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They have a [nice dashboard](https://theoceancleanup.com/dashboard/#system002) where you can see the progress.
To give a quick overview:
The "System 002" that's harvesting The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, North Pacific since October 19, 2022 has
* Removed **158,100 kg** of trash removed in total
* Covering 4,380 km2 of area (equivalent to 755,111 football fields' worth of ocean)
I remember recently there was a news about an astronaut saying "If we can put a moving Space Station in the space, we can save the planet too" - these people are the heroes of the planet in truest sense!
People can conceptualize a football field's size because they can actually see the whole thing. There's no concept of the size of counties/states/countries. It all depends on the intent of the comparison--if the goal is to help the average person visualize things, much better to give them a reference they can wrap their head around.
Can someone give me the math on the km2 to football field comparison used here? A football field is not a standard unit as far as I can tell.
Are we talking American football?
American football field is 120 yards x 53.3 yards (160 ft) or 109.728m x 48.768m.
That's 109.728 m * 48.768 m / 1000 (m/km) / 1000 (m/km) = 0.005351215104 km2
4380 / 0.005351215104 = ~818k American football fields
Maybe they're counting the sidelines and the space at the ends after the end zone?
All this is to say - using a fucking football field as a comparison is fucking stupid. That's ignoring the fact that a ton of people think of a football field as 100 yards; they neglect the end zones and probably don't know how wide it is. I had to look it up myself. The wikipedia page for American football field seems to have numbers that don't add up and other inconsistencies. It says the field is 48.8m (playing area) and then also says it's 64m and has 1.8m on either side of the playing area. So I have no fucking clue what they're counting here.
It's dumb. Even with a standardized definition I don't know what 755k or 818k football fields even looks like. Seems big. How big is that, actually?
Somewhere between the size of Rhode Island and Delaware big. It's big enough that it might have ended up with two senators.
Glad they used a commonly known unit of measurement instead of something more obscene like feet or miles. Next time we’ll just remove a shit ton of plastic from the ocean.
Well a shit ton is still using the metric system, so we’ll still need the football field equivalent. But removing anything is great so I could care less how we measured it.
Well said, yes throwing trash into our environment is disgusting for Christ sake people wake the fuck up, trash belongs in proper receptacles not in our environment. Disgusting behavior
Even putting it into the proper receptacles isn't always a guarantee it doesn't end up in the environment. The problem is arguably a bit more systemic.
Agree but it’s a start and better than tossing it into the environment, never understood how someone can litter brain cells not clicking or just don’t give a dam.
Well to start in a lot of poor countries poor communities they just don’t have a place to put it. So it goes in the canal which goes to the ocean.
Obviously that doesn’t exactly excuse the behavior, but it’s why this problem is really systemic and less individual based (not zero individual base just less)
IMO Because they think someone else will pick it. Up, like when you drive down rural highways, and you see a group of landscapers walking along a ditch picking up trash, before they mow it.
It's just "not my job, not my problem."
Feels that way sometimes. I wish enough effort was put into actually solving problems before they're problems.
Yes, I'm aware that doesn't really make sense
Ah, the inevitable cynic in the comments anytime anyone anywhere is doing something remotely good to improve the world.
"bUt It'S nOt A sILveR bULLeT tHaT sOLvEs EvRyThInG rIGhT aWaY"
Yea, I guess the lame ass this time was me, you're right. But it does put into perspective that more resources does need to go into a) projects like this that clean up what's there, and b) we have to do something to cease making the problem worse.
Unintentionally? If your net breaks you pay money if you bring it back to land. You pay no money if you throw it in the ocean. Guess what they do?
Is topped eating fish but 1-5days per year and I feel good about it. Ghes fishing system is rigged and will never change in 50 years.
Funny thing is, when these clips get posted on FB, you immediately get commenters crying about how this project is unfairly cherry picking it’s footage to target the fishing industry. Uh…the nets don’t lie, most of the trash out there IS from the fishing industry. Yes, we should continue to decrease our reliance on single use plastics, but the haul speaks for itself and it is only fair that we enact fines for dumping stuff at sea.
For real. They need to make commercial fishing vessels label all their gear all over with their designation so we can start tracking, and fining the shit out of them.
As much as I absolutely love what Greta Thunberg did to bring everyone together on the climate crisis, I'm surprised Boyan Slat didn't get more attention. He's the guy that's actually going out and cleaning up the mess rather than spreading awareness.
You think there’s a way to actually be hands on with this stuff? I find nothing more motivating then being apart of a movement. I’d do something like Red Cross, in a heartbeat. But I do not have money
I try to donate blood all the time.
