyone on board.
--
[0] - I'm inclined to believe that it's actually the hardest social problem, the root of all other problems.
Please revisit that linked article. There is an Editorial note there stating: "Editor’s Note: This piece was written in response to a story published in 2013. As of 2014, Boyan Slat has conducted a feasibility study for the Ocean Cleanup Array and published a 530-page report that addresses criticism – check it out here."
I'd read this one, which is a quite entertaining criticism of their prototype from an actual oceanographer who is skilled in the field and knows what she is talking about:
As an illustration of their incompetence, the prototype they built was black. This presents a massive navigation hazard, so they'd get their pants sued off if they ever actually put that in the open ocean.
I read the article (2016) you linked, and it's not a good one. She raised some valid questions in the article, tho, most of which actually got an answer from Slat in the comments. I won't pretend I'm informed enough to judge his answers, but Dr Martini herself thanked him for his answers, and didn't ask anything further at that time, which indicates to me that at the time she considered his answer sufficient.
No, they did not get answered by Slat in the comments. Are we reading the same article?
Dr. Kim Martini is a very respected oceanographer. While you may not like the tone of the article, she knows what she is talking about. Her concerns were not answered, she just thanked him for replying. Here's a later followup article, so it is clear these concerns have not been resolved.
Every time this project comes up and actual scientists point out the issues, even people who generally trust scientists seem to be very hostile to criticism of the project.
Stuff like this is really needed. Optimizing around the next ad-click won't help at all. I fundamentally we as a society need to re-align our focus away from social media and towards solving the 'hard problems' (not because they are easy, but because they are hard)
I think most serious engineers know that nothing beats actually working on the real thing. Models and test environments are nice and all, but the only truly valid results come from the 'production environment'. I'm glad someone is doing this, and I think it's 20 mil well spent, even if all it does is teach us what doesn't work, and give us better data on the actual scope of the plastic problem.
> Everyone who did nothing came up with something better
With that attitude, no research projects will ever go to production.
As an aside, spending money doesn't destroy it. You talk as if some grave crime was committed... nah. People passionate about the environment (or at the very least, blue collar folks in need of work) likely earned a living supporting this project, something that wouldn't have happened if zero dollars were spent trying to solve the problem. The funding will continue only if we're willing to spend towards validating or invalidating new ideas; researchers just need to either rework or exclude this approach and explore others as different concepts succeed or fail.
The ocean is a common resource, and the full-scale ocean cleanup would have far-reaching negative consequences around the pacific. Opposition to the project is more than just an attitude: it's supported by decades of scientific evidence regarding the nature of the ocean and the plastics within it. The ocean cleanup seems to be ignoring the warnings and skepticism because they believe they'll be on the right side of history no matter what happens. If they don't change course, the ocean cleanup will be heading into a very slow, very expensive PR nightmare.
Edit: unfortunately, it looks like your comments have done little but break the site guidelines lately. If you keep that up, we're going to have to ban you. If you'd review the guidelines and take the spirit of this site to heart, we'd appreciate it. You might find these additional links helpful for getting a clearer idea of that original spirit:
If you look at this post by cultus you'll see how to share the exact opinion you describe, without violating the HN posting guidelines like glibgil's comment did:
The Ocean Cleanup Project is essentially a scam at this point. It can't work for numerous ecological (scoops up ocean life) and engineering (the ocean is HUGE, corrosive, and violent) reasons. Not to mention that ocean microplastics are distributed throughout the first 100 meters of ocean water, and this goes nowhere near that deep. Of course, they dismiss these concerns or deflect with scientific BS (which the media gobbles up) whenever they are brought up.
They can't get this to work on such a minuscule scale in placid water off the coast of the Netherlands, it won't work in the North Pacific on a far grander scale.
Cleaning up the significant amount of plastic that is on the surface still seems like a step in the right direction, even if there is other micropastic further down. The impact on ocean life is not well understood, but we do know that plastic is already having a devastating impact on such life, and I have a hard time imagining this would be worse. The engineering challenges are significant, as they are clearly discovering, but they are at least trying. Are there other more promising projects to clean up existing plastic from the ocean you are aware of?
I don't mean to sound condescending, but I truly don't understand this line of thinking, as I've seen it crop up every so often.
The notion that "at least they're doing something" isn't a valid justification in my mind. There are plenty of reasons to believe that this wouldn't work, and adding more garbage certainly does make matters worse (even if by a miniscule amount, relatively speaking).
As for more promising projects, we'd be better off doing research to find those projects than throwing away people's money on a pipe dream. Pretty much any project at this point would be better- engineering bacteria to eat it, Dyson funnels to very slowly separate it out, whatever. I'm not a marine or materials scientist. I'm a person with limited funds to contribute towards things, and I don't like being sold snake oil, especially when the response to criticism is "well at least they're doing something!"
There was similar responses to the ‘solar roads’ projects. There were so many practical problems, and at the end of the day, it was just throwing away 30-50% efficiency putting them flat in the road, compared to just putting panels on structures next to the road, or on building roofs, or in solar farms.
So it was always going to be way more expensive per-kWh generated and per unit area of solar panels, meaning that it was both a waste of money and resources. But so many people were willing to ignore it, because “at least they’re doing something”.
Instead, better to do the calculations to see if these kind of things are feasible, and if not, to look for an idea that is more feasible rather than wasting time, money and resources on things we know won’t really help!
I thought the point of solar roads wasn't that they were more efficient than, "just putting them on buildings or the sides of roads" it was more of a way to utilize otherwise "wasted space". As in, when you're laying down a new road why not add some solar generating capacity as just another thing you lay into the pavement just like those little reflectors or paint.
Because it's cheaper and easier to maintain to put the solar generating capacity next to the road instead of "on the road". You get twice as much solar capacity when you put it beside the road for the same money (installation + maintainance) -> better.
This is a really weird viewpoint to see in a site which celebrates throwing billions of dollars at startups which will probably fail while mostly solving problems that are pretty much inconsequential or nonexistent at best.
Don't you think the microplastics are also coming from the floating garbage that is getting broken down? If we start removing all the larger pieces floating at the top, that's bound to reduce the amount of microplastics entering the water.
Innovation has always been trowing money in pipes dream, because by definition everything that does not exist is an idea, a dream.
Most ideas fail. The people that spend their lives doing something are the people that create worthy things in the end, because they learn from failures.
"The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried."
"An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field." - Niels Bohr
There is this delusion coming from academics education that successful people are those that never fail. This is true in Academics, where all the knowledge is already known. But for a researcher or innovator you need to fail.
Even when most projects fail, those who do not gives enormous rewards.
You wrote: "This is true in Academics, where all the knowledge is already known."
I don't understand that. What academic believes that all knowledge is already known?