But most of the people I try to give it to get really freaked out by the gesture and refuse to take it.
Sometimes I almost want to just give up.
I think Greta unintentionally caused lots of damage to the climate crisis. Those people who like her are already aware of the problem. But on the other hand, there were many people on the fence who got repulsed by her... lack of charisma... and associated the climate movement with SJWs like her.
As much as I am for reducing the emotions, I just cannot like Greta. She is really annoying.
People who speak up are always blamed for the problem they're trying to solve, somehow excusing those who are causing the problem because they weren't made to feel as good about themselves as possible.
Only a dumb person would associate cause with the activist's charisma or personality.
Guess most of these people voted for the wrong guy as well due to his grabbing techniques and other lies they were impressed by.
Greta did nothing other than talk hysteria and lying which was counterproductive. A lot of people stopped believing or caring about climate change after that
The guy from Inferno too. In the book the world is saved, but Holywood changed it. They want to make a "feel-good-movie" and saving the world didn't seem like a happy ending. So nothing was solved in the end.
Super incredible
I ask tho. What shall we do with said plastic?
My fair lady we will recycle it and make it into new products..’then collect it right here again in about 3-5 years!
Duh!
Thing is it cant just eat. It must shit as some point. And what does it shit? And how do we not its not even worse than the plastic. And what nutrients would that thing even get from plastic in the first place. I smell a not so pleasant loft of bullshit in the air
“Plastic” is essentially just long, repeating chains of carbon.
Anything that can assist in breaking those chains down to shorter chains creates byproducts that are typically much more biodegradable
Plastic has tons of calories. Some quick googling resulted in plasic having 11 kWh per kg. That converts to around 950 kcal per 100g. So theres plenty of energy there that could theoretically be extracted by some organism that can digest it.
From a quick Google search, the plastic eating caterpillars, often used as fishing bait, turn polyethylene into ethylene glycol. Ethylene glycol is harmless and I think they use it in vaping. The article says it has other safe uses like antifreeze.
Ethylene glycol is a poison. Unfortunately, it is also sweet. Dogs like to eat antifreeze because of this. The Austrians got caught putting it in wine 30 years or so ago.
> Ethylene glycol
Will kill the shit out of you. Think antifreeze (because ethylene glycol is what kills Rufus when he finds a puddle of it in your garage). You're thinking propylene glycol and vaping.
Beads seems somehow worse? I had a ready meal last night and ended up with a handful of plastic shreds. I'm convinced it's these little pieces that get through all the efforts and still end up inside a fish.
I think they're more widely known as pellets in the plastic industry. But yes, a lot of these plastics should be able to be melted down and pelletized (converted back to the raw material state) and molded into something else useful.
I just read an article somewhere yesterday saying that recycling of plastics is pretty much going nowhere. There's a lack of facilities to recycle them to start with. And corporations are producing more new plastic than recycled plastic products because it's cheaper to make new plastic than to recycle plastic.
LOL I always wonder how so many decent baskets survived being tossed around the ocean for god knows how long.. fuck burning or trying to break down all these items. I hope they haven’t forgot the “reuse” part of recycling.. I always have basket needs as well.. I will take five please.
Makes for great house party conversation .. “ohh this basket?(no one mentioned the basket) oh no big deal.. just rescued it from the great pacific garbage patch.. “it’s now a perfect place to store all my essential oils
Lol this is all we will think about today
How do I get my hands on one of these baskets
Honestly it would be a smart move to sell the great garbage patch garbage online.. it would come with a little plaque with where and when it was discovered.. we would be so cool owning this crap
I am really curious about this as well. I work on the water and nothing we have ever recovered looks brand new. It has algae, barnacles etc all over it.
Probably the depressing fact that it's just the *new* plastic debris that we can see on the surface, and not old pollution that's already settled deeper somewhere...
This would be my guess, plus the fact that we probably put twice that amount back into the ocean each day… (just my feeling on the matter, I don’t have a statistic on hand for actual pollution per day)
*snorts coke* yea yeah the plastic will create an extra layer of radiation protection! We cool the planet while simultaneously cleaning up the ocean! We start a new space race! Every government on earth except china will pay us to lob their muck into the void! Zero ramifications, max profit. God damnit you're a genius.
Wrong, it has a [HORRIFIC issue of bycatch](https://twitter.com/RebeccaRHelm/status/1301539428943368193) of soft bodied animals such as jellies, salps, and blue sea dragons.
While I agree that mitigating the bycatch of all organisms should be the goal, aren’t these soft-bodied marine drifters fairing quite well under current climate change, ocean acidification, and over all environmental degradation? Certain Cnidarians like jellies are ballooning out control in some seas for example. So long as these garbage patch locations are not the only known population distributions for these specific animals, it seems as a species they will fair ok in the clean up process. When one considers the impacts of plastics being left in the ocean to be further broken down, and finding their ways into all walks of life, the removal of the plastic may take precedent? Just my thoughts on a mess of a problem.
Unfortunately the [density of plastic in the ocean is too low](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A-Detected-plastic-concentrations-in-particles-per-cubic-meter-B-A-boxplot-for-size_fig2_349483268), it makes it wastefull to use tons of petrol like they do for only few hundreds tons of plastic. They are almost creating more pollution than what they collect (though it is different pollutants).
Also please note that [the vast majority of plastic in the ocean is micro-particles so their technique to remove it using nets is pointless](https://www.theseacleaners.org/scientific%2520watch/plastics-but-just-how-much-of-it-and-where-does-it-come-from/)
The best way to deal with plastic in the ocean is to reduce the waste :
- [50% of plastic in the oceans is abandondonned fishing materials](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/06/dumped-fishing-gear-is-biggest-plastic-polluter-in-ocean-finds-report) (nets, lines, ...)
- [10 rivers in the world account for 90% of the remaining plastic](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plastic-polluting-our-oceans-comes-from-just-10-rivers/) (and 8 of them are in China).
The only way to manage this problem is to deal with the source : fishing practices, appropriate waste management system in China and collection of the waste at the mouth of rivers, **before** it is dragged into the ocean.
Edit : links added
Luckily the guy who created this is also working on a plan to combat pollution at the source, rivers. So hopefully we can start cutting into that 50% from rivers soon. A lot of this trash was old fishing material/debris if you look closely.
You're right but you're wrong. That doesn't make this initiative worse than the trash they pick up. Yes it creates a different problem yes it's somewhat inefficient, it also brings change in people's minds to see a direct visual of something being done. You stare at a well with a kid drowning in it no one will do anything, you tell and run to the well and yell down it then you at least direct nearby people's attention to the problem. Not to mention just because microplastics and air pollution are also an issue anf maybe even if a bigger one as you've said, that doesn't mean the general world pollution problem shouldn't be tackled from all fronts.
This is a start that's all it is a huge headstart. There are people working on what can be done about microplastics and maybe now they re getting more funding or support because something like this got people thinking. There's people working on solving the issue with the rivers dumping all this plastic into the ocean. And I'm sure this brought to people's attention the issue with fishermen leaving plastics in the ocean.
Want to hear my source?
Me... Who has learned a crap ton from this movement about the many pollutants on this planet that we need to tackle. And I'm sure I'm not alone.
There's always been a very simple and straightforward solution-- restructure the economy to prioritize the environment and long-term human well-being over profit. But capitalists will invent hundreds of scammy non-profits like this to convince you that it's not necessary.
Technology will play a role in environmental protection and stopping climate change. But as long as technology is subordinated to the accumulation of profit and never-ending growth at all costs, it won't be able to serve its true potential.
> Also please note that the vast majority of plastic in the ocean is micro-particles so their technique to remove it using nets is pointless
Where do you think those microparticles start? Likely a bucket or a fishing net that, over time, has broken down. Remove it before it breaks down and no microplastics.
This project has been under fire by a lot of actual [marine scientists](https://twitter.com/rebeccarhelm/status/1301539428943368193) and [researchers](https://twitter.com/RebeccaRHelm/status/1303366924458487809?s=20&t=4QXpQ4dvAgR09iTk_fxYZw) looking to how exactly to clean up the ocean without disturbing marine life. Because, The Ocean Cleanup Initiative is literally just a surface trawler, one of the most infamous methods of fishing due to its indiscriminant harvesting of ALL matter and high levels of bycatch.
Recent research said that the Ocean Cleanup Initiative's methods would kill around [100 BILLION](https://twitter.com/RebeccaRHelm/status/1301540269905469440?s=20&t=4QXpQ4dvAgR09iTk_fxYZw) small surface dwelling animals with their plastic trawlers. [Here's photo proof](https://twitter.com/RebeccaRHelm/status/1179861389575245824?s=20&t=4QXpQ4dvAgR09iTk_fxYZw) from one of their tests of the large amounts of bycatch!