Wasn't Bohr an academic? He was President of the Royal Danish Academy of Arts and Sciences, a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, he won a gold medal competition sponsored by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.
That really sounds like an academic researcher, which you seem to suggest is impossible.
“An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject, and how to avoid them” - Werner Karl Heisenberg (1971) Physics and beyond: Encounters and conversations
> As for more promising projects, we'd be better off doing research to find those projects than throwing away people's money on a pipe dream.
What "pipe dream" are we talking about here? Preventing this planet from becoming a complete toxic dump?
Solving our pollution problem doesn't just stop at reducing new pollution, it should also involve cleaning up what's already there, that's the only sustainable approach.
Trying any solution at all, even when it is very likely it will not work, may not be a sustainable approach at all. I agree something should be done to clean up, but that does not mean we should try any crazy idea (I do not have the expertise to say how crazy this idea is, but from the little I know, it seems like it is reasonable to have serious doubts).
Some users have commented that 20m is not so much money, and it is true, but we should also consider that, if this project fails, it will be infinitely more difficult to fund the working project that is still to come.
Well, I helped crowdfunding this project. Apparently I'm not as smart as you, but could people like you at least please publish your reasoning when these projects are announced, instead of way afterwards like now? I did look for criticism, but found nothing that refuted it in clear, succinct terms.
Why? "Hmm, why don't I cook this piece of meat for twice as long as the recipe says. There's plenty of reasons to believe that this wouldn't work, but it's still worth trying because... because...?"
Seriously though, you may discover that the meat cooked for twice as long is better (quite probable if the recipe prescribed low-temperature cooking). Or at least different. Life is not Minecraft, recipes don't constrain reality.
Even more seriously, while it's not good to double down on things that can be shown to not work, let's not get too critical about the concept of "testing by doing" in case of ecological projects, on a site that embraces startup economy - which is entirely based around doing gradient descent on the market, starting from random nonsense and hoping to converge on something that sells.
How does one prioritize from among the jillion things that might be tested? One way is to deprioritize the ones where there are many reasons why it's unlikely to work.
If you really believe we should start from random nonsense, then let's schedule 1200 GMT on New Year's Day for the world day of meditation to cure the planet. If enough people meditate, then the power of our brainwaves will heal the planet.
> How does one prioritize from among the jillion things that might be tested?
Importance. Polluting the oceans is a fairly important problem, and we have the capacity as a species to attempt to address more than one issue at a time.
> One way is to deprioritize the ones where there are many reasons why it's unlikely to work.
When Kennedy announced he wanted a man on the Moon within 10 years, the USA had only barely put a man into orbit around the Earth and certainly hadn't managed to break orbit. There were many reasons that goal was unlikely to work too.
Almost all of the Pioneer and Ranger programs that preceded Apollo failed in one way or another, but they learned enough each time to take the next step. The early launches were just intended to fly at the Moon, and later to try to smash into it to figure out how to.
I guess my point is that when the goal is important you don't necessarily need to start out with all the answers already in your pocket.
> If you really believe we should start from random nonsense, then let's schedule 1200 GMT on New Year's Day for the world day of meditation to cure the planet. If enough people meditate, then the power of our brainwaves will heal the planet.
I don't think this part of your comment should be on HN. You probably realise that already, right?
Importance is how we decide which things to address. My question concerned how to prioritize the billions of ways which might done to address those problems.
The goal of putting someone on the Moon was primarily an engineering challenge. An expensive engineering challenge, but the outlines were already worked out through in-house and three external feasibility studies which ended a week before Kennedy made the announcement.
We don't have comparable successful feasibility studies for how to remove plastic from the seas. Or, if we do - where are they?
Do I take it that you disagree (as I do) with TeMPOraL's suggestion that we start from 'random nonsense'? Because if TeMPOraL's statement is correct, then suggesting global mediation as a solution is an appropriate comment for HN. Which was my point.
It's not a significant amount. It's important to grasp just how huge the ocean is. This would clean up a pointlessly small fraction of the garbage patch. Not only that, but it would be destroyed in a storm quite quickly, generating even more marine debris.
> Not only that, but it would be destroyed in a storm quite quickly, generating even more marine debris.
This was mentioned multiple times, but it's even more daring in your comment. How can it be so insignificant and pointless, but at the same time cause of worry for more marine debris?
Well, it's not a significant amount of new plastic on a global scale. However, why does it make sense to spend gobs of money on something that at best won't help and at worst will make things slightly worse? Why not invest in proven strategys, like bag bans or trash collection around populated rivers and bays? An example of this is the Baltimore trash wheel cleaning up the bay. It's cheap and effective, because it cleans up garbage when it is:
a) Not broken down to be microscopic.
b) Concentrated.
I should also point out that they claim they can finance a big part of this by recycling the degraded ocean plastic. I shouldn't have to tell you that that is absolutely whackadoo.
>The impact on ocean life is not well understood, but we do know that plastic is already having a devastating impact on such life, and I have a hard time imagining this would be worse.
I can't tell whether this is satire or not. This seems to be the textbook example of "We've got to do something about it! At least they're doing something! What could possibly go wrong?"
I've come to be accustomed to much more technically astute posts at HN, and am pretty surprised by the kinds of comments I'm seeing in this thread. I guess the high quality technical discussion usually occurs when talking about software or theoretical fields.
Per their technology explanation video, marine life would swim under or away from the boom.
The impact is indeed not well understood. They are closely observing the first boom with the intention of iterating and improving. It doesn't appear to be destructive like an ocean trawler - the ill effects of which are very well understood and yet people continue to eat harmfully procured fish.
There is only so much money and energy in the world. Wasting resources on doomed projects doesn't help. It only takes away resources from far more efficient projects. Most ocean plastic comes form a limited number of sources, a handful of large rivers. Cleanup should begin at those rivers. This project is like someone cleaning the coal ash off the forest rather than prevent it from getting there in the first place.
"Scam" is unfair, at least if directed towards motivations. The whole thing is entirely well-meaning. But it's yet another consequence of the emerging pop culture of stupidity (the rebellion against expertise, no-knowledge crowd-funding, etc). Everyone in the maritime world always knew it would never work because it was based on a naive kid's brain dump. For fuck's sake, the initial plan was to anchor the bloody thing! Slat's excellent intentions don't equip him to design & manage a $20mil project.
I would agree that it is unfair, except as I point out they deliberately ignore or attack critics, and do not offer any actual valid scientific arugments in return. This pattern includes ignoring or even demeaning scientists and engineers who dare criticize them (including quite sexist behavior towards some female scientists). They do this while raking in many millions. This demonstration project uses 30-year old boom technology, and would very quickly fail in the open ocean (as a previous attempt did).