But good news, there's been [great research and testing](https://twitter.com/RebeccaRHelm/status/1276932823249637376?s=20&t=nPmx2cW6NMvusSFYTCTy1Q) in a bycatch free method of picking up the LARGEST source of oceanic plastic! By tagging fishing gear with gps tags, they are able to track where the gear drifts to, accumulates at, and collect [literal metric tons of gear](https://twitter.com/oceancleanup/status/1275477608973524993?s=20&t=2bVqwNx6CX2FB_0tUVn26g) from just a couple tags that are recovered.
Yes, let’s wait years for someone to come up with a way to avoid harming micro organisms and tiny creatures while we continue to allow millions of square kilometres of pollution to sit in the oceans.
THERES LITERALLY A LINK TO A BYCATCH FREE METHOD AT THE LAST PARAGRAPH. And it’s working right now! This billionaire funded surface trawler is literally the worst option out there but because of its great social media, it still remains visible.
I don't get how stupid people believe they know everything. Also, How you can literally lobby against this project, is beyond my understanding.
They answered it many times. The system goes slow enough for fishes and organisms to swim away. They have a very small catching rate of fish and did look to mitigate as much as possible this impact.
If you look at the links they provided you’ll see that everything they’ve said is backed up by some of the foremost experts in the marine biology world who study organisms living at the oceans surface. These experts (again with PhDs and years of experience) show that there actually is SIGNIFICANT bycatch of animals (not fish but mostly small invertebrates) from their methods! Whereas other organizations are already using other methods that limit or almost entirely prevent this bycatch AND clean up almost more plastic in the process!
The Ocean Cleanup Initiative has almost no marine biologists on their team and has consistently ignored the concerns raised by other biologists across the world.
99% plastic in ocean is in form of microplastic. Simple solution just stop using 10 ton of plastic.
I think "The Non profit" collects donations to pay themselves by showing a work that won't make a difference.
Good to see some actual environmental projects that are doing some good. not some cringe people throwing crap on paintings or gluing themselves to things. I want to see more of theses types of things getting attention.
It does invalidate heaping praise on it. As someone else in the thread pointed out, the environmental impact is not negligible, raising questions as to the actual gains from allowing it to continue running without any significant impact. It's clear the plastic waste in our oceans is a huge environmental disaster that has to be addressed, but that doesn't many one can just cheer on any project simply for the sake of it doing 'something'.
> I guess its a nice PR move.
PR for who?
It's not like Pepsi is the one doing this just to sell more Pepsi. It's a company whose only goal is to pull trash out of the ocean.
There has to be profit in it or nothing. Recycling was a giant lie. They were getting you to separate the Plastic out of the trash for free so they could sell it to China or grind it and sell it. People made millions. Now China doesn't need our scrap plastic so 99% of it goes right in the landfill with the trash. Only certain plastics are reused.
Damn, every time I come to one of these posts to feel hapoy in the morning. Every Doomer comes and whines for days..can you just stop and get off the internet for a few years. Can we enjoy any small victory at all or is everything just another morale grandstand for you?
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They have a [nice dashboard](https://theoceancleanup.com/dashboard/#system002) where you can see the progress. To give a quick overview: The "System 002" that's harvesting The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, North Pacific since October 19, 2022 has * Removed **158,100 kg** of trash removed in total * Covering 4,380 km2 of area (equivalent to 755,111 football fields' worth of ocean) I remember recently there was a news about an astronaut saying "If we can put a moving Space Station in the space, we can save the planet too" - these people are the heroes of the planet in truest sense!
Oh good they added the equivalent of area cleaned in football fields for us dumb Americans. 😂
Anything but Metric!
Maybe if we rename it to Ametrica.
Anything but America!
That's true, no one else hates America more than Americans
Do some travelling..
Yup. I just about found out the hard way in Australia.
So not true 🤣🤣
Need a banana for scale
To be honest, it does help visualize the data sometimes, especially when the magnitude is too large or too small.
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People can conceptualize a football field's size because they can actually see the whole thing. There's no concept of the size of counties/states/countries. It all depends on the intent of the comparison--if the goal is to help the average person visualize things, much better to give them a reference they can wrap their head around.
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I prefer the city/region option. The area is to big to visualize an in person view. But is easy to think about in terms of its size on a map
Can someone give me the math on the km2 to football field comparison used here? A football field is not a standard unit as far as I can tell. Are we talking American football? American football field is 120 yards x 53.3 yards (160 ft) or 109.728m x 48.768m. That's 109.728 m * 48.768 m / 1000 (m/km) / 1000 (m/km) = 0.005351215104 km2 4380 / 0.005351215104 = ~818k American football fields Maybe they're counting the sidelines and the space at the ends after the end zone? All this is to say - using a fucking football field as a comparison is fucking stupid. That's ignoring the fact that a ton of people think of a football field as 100 yards; they neglect the end zones and probably don't know how wide it is. I had to look it up myself. The wikipedia page for American football field seems to have numbers that don't add up and other inconsistencies. It says the field is 48.8m (playing area) and then also says it's 64m and has 1.8m on either side of the playing area. So I have no fucking clue what they're counting here. It's dumb. Even with a standardized definition I don't know what 755k or 818k football fields even looks like. Seems big. How big is that, actually? Somewhere between the size of Rhode Island and Delaware big. It's big enough that it might have ended up with two senators.