So, either they are so blissfully ignorant of the challenges of what they are trying to do (literally harder than sending humans to Mars) and are continuing to raise funds out of the best intentions, or they are scamming.
For a project that seems to rely almost exclusively on pointing out that the founder is young, I'm guessing the second one.
My personal threshold for claiming dishonest motivations is higher than yours. I'd require, at a minimum, specific & direct evidence re the individuals involved, whereas the childish defensiveness you've come across is perfectly explicable as part of the general ignorant pop culture that encouraged the misguided project in the first place.
Anyway, that aside, we're totally on the same page re the merits of the project. It's a terrible waste of the good intentions (& resources) of the donors, and can only lead to yet more cynicism.
I don't know about the sexist behaviour, do you have any references?
Let us not rush to allege that a project is likely to be a scam because the founder is young. The Trillion Trees campaign is also largely by really young people. The Ocean Cleanup folks don't harp so much about the founder's age. There's a whole team working there, and I haven't heard any grumblings from the team of resentment about him getting all the attention.
I'd rather not go into details on the sexist attitudes, but let's just say there is a pattern of talking down or ignoring the credentials of female scientists.
The feasibility study is BS. It only convinced the media, no one in the marine community. They also gave the scientists they asked to "review" it literally 24 hours to do so. It is pretty hard to see how it was a good faith effort.
Here is some information written by an actual oceanographer.
How do we know it is well-meaning? It's a project that has taken in a significant amount of money, that apparently people with actual knowledge are aware won't change a thing. It feels good to donate to it sure, but you have to wonder about the people running it given these facts.
As notatoad notes: it's entirely impractical. There's no such thing as anchoring in the depths (3-5000m IIRC) prevailing in the Pacific gyre hosting the 'garbage patch'. This alone would require a revolution in marine engineering. The frankly silly idea was quickly walked back, but it was an early & vivid demonstration of the hapless naiveity underlying the whole enterprise.
i don't really know anything about this, but my first guess would be that dropping an anchor to the depth required in the middle of the pacific ocean is completely impractical
I wouldn't finance it and rather spend money on other projects where I'd expect larger impact. Nonetheless each bit of trash taken out is a good piece of trash taken out. Grabbing even just one piece of trash while on a beach is good.
A concern I see however is more on negative impact on small bacterial, algaes and other things on the ocean's surface which are part of the lifecycle of bird and fish. But that's not really an area of expertise for me.
Just because the project doesn't start with an MVP but an actual research phase, doesn't mean it's a scam. Also I guess it's positive about the project that they start simple.
Also IMHO there must be ways to separate plastic from living being, for instance by taking advantage of different weights, angular momenta etc.
Yeah, we can never land a rocket, self driving cars will never happen, 4MB of RAM is enough for everyone...
If you don't step you will never know how to walk.
The companies who are working with the Ocean Cleanup Project are one of the best marine companies in the world. They are not naive about what an ocean is.
Ofcourse this is also a learning project. So a lot of money is invested just to learn more. But I don't think you should call it a scam.
The reason they only collect at the surface is that it's less likely they will scoop up ocean life. This will make the first steps easier.
You and jacobwilliamroy seem to be well informed on this topic. I post my hair brained notions here, in the unlikely chance they're helpful.
First is create a fleet of autonomous barges, like Baltimore's Mr Trash Wheel. They would do station keeping using the wave glider tech (submerged wings). Larger (manned) ships would gather up whatever debris the barges collect.
jacobwilliamroy's comments about the by catch is probably spot on. So the barge notion may suck.
Alternately, garbage cleanup could become a massive jobs program. Which suits me fine.
Second is to gather the microplastics by creating "floaters" modeled after jellyfish. I imagine a future membrane tech that can filter out the plastics without scooping up too much microscopic life. Again, floaters would do station keeping using wave glider tech. Most of the "business end" of the floaters would submerge to optimum filtering depth, then surface themselves for collection and service.
I wish there was some ISO standard for packaging decomposability in water. Then folks could design to a specific grade and companies could get another “hey we’re green” cookie from consumers.
Grade 1 - 6 days in fresh water/8 days in salt water.
Grade 2 - 4 weeks in fresh water/7 weeks in salt water
Grade 3 - 3 months in fresh water/6 months in salt water
Grade 4 - 2 years in fresh water / 3 years in salt water
Flip those numbers around as appropriate.
Materials scientists, I’d be interested to know the barriers to some standard like this being designed. The ones I can think of are:
- What is the bacterial culture in the water? What ph?
- How powerful would the incentives be?
- How much more expensive would the packaging be to make? Would it result in notably greater spoilage?
20 years for plastic bags is actually a shorter time span than I would have guessed, but still plenty long enough to cause outsized harm to ocean life.
I'm really into 3D printing and have studied all sorts of plastics as part of my research into making perfect prints for various objects. One thing that astounds me is the complete lack of information/disclosure requirements by plastic pellet manufacturers and filament manufacturers.
They can basically put whatever the fuck they want in these batches and never have to tell anyone about it other than provide the safety sheet (MSDS) which tells you very little about the actual properties of these materials. Let alone their lifetimes!
For example, Polylactic Acid (PLA) is the most popular type of filament for 3D printing. It's made from (the non-edible parts of) corn (and other plants) and is considered "eco friendly" but this isn't entirely certain!
In order to actually break down into harmless components PLA needs to be eaten by one of two species of bacteria. These bacteria only live in soil. As in, they don't exist in the ocean.
Having said that, there's been no studies of PLA in ocean water! So we don't really know how long it will take or even if PLA will break down if it ends up in the ocean.
Not only that but there's all sorts of additives being added to PLA that make it less likely to break down. Things like UV stabilizers and who-knows-what substances that increase its melting point and/or shrinkage/warping during heat-treatment/annealing.
I suspect that PLA is indeed much better for the environment and will break down safely and reasonably quickly in the ocean but there's no data to back this up and it drives me nuts! I can't say that it's much better than, say, PET(G) or Polypropylene with no research to back up such a claim.
Why do I think it's probably better? Because the hydrocarbon chains that make up PLA are shorter than traditional plastics. Shorter chains are easier to break and we know that once broken (down) PLA becomes a harmless charcoal-like substance (and water and a bit of CO2 after bacteria finalize their digestion). This same process is likely to occur over time all by itself thanks to UV degredation from the sun but if UV stabilizers are added to the PLA does that mean it will behave similarly to ABS, PET, and PP when it winds up in the ocean? Let's hope that it doesn't!
It really does, that’s why corporations fight tooth and nail on every attempt at labeling requirements.