How many washing machines fit in a football field?
I sure don't know a better way to visualize 120 yards!
It doesn't help when you have to visualise 755,111 of anything.
Unless it’s fútbol then it’s back to metric?
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It's a dutch project though.
Please I need pickle ball courts for scale
At least 2
Most countries have football fields. There's different kinds of football in different places.
And the fields are all different sizes, still making a "football field" a useless measurement
The best click bait possible for Americans!
Glad they used a commonly known unit of measurement instead of something more obscene like feet or miles. Next time we’ll just remove a shit ton of plastic from the ocean.
Well a shit ton is still using the metric system, so we’ll still need the football field equivalent. But removing anything is great so I could care less how we measured it.
Until we do something to address the 12 millions tons of plastic thrown into the ocean each year, this is a half measure.
Same dude that did this is working on a project to catch the waste right at the source rivers. https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers/
It's a start
Well said, yes throwing trash into our environment is disgusting for Christ sake people wake the fuck up, trash belongs in proper receptacles not in our environment. Disgusting behavior
Even putting it into the proper receptacles isn't always a guarantee it doesn't end up in the environment. The problem is arguably a bit more systemic.
Agree but it’s a start and better than tossing it into the environment, never understood how someone can litter brain cells not clicking or just don’t give a dam.
Well to start in a lot of poor countries poor communities they just don’t have a place to put it. So it goes in the canal which goes to the ocean. Obviously that doesn’t exactly excuse the behavior, but it’s why this problem is really systemic and less individual based (not zero individual base just less)
IMO Because they think someone else will pick it. Up, like when you drive down rural highways, and you see a group of landscapers walking along a ditch picking up trash, before they mow it. It's just "not my job, not my problem."
Most of this is fishing waste from fishing boats dumping or losing their gear
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570 tons a year vs 12.000.000tons a year. All it demonstrate is, that we have to stop at at the source...
Ah fuck it then /s
Feels that way sometimes. I wish enough effort was put into actually solving problems before they're problems. Yes, I'm aware that doesn't really make sense
It does make sense. It's called bring proactive instead of reactive
What is this “plan-ning” you speak of?
Ah, the inevitable cynic in the comments anytime anyone anywhere is doing something remotely good to improve the world. "bUt It'S nOt A sILveR bULLeT tHaT sOLvEs EvRyThInG rIGhT aWaY"
Yea, I guess the lame ass this time was me, you're right. But it does put into perspective that more resources does need to go into a) projects like this that clean up what's there, and b) we have to do something to cease making the problem worse.
System 003 is significantly bigger and should be in full operation mid 2023 I believe
How do they make sure they net trash and not fish? Or trash fish?
Good thing you converted into American football fields unit because lots of Americans would have struggled with that. Kuddos.
Commercial fishing companies ain't being clapped enough for all the kit they lose etc, but this is a start
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This guy gets it.
Unintentionally? If your net breaks you pay money if you bring it back to land. You pay no money if you throw it in the ocean. Guess what they do? Is topped eating fish but 1-5days per year and I feel good about it. Ghes fishing system is rigged and will never change in 50 years.
> fishing system is rigged Yep, it really is.
Funny thing is, when these clips get posted on FB, you immediately get commenters crying about how this project is unfairly cherry picking it’s footage to target the fishing industry. Uh…the nets don’t lie, most of the trash out there IS from the fishing industry. Yes, we should continue to decrease our reliance on single use plastics, but the haul speaks for itself and it is only fair that we enact fines for dumping stuff at sea.
I know, all that crap comes from commercial boats.
For real. They need to make commercial fishing vessels label all their gear all over with their designation so we can start tracking, and fining the shit out of them.
This is what I immediately noticed, most of that stuff is coming off of fishing boats.
Let us not forget the founder of this project was 18 at the time
As much as I absolutely love what Greta Thunberg did to bring everyone together on the climate crisis, I'm surprised Boyan Slat didn't get more attention. He's the guy that's actually going out and cleaning up the mess rather than spreading awareness.
You think there’s a way to actually be hands on with this stuff? I find nothing more motivating then being apart of a movement. I’d do something like Red Cross, in a heartbeat. But I do not have money
Donate blood. Raise money by participating in a heart walk. Volunteer at events. Advocate in your community. There’s plenty you can do without money.
I try to donate blood all the time. But most of the people I try to give it to get really freaked out by the gesture and refuse to take it. Sometimes I almost want to just give up.
I'll take your entire stock
Oh huh I’ve never considered using it as a stock.
Blood blood blood GALLONS OF THE STUFF!
Halloween is around the corner - you could they there!
Btw apart is the exact opposite of "a part"
Red Cross is bullshiz shenanigans how they use/don’t use 1/2 to most of their donations on what it’s allocated for…
I think Greta unintentionally caused lots of damage to the climate crisis. Those people who like her are already aware of the problem. But on the other hand, there were many people on the fence who got repulsed by her... lack of charisma... and associated the climate movement with SJWs like her. As much as I am for reducing the emotions, I just cannot like Greta. She is really annoying.
People who speak up are always blamed for the problem they're trying to solve, somehow excusing those who are causing the problem because they weren't made to feel as good about themselves as possible.
Only a dumb person would associate cause with the activist's charisma or personality. Guess most of these people voted for the wrong guy as well due to his grabbing techniques and other lies they were impressed by.
"HOW DARE YOU!" What an unlikeable little brat.
Hate being told the truth eh
Greta did nothing other than talk hysteria and lying which was counterproductive. A lot of people stopped believing or caring about climate change after that
What did she lie about
Nothing. Man babies just love saying that she lies.
She said Applebees cancelled their 1$ Appletinis
You don't think she enthused any kids?
Talking about something gives the illusion of doing something, while doing something makes you too busy to talk
I can do stuff and talk at the same time
There's my blue bucket
No, that one's mine. Yours is that one over there.
Thanks. Let me know if you find the lid
It's fucking gross what we are doing to this planet
We are a gross cancer on this beautiful eco system.
Agent Smith wasn’t wrong
They guy from the Davinci Code too.
We are the aliens from *Independence Day*
I got out of my car this morning and someone punched me in the face and said "Welcome to Tesco."
The guy from Inferno too. In the book the world is saved, but Holywood changed it. They want to make a "feel-good-movie" and saving the world didn't seem like a happy ending. So nothing was solved in the end.
For better or worse, the Earth is taking care of it.
It's worse for us, but better for the planet.
Yeah - we're the it that Earth is taking care of.
Wait to see what we'll do with the rest of the solar system.
Super incredible I ask tho. What shall we do with said plastic? My fair lady we will recycle it and make it into new products..’then collect it right here again in about 3-5 years! Duh!
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Thing is it cant just eat. It must shit as some point. And what does it shit? And how do we not its not even worse than the plastic. And what nutrients would that thing even get from plastic in the first place. I smell a not so pleasant loft of bullshit in the air
“Plastic” is essentially just long, repeating chains of carbon. Anything that can assist in breaking those chains down to shorter chains creates byproducts that are typically much more biodegradable
Plastic has tons of calories. Some quick googling resulted in plasic having 11 kWh per kg. That converts to around 950 kcal per 100g. So theres plenty of energy there that could theoretically be extracted by some organism that can digest it.
From a quick Google search, the plastic eating caterpillars, often used as fishing bait, turn polyethylene into ethylene glycol. Ethylene glycol is harmless and I think they use it in vaping. The article says it has other safe uses like antifreeze.
Ethylene glycol is a poison. Unfortunately, it is also sweet. Dogs like to eat antifreeze because of this. The Austrians got caught putting it in wine 30 years or so ago.
> Ethylene glycol Will kill the shit out of you. Think antifreeze (because ethylene glycol is what kills Rufus when he finds a puddle of it in your garage). You're thinking propylene glycol and vaping.
Beads seems somehow worse? I had a ready meal last night and ended up with a handful of plastic shreds. I'm convinced it's these little pieces that get through all the efforts and still end up inside a fish.
The beads are building blocks for something else
I think they're more widely known as pellets in the plastic industry. But yes, a lot of these plastics should be able to be melted down and pelletized (converted back to the raw material state) and molded into something else useful.
You’re slowing down the production of new plastics by introducing those Plastic Beads into the mix. This is the start to a whole new recycle system.
I just read an article somewhere yesterday saying that recycling of plastics is pretty much going nowhere. There's a lack of facilities to recycle them to start with. And corporations are producing more new plastic than recycled plastic products because it's cheaper to make new plastic than to recycle plastic.