From cigarette warnings, to food nutritional/ingredient labels, to modern fights by big Ag against having to label genetically modified food and food stuffs. It’s funny watching their lobbiest argue against gmo labels, it goes something like “it would be damaging to us to have to label our products with gmo labels, because consumers would largely stop buying our products, and there is no science to back gmo products dangerous. We need to continue studying.” My thought is who cares if science says gmos are harmful, if consumers would want to know so they could avoid a product, as admitted by the lobbiest, shouldn’t be entitled to know?
The argument isn't that they want to hide this information from customers. It's that a government-mandated label gives the false impression that GMOs are harmful. Why would a label be required if they weren't? This would mislead people who don't currently care whether their food contains GMOs.
It would also add cost to track the supply chain sufficiently to make the labels accurate and it would reduce the space available for other more useful labels.
Again like the food industry fight against nutritional labels and ingredient lists/disclosures.
Labels inform consumer choices and food industry does not want that. It’s that simple.
Sure it costs money to add labels...so what? If you don’t want to dish out the added costs don’t use gmos. Seems to me most companies love spending money on labels and do so voluntarily all the time (organic, heart healthy, nut free, fat free/low fat, source of vitamin...) they just don’t like disclosing things that people don’t want and that’s when the cost arguement comes into play.
As admitted by the lobbiest people don’t want gmos so the industry doesn’t want to have to label them. I’d recommend watching the televised congressional hearings.
The only reason that people want GMO-containing products labeled is that people believe these products to be harmful. Mandatory labeling looks like an official endorsement of that view. This will misinform consumers.
> Sure it costs money to add labels...so what? If you don’t want to dish out the added costs don’t use gmos.
There is also an added expense to not using GMOs, so this would make food more expensive for everyone. More expensive food would hurt consumers whether or not they care about GMOs. This is a bad thing.
> As admitted by the lobbiest people don’t want gmos so the industry doesn’t want to have to label them. I’d recommend watching the televised congressional hearings.
Consider for a moment that I'm right and that GMO labeling would be bad for both consumers and producers. How would industry lobbyists act differently than they do now? Would it be any different from how they act now?
>The only reason that people want gmo products labeled...
That is false. Most people who want them labeled want to know because the amounts of pesticides and weed killers used on gmos.
There are studies on the amounts of pesticides and weed killers on the foods you buy.
>There is also an added expense to not using GMOs, so this would make food more expensive for everyone.
That’s disengenious. First your argued about label cost now you moved the goal posts to costs of not using gmos. If they want to keep using gmos they can.
And people who don’t care can keep buying the cheaper gmo food.
But anyway you sound like the cigarette industry...labels would hurt business and consumers, yeah that’s right from their playbook. Nutrition labels and ingredients hurt consumers right from big ag’s Playbook.
I get it, any mandate on businesses, even if consumers want it, is wrong in your mind.
Edit: can you give a single example of labels that are bad for consumers? Cigarette warnings? Peanut allergy labels? Medication warning labels? Nutritional labels? Ingredient lists?
> Most people who want them labeled want to know because the amounts of pesticides and weed killers used on gmos.
So why aren't they asking for pesticide and weed killer labeling? This is not specific to GMOs and is not something that will apply universally to GMOs going forward.
> That’s disengenious. First your argued about label cost now you moved the goal posts to costs of not using gmos.
I didn't move the goal posts. You conceded the point that labeling increases the price of GMOs. I was responding to your argument that you can save that extra cost by not using GMOs by pointing out that this is even more expensive. GMO labeling will increase the price of food.
> I get it, any mandate on businesses, even if consumers want it, is wrong in your mind.
How did you get that? It's not true. I believe that many mandates are helpful. I'm in favor of current mandated nutrition labels on food.
> can you give a single example of labels that are bad for consumers?
Labels that are misleading are bad for consumers. Homeopathic medicine has labels that indicate it has ingredients that don't exist in the pills and labels that indicate effectiveness for conditions it has not been demonstrated to treat. This hurts consumers.
Food often has misleading non-mandated labels like saying an unhealthy snack is fat free to imply that it is healthy.
California's Prop 65 mandates labeling any thing or place that contain a known carcinogen. This results in labels everywhere with no indication as to level of risk. These labels are completely unhelpful and only train consumers to ignore warnings about carcinogens.
Some states have mandated labels on biology textbooks stating that evolution is just a theory. This is a misleading statement designed to trick people into believing falsehoods.
Again, I'm not against all labeling. I'm just against labeling that misleads consumers. We need GMOs to make food cheaper and more nutritious and increase yields. GMO labeling is just a scare tactic to get people to buy more expensive products, and it comes at the expense of disadvantaged people and the environment.
>This results in labels everywhere with no indication as to level of risk. These labels are completely unhelpful and only train consumers to ignore warnings about carcinogens.
Yes again one of the arguments from the cigarette industry.
Again in a free country the people are free to organize things as they see fit. And from a practical perspective I think you can understand why cigarettes have a more general warning rather than lists some measurement of all the know carcinogens which isn’t going to mean anything to your average consumer.
But again you are moving the goal posts because you’re now saying the labels are good, but they can be improved. That’s different than earlier positions of mandatory labels are authoritarian. but honestly listing measurements of carcinogens and expecting consumers to have an inherient understanding of those levels vis a vis scientific studies is ridiculous.
And to say gmo labels are a scare tactic that comes at a disadvantage to the environment is misinformed. Gmo based big ag is terrrible for farm land, and has already resulted in new mutations in weeds and pests that no longer respond to traditional pesticides and weed killers and are recking crops, not to mention damage to soil because gmo farms over utilize pesticides and weed killer chemicals compared to say organic farms or farms that do proper crop rotations.
Not sure how you can even say gmo labeling misleads consumers, since there are no studies on that and it’s never been done. All I know about it is consumers want it and lobbiests are blocking it on behalf of the gmo industry.
> I think you can understand why cigarettes have a more general warning rather than lists some measurement of all the know carcinogens which isn’t going to mean anything to your average consumer.
Prop 65 isn't about cigarette labeling. This labels anything in California that contains any amount of any known carcinogen. When I walk into a local shopping center, there is a sign saying that the place contains known carcinogens. This label is applied all over places and products across the state, regardless of whether there's a real danger. These labels are bad. They could be improved, but they're currently bad.
> That’s different than earlier positions of mandatory labels are authoritarian.
That is not and has never been my position. My position is that labels which have the effect of misinforming people are bad. I don't care who requires them. I am in favor of mandatory labels that have a net positive effect.
> Not sure how you can even say gmo labeling misleads consumers, since there are no studies on that and it’s never been done.
That's a fair point. We should have studies before mandating these labels so we can know whether they tend to mislead people.
> All I know about it is consumers want it and lobbiests are blocking it on behalf of the gmo industry.