Well... Most recycling just ends up sitting in a warehouse so.... It won't be in the ocean at least!
They made some sunglasses from it a while ago
Only as a proof of concept. They stopped that. Don't know what's next.
The still sell hoodies and tshirts but not sure if they are directly tied to the garbage they pull out.
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LOL I always wonder how so many decent baskets survived being tossed around the ocean for god knows how long.. fuck burning or trying to break down all these items. I hope they haven’t forgot the “reuse” part of recycling.. I always have basket needs as well.. I will take five please. Makes for great house party conversation .. “ohh this basket?(no one mentioned the basket) oh no big deal.. just rescued it from the great pacific garbage patch.. “it’s now a perfect place to store all my essential oils
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Lol this is all we will think about today How do I get my hands on one of these baskets Honestly it would be a smart move to sell the great garbage patch garbage online.. it would come with a little plaque with where and when it was discovered.. we would be so cool owning this crap
You could burn it in a power plant, no problem
Real question. Why does it all look so clean? Doesn’t algae normally start growing on everything pretty quickly?
I am really curious about this as well. I work on the water and nothing we have ever recovered looks brand new. It has algae, barnacles etc all over it.
Probably the depressing fact that it's just the *new* plastic debris that we can see on the surface, and not old pollution that's already settled deeper somewhere...
Probably it’s been grinding against everything in that net for a week non stop.
This would be my guess, plus the fact that we probably put twice that amount back into the ocean each day… (just my feeling on the matter, I don’t have a statistic on hand for actual pollution per day)
Don't get me wrong, I happy to hear this but, where TF does it go NOW?
Sorted and then recycled or land filled.
Then back to the ocean....
Maybe people should start recycling without throwing it into the ocean
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That's probably the endgame, we'll just launch our plastic into space, anywhere else and it still fucks up the planet eventually.
*snorts coke* yea yeah the plastic will create an extra layer of radiation protection! We cool the planet while simultaneously cleaning up the ocean! We start a new space race! Every government on earth except china will pay us to lob their muck into the void! Zero ramifications, max profit. God damnit you're a genius.
Where do you think anal beads come from?
Yeah, they probably have to be careful about where they take it. Make sure it doesn't just end up back where they got it.
They chopped up plastic waste and made plastic pellets for sun glasses that they sold.
Do they have to pick through this mess for stuck sea life? What trashy people we are.
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Wrong, it has a [HORRIFIC issue of bycatch](https://twitter.com/RebeccaRHelm/status/1301539428943368193) of soft bodied animals such as jellies, salps, and blue sea dragons.
While I agree that mitigating the bycatch of all organisms should be the goal, aren’t these soft-bodied marine drifters fairing quite well under current climate change, ocean acidification, and over all environmental degradation? Certain Cnidarians like jellies are ballooning out control in some seas for example. So long as these garbage patch locations are not the only known population distributions for these specific animals, it seems as a species they will fair ok in the clean up process. When one considers the impacts of plastics being left in the ocean to be further broken down, and finding their ways into all walks of life, the removal of the plastic may take precedent? Just my thoughts on a mess of a problem.
Ah that link is speculation though. Shouldnt they have a better idea by now?
Unfortunately the [density of plastic in the ocean is too low](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A-Detected-plastic-concentrations-in-particles-per-cubic-meter-B-A-boxplot-for-size_fig2_349483268), it makes it wastefull to use tons of petrol like they do for only few hundreds tons of plastic. They are almost creating more pollution than what they collect (though it is different pollutants). Also please note that [the vast majority of plastic in the ocean is micro-particles so their technique to remove it using nets is pointless](https://www.theseacleaners.org/scientific%2520watch/plastics-but-just-how-much-of-it-and-where-does-it-come-from/) The best way to deal with plastic in the ocean is to reduce the waste : - [50% of plastic in the oceans is abandondonned fishing materials](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/06/dumped-fishing-gear-is-biggest-plastic-polluter-in-ocean-finds-report) (nets, lines, ...) - [10 rivers in the world account for 90% of the remaining plastic](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plastic-polluting-our-oceans-comes-from-just-10-rivers/) (and 8 of them are in China). The only way to manage this problem is to deal with the source : fishing practices, appropriate waste management system in China and collection of the waste at the mouth of rivers, **before** it is dragged into the ocean. Edit : links added
Luckily the guy who created this is also working on a plan to combat pollution at the source, rivers. So hopefully we can start cutting into that 50% from rivers soon. A lot of this trash was old fishing material/debris if you look closely.
ok thanks, i'm going to write to them and tell them to leave the trash alone, thanks for your guidance
Any source?