You could say the same thing about labels on textbooks saying evolution is just a theory. There are lobbyists on both sides of this argument, and there are consumers that don't want it. Popular things are not always right, and lobbyists are not always wrong.
European labelling must have E numbers[1] for many chemical products, and no one tries to paint these as anything other than an effort to standardize labeling, so as to help consumer decisions. However, consumers started seeing attacks to products containing this or that harmful E-something, and immediately learned “E means it's bad”. I have had debates with colleagues wherein E300 was used to show a product was potentially harmful, where that is just ascorbic acid (vitamin C). It is true the immediate widespread understanding of “GM product” would be “evil product”.
So you basically would mandate to label products with "x" / "non-x", even certain values of x are pure superstition?
Of course I'm fine with companies adding labels voluntarily, as long as thy are correct: "kosher", "non-GMO", "ethically sourced", "cage-free", all the way to "does not contain nuclear waste".
>So you basically would mandate to label products with "x" / "non-x", even certain values of x are pure superstition?
No, whereas everyone saying mandating labeling is an authoritarian government act and they would rather live in freedom where companies don’t need to label, I say if people organize and want to pass laws mandating labeling of x, they should be able to do that...but when that Law doesn’t get passed because a special interest spends hundreds of millions lobbying and lining pockets of politicians and uses the same arguement was every other special interest (ie gun lobby, tobacco lobby, sugar lobby, big ag lobby) its a shame.
For the record I never once sided with gmo labeling or not, only agreed with OP that labeling drives consumer behavior, and if people want labeling they should get it. It’s everyone else who attacked me as an authoritarian for taking the side of consumer who want labeling...which I subsequently suggested is ironic that people who would take the sides of big corporations and allow them to operate as they wish over what people want is the opposite of freedom and is in fact authoritarian.
Sounds good, so long as we include products of traditional genetic modification techniques, like selective breeding, and slap a severity degree on there to account for the number of genes edited in the process (or perhaps deviation from a reference genotype?). If consumers want to know, shouldn't they be entitled to know?
I agreed that customers should understand that cauliflower and broccoli are the same plant that was created from one cruciferous mustard herb. However, that’s not really what they are curious about when they’re shopping.
I don't see any problem with that, as long as it doesn't attempt to conflate selective breeding with modern genetic engineering. If it were labeled "selective breeding" or "modified by traditional selective breeding methods" or something, then I think that's entirely clear what it is.
Do people care if they are eating a cow that has been bred for generations to grow faster and have more fat? Is that really the same as genetically modifiying corn so it won’t die when drowned with weed killers and pesticides that are still present on the foods consumers eat?
Conversely, do people care if they are eating a cow that has been genetically modified to grow faster and have more fat? Is that really the same as breeding corn for generations so it won't die when drowned with weed killers and pesticides that are still present on the foods consumers eat?
The difference between your examples is not the genetic modification technique applied, but the result that was achieved. Maybe it would be simpler to just label the precise breed that was used, so consumers can check for themselves which properties they want to avoid.
Well a lot of people are beginning to care if their cows are feed generically modified corn (ie grain fed) vs grass fed. And it’s not so much the gmo but the cows who are fed gmo corn are also loaded up with antibiotics because the pesticide laced grain makes them sick withthout it. And people don’t like eating antibiotic laden beef.
I also think you are blurring the lines between breeding and gmo (ie turning genes on and off) which as a practical matter, what we are talking about is turning off genes in crops, so farmers can you drown their crops and pesticides.
I'm intentionally blurring the lines between breeding and GMOs because if what you really want to avoid is over-use of pesticides and antibiotics, avoiding GMOs is neither sufficient (farmers will add antibiotics to the conventionally bred grain they feed their conventionally bred cows simply because it makes them grow faster) nor necessary (the most lucrative modifications are about pesticide use, but not all of them are) and therefore it would be better to focus energy on the things you really need to care about rather than an unreliable proxy like breeding vs. GMO.
Yes if consumers want to know, they should be able to organize and require disclosures. Otherwise let’s give up take away the regulations requiring nutritional information and ingredients and see how that works out. Should be a blast for people with peanut allergies and allow corporation to start including cheaper preservatives known to cause cancer.
It’s definately one thing to suggest any given consumer can make demands/regulations, but a fair reading and we are talking about an issue that the industry themselves admits large segments want to know so they can make informed buy choices.
And they're correct to object, the notion that we need apply authoritarian control over labels is absurd and wrong. You don't need to force GMO products to be labelled when non-GMO products are perfectly free to advertise that on their label.
It's one thing to say you can't lie on a label, that's fraud, but it's wrong to mandate what should be on a label and what words they must use. The GMO moniker is a smear intended to take advantage of consumer ignorance to scare them away from perfectly good food. There's no real evidence against GMO, it's just fear mongering. Most of our food is not natural and hasn't been for a very very long time.
> if consumers would want to know so they could avoid a product, as admitted by the lobbiest, shouldn’t be entitled to know?
They can already know now, by looking for companies voluntarily labeling their products non-GMO. There's more than one way to reach that goal, one requires forced compliance and the other allows freedom; the freedom approach is better. Forcing your competitors to label their products as GMO to take advantage of the irrational fear and superstition of the public is just plain evil.
It's funny watching people like you pretend you're being the good guy when you're really the bad guy trying to make everyone else behave the way you want them to rather than simply choosing to do business with the people who are the way you want them to be.
Here's an idea for you and everyone who thinks like you; worry about your own behavior and stop trying to tell everyone else how they should behave. You're not forced to buy their products, if you don't like their labels, take your business elsewhere. That's how things work in a free country.
So do you object to mandated nutritional labels and ingredient lists?
To say if you want to enter food and food stuffs into the stream of commerce you need to include nutritional information and ingredients, is that really authoritarian?
I personally like consumer rights and don’t pretend there is a level playing field between consumers and corporations. I think it’s a common sense approach to the reality companies put nasty shit in food from preservatives to various types of sugars that consumers base buying decisions on and it’s not authoritarian to require those disclosures...at least you know where we have a quasi democratic process in the form of a constitutional republic.
It’s like saying it’s authoritarian to require doctors to inform patients about their options. How dare these authoritarians dictate how doctors practice medicine.
>It's funny watching people like you pretend you're being the good guy when you're really the bad guy trying to make everyone else behave the way you want them to rather than simply choosing to do business with the people who are the way you want them to be.
Did I say I was good and anyone else was bad. Did I say I wanted to know about gmo’s personally? I just asked a question shouldn’t consumers be able to organize and pass laws requiring disclosures? Pretty sure that’s what a free country is...not the right to sell unlabeled snake oil if they want.
> So do you object to mandated nutritional labels and ingredient lists?
Absolutely. Do I like them, sure, and I'd happily avoid any product that didn't provide them willingly.
> To say if you want to enter food and food stuffs into the stream of commerce you need to include nutritional information and ingredients, is that really authoritarian?
Yes, it is, by definition. Forcing a vendor to do anything is authoritarian; the question is is it justified. Forcing someone not to lie, yea that's justified because lying is fraud. Forcing them to add something to a label, that's just authoritarian. Let the market kill them for being stupid. If the market wants nutrition labels they'll do it voluntarily or their competition will.
> I personally like consumer rights and don’t pretend there is a level playing field between consumers and corporations. I think it’s a common sense approach to the reality companies put nasty shit in food from preservatives to various types of sugars that consumers base buying decisions on and it’s not authoritarian to require those disclosures...at least you know where we have a quasi democratic process in the form of a constitutional republic.
It is authoritarian by definition; though it may be justified authoritarianism in response to bad actors in the market. Not all authoritarianism is unjustified, markets do fail. However, nutrition information being forced on all isn't remotely the same as forcing only some to label something GMO as if that status has any scientific validity whatsoever. The non-GMO movement is superstition and ignorance, not science. Superstition should not be forced onto vendors.
> It’s like saying it’s authoritarian to require doctors to inform patients about their options.
It is. You seem to not know what that word means. If the government makes you do something, it is by definition authoritarian.
> How dare these authoritarians dictate how doctors practice medicine.
Yes actually, you should be very concerned when government decides it knows better than doctors about how to treat patients. But you'll note the legal requirement on this actually refers back to the doctors norms, they're only required to inform patients of things that a reasonable doctor would inform them of.
> Did I say I was good and anyone else was bad.
I didn't say you said it; I said watching you pretend to be, that means that's how your coming off to me. That's my opinion of your behavior.
That's not decomposition. To decompose means to break down into simpler substances. "micro"plastic is still the same plastic that made up the original object, just smaller.
Most people believe that this garbage patch (aka plastic continent) looks like what is in their trash bin. The picture in the article reinforces this misconception:
However, most of this plastic is actually so small and sparse that you cannot even see it. That makes cleanup really difficult.
From wikipedia:
> Disintegration means that much of the plastic is too small to be seen. In a 2001 study, researchers found concentrations of plastic particles at 334,721 pieces per km2 with a mean mass of 5.1 kg (11.3 lbs) per km2, in the neuston.
Most of the small plastics come from the breakup of large plastics. By removing large plastics floating on the top, you can (at least theoretically) prevent more small plastics from being made.
I hope they can figure it out, but it seems like they may have missed something significant in their simulations. If the water basically pools and becomes stagnant within the boundary of the catcher, then it makes sense that currents will route around the boundary and therefore carry plastic around it also. The long skirt seems like part of the problem, as it's trapping all the water in that area, but my knowledge of fluid ocean dynamics is nonexistant so perhaps I'm wrong. The idea of a passive system is nice, but it seems like the problem would be easier if they had some form of propulsion with a renewable energy source to drive it forward.
So that's interesting. That answer on stackexchange purportedly quotes Wikipedia, stating "Almost 90% of plastic debris that pollutes ocean water, which translates to 5.6 million tons, comes from ocean-based sources."
But actual Wikipedia page [0] says "Almost 20% of plastic debris that pollutes ocean water, which translates to 5.6 million tons, comes from ocean-based sources."
I tracked down the chain of sources cited by Wikipedia. tl;dr: Neither the 20% number nor the 90% number are actually substantiated by their citations if you follow the chain of references to its end.
Both StackExchange and Wikipedia cite "Plastics in the Marine Environment: The Dark Side of a Modern Gift". I grabbed a copy of the book. It states:
> 3.3.1 Ocean-Based Sources
> Nearly 5.6 million tons of marine debris every year is estimated to come from ocean-based sources, which is 88% of the total marine debris input. Daily, about five million items of solid marine debris are estimated to be thrown overboard or lost from ships (UNEP 2009b).
> Most ocean-based marine litter is probably represented by abandoned and lost fishing gear. In areas far away from urban development, discarded fishing gear is responsible for 50–90% of the total marine debris.
However, I see that someone on the Wikipedia article talk page states:
> The statistics in these sections are incorrect. The general consensus for global marine pollution is that about 80% of plastic is land-based, while about 20% is ocean-based. This page's figures are based on this report: 'Hammer, J; Kraak, MH; Parsons, JR (2012). "Plastics in the marine environment: the dark side of a modern gift".' However, this report incorrectly quotes figures from the 'UNEP 2009b' report, which states: 'land-based-sources (LBS) at 89.1 percent, with 10.9 percent attributable to ocean-based sources (OBS).' In addition, these figures are for 'Marine litter sources in the Caribbean (1989-2005)', not globally. Blokewiki (talk) 18:26, 22 January 2018 (UTC).
I found the report that the book cites: "Abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear" (UNEP 2009b) [2]. I could not find the phrase quoted by the Wikipedia user. As far as I can tell, it's not in the document. Going back to the UNEP 2009b source did find some useful information, but first I should note that "ALDFG" refers to the title of the report. It's all about fishing gear:
> Marine litter is either sea-based or land-based, with fishing activity just one of many different potential sources. The report concludes that there is no overall figure for the contribution of ALDFG to marine litter. A number of estimates suggest very different contributions of fishing activity to total marine litter based on locality. Close to or on the shore, the majority of litter originates from land-based sources.
> When considered on a global basis, and including litter that does not get washed up on beaches, it appears likely that merchant shipping contributes far more to marine litter than ALDFG from fishing vessels. There are significant differences in terms of the weight and the type of impacts on the environment of marine litter from merchant shipping and synthetic forms of ALDFG. Attempts at broad-scale quantification of marine litter enable only a crude approximation of ALDFG comprising less than 10 percent of global marine litter by volume, with land-based sources being the predominate cause of marine debris in coastal areas and merchant shipping the key sea-based source of litter.
This is where the 88% figure came from:
> In 1997, the United States Academy of Sciences estimated the total input of marine litter into the oceans at approximately 6.4 million tonnes per year, of which nearly 5.6 million tonnes (88 percent) was estimated to come from merchant shipping (UNEP, 2005a). The Academy also noted that some 8 million items of marine litter are estimated to enter oceans and seas every day, about 5 million (63 percent) of which are solid waste thrown overboard or lost from ships (UNEP, 2005a).
That cites "Marine litter: an analytical overview" (UNEP, 2005a)[3], but it seems that's because the 2009 report copy/pasted that paragraph from the 2005 report. It's nearly identical[5] in both, but the 2005 report doesn't have a citation. So, that's where the chain ends. Very sloppy work by by everyone in that chain. This is exactly why you're supposed to cite the original sources.
Frankly, I'm not sure it's worth searching for the source any further. Even if the statistic was true, it's more than 20 years out of date. Looking at a more recent paper, "Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean" (2015)[4], I did find an interesting statistic:
> In 1975, the estimated annual flux of litter of all materials to the ocean was 6.4 million tons [5.8 million metric tons (MT)], based only on discharges from ocean vessels, military operations, and ship casualties (1).
That (1) is citing A Report of the Study Panel on Assessing Potential Ocean Pollutants to the Ocean Affairs Board, National Academy of Sciences (1975). I'm mildly suspicious that the 6.4M tonnes attributed to the unknown 1997 Academy of Sciences report is that the same 6.4M tonnes from the 1975 Academy of Sciences report. A couple more quotes from that 2015 paper:
> We calculate that 275 million metric tons (MT) of plastic waste was generated in 192 coastal countries in 2010, with 4.8 to 12.7 million MT entering the ocean.
> Because no global estimates exist for other sources of plastic into the ocean (e.g., losses from fishing activities or at-sea vessels, or input from natural disasters), we do not know what fraction of total plastic input our land-based waste estimate represents.
This is why I look at people funny when they say Wikipedia should not be used at all. Yes, it should not be trusted outright but open information with open discussion and transparent edit history enables magical things.
Funnily I faced a bit of initial resistance when opening the page and remembering how painful using paypal is. Thankfully there are cryptocurrency addresses displayed on the page.
That doesn't appear to pass the smell test. According to this* there are only 52,000 merchant ships operating globally so the thought of each ship dumping 20,000lbs of plastic overboard each year in acerage (a rough estimate based on 5.6m tons currently existing and that number "regenerating" each decade as old plastic falls to the sea floor or gets ingested) seems to be unreasonable. I've seen some of the rivers referenced in that "forwards fron grandma" level infographic and I'm inclined to believe it.
That's not surprising at all. According to this link, a large fishing net can weigh up to 10,000 pounds. 20,000 pounds is just two nets. I'm sure fishing vessels lose many more than two nets every year.
> Approximately 0.8 million tons annually of marine debris, which is 12% of the total debris input into the oceans, originates from land-based sources, and primarily consists of discarded plastic items (user plastic). In highly populated areas, marine debris comes primarily from the land. [...] The 10 top-ranked rivers transport 88–95% of the global load into the sea.
While I agree the "90% of plastics in ocean" stat is incorrect, it does seem very relevant to note that "90% of land-originating plastics in ocean" is the actual statistic (land-originating plastics representing about 10-12% of total).
Clearly, awareness needs to be raised about ocean-originating plastics. Thanks for bringing attention to this.
Isn't that the fishing equipment mentioned in the parent comment? If not, what are 'ocean-originating plastics'?
Edit: From the Wikipedia article linked by balfirevic:
> "Merchant ships expel cargo, sewage, used medical equipment, and other types of waste that contain plastic into the ocean. [....] The largest ocean-based source of plastic pollution is discarded fishing gear (including traps and nets)"
Generally, poorer countries tend to be bigger sources due to worse sanitation. A huge proportion is from stryofoam or other plastics on fishing nets or buoys. Plastic bags are the single biggest source on land. Plastic bag bans are really important.
So it seems that filtering the output of these rivers seems like a feasible solution to dramatically reduce ocean plastic. It doesn't sound prohibitively expensive.
I have been tracking them since early 2014, and I follow their video updates regularly.
I'm surprised at how many scientists and experienced people are concerned about the booms harming marine life. If you see this video, you'll understand that they're sweeping and shepherding surface-level plastic in a boom. If a turtle or dolphin were to swim into the collection area, then the creature can easily swim out or beneath the booms. Indeed, non-living plastic too is slipping out beneath the boom (what this article itself infoms us!)!
I recently saw their video [1] where they showed how they've been able to detect that some (not "all", like this article insinuates) plastic has slipped under the boom. They tried some things on the spot, like bringing the boom ends closer, raising the boom arms, etc. This is a video that they had themselves published, and is thereofre hardly a "scoop" or an exposé.
See also their FAQ, that they update regularly.
For e.g. they intend to visit each boom once in six weeks, cleaning up, revising future designs based on lessons learned, etc, thus preventing the boom from becoming a Fish Aggregating Device.
Their techonology page [3] is also informative.
I urge HN readers to please review the videos and the FAQ, and not just conclude based on one article.
This assessment is not supported by the links you posted. Here is a summary of the critiques you linked.
* They are using RO-BOOMS, a proven tech since 1988 for oil cleanups
* They are painted black, which makes them hard to see
* When testing the booms at the Marin Facility, waves would cause gaps underneath where garbage could pass through the barrier
* They haven't tested them yet to see whether they collect plastic
* The author couldn't find the public proposal
* Many of the above comments are now admitted to be out of date
* Author believes the momentum from the project could lead to real change but some changes are needed for a workable solution
* Author desires transparency
* No scientific reviews have been done on the project
* Sections of the feasibility study require editing
* The feasibility study doesn't account for extreme ocean currents
* The feasibility study doesn't prove it will work
* Doesn't capture plastic at depth
* Further testing and analysis is needed
* Biofouling hasn't been solved yet
* Available advanced computer simulation software was not used in the design
* Some sections of the feasibility study are out of date due to design changes
* More than one ship will be required
* Several design hurdles haven't been overcome yet
* Legal issues regarding bycatch haven't been resolved
While certainly many of these are valid, they are also pretty much what one would suspect from early stage modelling, prototyping, and testing. The authors you linked actually deem the project worth the time of providing professional critical feedback, and they believe that the momentum can lead to real workable solutions.
Stopping the pollution from happening or cleaning up water in the rivers before it reaches the ocean will have a bigger impact over the long run. But neither of those can remove the plastic that is already in the ocean, which is what this project is for.
Unless their cleanup efforts manage to outpace the poluters we would still need to stop the constant flow of garbage for this project to have any meaning.
Stopping the polluters is a much harder behavioural, but mostly political problem. I am 42, I don't think I will see a solution to that in my lifetime. I applaud anything that makes this problem more visible and tangible (pictures of that patch are not enough), and if Boyan has a shot at getting some plastic out after some iterations, awesome! If not, then this has been an inexpensive awareness campaign, showing that it is indeed a much harder problem then anyone thinks.
Effectively collecting micro-plastics (the real problem) will likely require new technology that provides an attractive field that resonates with plastics. Plastics are complex hydrocarbons (oils) so you would need to provide some sort of magnetic effect that energizes and attracts the hydrocarbons to a central point. This would be something that is chemically non-polar on both ends of a chemical chain, emits a high resonance electro-static field, and something that repels polar chemicals and anything with a covalent bonding. Essentially, it would be a static electricity anti-soap fixed to a point.
I don't think attraction would be needed. If you could make a material that can selectively bind to plastics, you could just make "filters" out of it that rely on plastic particles just coming in contact with the capturing material. This reminds me of what I read about molecular biology - the way proteins capture stuff in cells is essentially by being correctly shaped + relying on random walk ensuring everything comes into contact with everything else at some point.
The real problem is getting them out of the water. I expect the solution to that will not be collecting them, but breaking them down faster. It wouldn’t surprise me if micro-organisms beat us to solving that problem, in particular for pure hydro-carbons.
Plastics breakdown naturally in water. This is why there are now observable quantities of plastics in all human water supplies including the water you drink, bathe in, and cook with. This is also why the bigger problem is micro-plastics, which are those sufficiently broken down microscopic particles. This is also the primary problem in the great Pacific garbage patch, the plastics you don't see.
If you can consolidate these particles with some manner of attractive force you can extract them.
> Plastics breakdown naturally in water. This is why there are now observable quantities of plastics in all human water supplies including the water you drink, bathe in, and cook with.
Two meanings of the word "break down" here; I guess you mean plastic objects breaking down into smaller pieces, and GP meant hydrocarbon chains breaking down into smaller chains and possibly constituent atoms. The former is the source of the problem, the latter would be a solution.
I maybe ignorant, but couldn't you just heat up the water to have a leftover lump (or something) of microplastics. At least if energy consumption wasn't an issue.
No, water is extremely efficient at conducting heat. Until the creation of synthetic fluids for this purpose, in about the last 25 years, deionized water was the most efficient conductor of heat known. Using a heat based process on the ocean would thus mean heating the entire ocean, which simply isn't viable.
If I had $20 mil for helping the oceans I would try to build a few miles of netting around the mouth of a polluting asian river. But I don't know how I'd pay for the continual maintenance and cleaning.
Lots of negativity here for this, but it sounds like a design /implementation issue and not necessarily something fundamental.
Like anything it's not a silver bullet, but one small tool to help deal with the larger problem.
Things like Baltimore's Trash Wheel in the Inner Harbor have prevented literally tons of waste from outflowing. They needed a few design iterations before it worked as well.
No. According to Plastic waste inputs from land into
the ocean (2015) [1], the plastic waste entering the oceans from land is mismanaged waste. They define mismanaged waste as "material that is either littered or inadequately disposed. Inadequately disposed waste is not formally managed and includes disposal in dumps or open, uncontrolled landfills, where it is not fully contained. Mismanaged waste could eventually enter the ocean via inland waterways, wastewater outflows, and transport by wind or tides."
They claim that in the United States, only about 2% of waste is mismanaged (though, the total amount of waste generated is enormous and growing). The recovered plastic waste would probably be disposed of effectively, especially since the people collecting it presumably care more than average that it does get disposed of correctly.
I think it's important to note that the US ships a huge amount of its 'recyclables' to Asian countries who are happy to take the money and don't have environmental standards for dumping.
Plastic doesn't naturally gravitate towards oceans. If it's not dumped directly in an ocean or one of the rivers that flows into an ocean, it will be fine.
Plastic floats, the large surface area makes it likely it will be pushed into a river, and all water flows into the ocean, except for the water that leads to lakes or aquifers.
No. The plastic from land that ends up in the ocean originates from 3rd world countries with no trash service, and people dump their garbage in rivers.
Countries with normal trash service do not contribute plastic to the ocean.
(There is another category of trash that started on a boat.)
If it can get economical, it won't (at least, not for a while). There are interesting cases of companies trying to make shoe products from ocean plastic (or perhaps it's shoreline plastic before it reaches the ocean, I can't really tell, but that's still helpful too). Adidas is the most marketable, but as I understand it, a few other companies are doing something similar, while some other companies aren't sourcing ocean plastic, but are sourcing water bottles.
I would imagine it's possible to create landfills in areas that are 'geological material sinks' (lay-person made-up term) - i.e. places where particulate matter has a tendency to accumulate rather than diffuse elsewhere over time. Better to concentrate vast quantities of waste in isolated areas where it's relatively contained than let it pollute literally everywhere on earth.
I'd like to have it dumped on the lush lawns of the politicians and industry magnates in the most polluting countries, as a statement, before it will be recycled.
Beach plastic is different from ocean plastic. At the scale which the ocean cleanup intends to operate, removing plastics from the ocean is almost always worse than leaving it alone and sometimes just as effective as doing nothing. It sounds counter-intuitive, but it is the truth. This system will not remove 92% of the plastics in the gyre. It will neither remove nor reduce plastics which already contaminate the human food, air and water supplies. Its wide-scale, automated deployment will result in by-catch and contribute to the rising food-security issues throughout the pacific due to dwindling fish populations.
The ocean is extremely fragile. The ocean, and the communities who depend on it are on the brink of irreversible collapse, and Mr. Slat really, truly, objectively, is not helping.
So what do you propose that we do? Even if everyone stopped throwing plastic into the water right now, it will not remove an ounce of plastic that's already in the water and killing the ecosystem.
Instead of dismissing attempts like this with a hand wave, perhaps we should actually start calculating the amount of damage done by potential by-catch versus the damage avoided by removing X tons of plastic from the top Y meters of the water column. Or compare the amount of plastic this project will end up adding to the oceans with the amount it will remove in the meantime.
It's okay to be naysayer if you have real numbers to back up your claims. It's not okay to throw around phrases like "Mr. Slat is really, truly, objectively not helping" when you don't have any numbers to back up your claims.
It is hard for most people to grasp the engineering hardship and complexity to work in the ocean especially with only 20 million$ to solve a massive problem. Just a thought, but we were able to land a man on the moon before ever reaching the Challenger Deep (lowest recorded point in ocean). This team needs more funding in order to achieve this or even just make a dent.
This project will never work or collect anything... For anyone interested, it was clear from the start that tHis is indeed a PR stunt designed to collect money...
The only way to stop polluting is to start with a ban on single use plastics...
At least they are trying something rather than twiddling their thumbs and conducting studies and not taking action because the thing isn’t perfect. The oceans are in a dire situation and action needs to be taken.
Maybe this thing doesn’t work. Maybe they have to start over. Maybe someone else comes up with something better. Great! Do that.
People pointing out that it might harm marine life. Ok I get it. You know what else harms marine life? Damn near everything else humans put into the oceans too.
At this point the oceans are basically screwed if someone doesnt start trying to fix something. And to the people pointing out that it’s a waste of 20 mil, come on. 20 mil is basically nothing and it’s no skin off your teeth. Better than money went to this than making more juceros or whatever other dumb ideas that get a lot more funding than 20 mil, and have no possibility of a net upside.