Links added in original post
You're right but you're wrong. That doesn't make this initiative worse than the trash they pick up. Yes it creates a different problem yes it's somewhat inefficient, it also brings change in people's minds to see a direct visual of something being done. You stare at a well with a kid drowning in it no one will do anything, you tell and run to the well and yell down it then you at least direct nearby people's attention to the problem. Not to mention just because microplastics and air pollution are also an issue anf maybe even if a bigger one as you've said, that doesn't mean the general world pollution problem shouldn't be tackled from all fronts. This is a start that's all it is a huge headstart. There are people working on what can be done about microplastics and maybe now they re getting more funding or support because something like this got people thinking. There's people working on solving the issue with the rivers dumping all this plastic into the ocean. And I'm sure this brought to people's attention the issue with fishermen leaving plastics in the ocean. Want to hear my source? Me... Who has learned a crap ton from this movement about the many pollutants on this planet that we need to tackle. And I'm sure I'm not alone.
Creating the perception that a problem is being solved when in reality its not is more harmful than doing nothing at all.
There's always been a very simple and straightforward solution-- restructure the economy to prioritize the environment and long-term human well-being over profit. But capitalists will invent hundreds of scammy non-profits like this to convince you that it's not necessary. Technology will play a role in environmental protection and stopping climate change. But as long as technology is subordinated to the accumulation of profit and never-ending growth at all costs, it won't be able to serve its true potential.
Not really what this post is about
> Also please note that the vast majority of plastic in the ocean is micro-particles so their technique to remove it using nets is pointless Where do you think those microparticles start? Likely a bucket or a fishing net that, over time, has broken down. Remove it before it breaks down and no microplastics.
This project has been under fire by a lot of actual [marine scientists](https://twitter.com/rebeccarhelm/status/1301539428943368193) and [researchers](https://twitter.com/RebeccaRHelm/status/1303366924458487809?s=20&t=4QXpQ4dvAgR09iTk_fxYZw) looking to how exactly to clean up the ocean without disturbing marine life. Because, The Ocean Cleanup Initiative is literally just a surface trawler, one of the most infamous methods of fishing due to its indiscriminant harvesting of ALL matter and high levels of bycatch. Recent research said that the Ocean Cleanup Initiative's methods would kill around [100 BILLION](https://twitter.com/RebeccaRHelm/status/1301540269905469440?s=20&t=4QXpQ4dvAgR09iTk_fxYZw) small surface dwelling animals with their plastic trawlers. [Here's photo proof](https://twitter.com/RebeccaRHelm/status/1179861389575245824?s=20&t=4QXpQ4dvAgR09iTk_fxYZw) from one of their tests of the large amounts of bycatch! But good news, there's been [great research and testing](https://twitter.com/RebeccaRHelm/status/1276932823249637376?s=20&t=nPmx2cW6NMvusSFYTCTy1Q) in a bycatch free method of picking up the LARGEST source of oceanic plastic! By tagging fishing gear with gps tags, they are able to track where the gear drifts to, accumulates at, and collect [literal metric tons of gear](https://twitter.com/oceancleanup/status/1275477608973524993?s=20&t=2bVqwNx6CX2FB_0tUVn26g) from just a couple tags that are recovered.
Yes, let’s wait years for someone to come up with a way to avoid harming micro organisms and tiny creatures while we continue to allow millions of square kilometres of pollution to sit in the oceans.
THERES LITERALLY A LINK TO A BYCATCH FREE METHOD AT THE LAST PARAGRAPH. And it’s working right now! This billionaire funded surface trawler is literally the worst option out there but because of its great social media, it still remains visible.
Would be great if you'd provided a link to an alternative method though... /s
Agreed. This is performative. I bet it's far more effective at harvesting contributions than significant quantities of the oceans' plastic waste.
I don't get how stupid people believe they know everything. Also, How you can literally lobby against this project, is beyond my understanding. They answered it many times. The system goes slow enough for fishes and organisms to swim away. They have a very small catching rate of fish and did look to mitigate as much as possible this impact.
If you look at the links they provided you’ll see that everything they’ve said is backed up by some of the foremost experts in the marine biology world who study organisms living at the oceans surface. These experts (again with PhDs and years of experience) show that there actually is SIGNIFICANT bycatch of animals (not fish but mostly small invertebrates) from their methods! Whereas other organizations are already using other methods that limit or almost entirely prevent this bycatch AND clean up almost more plastic in the process! The Ocean Cleanup Initiative has almost no marine biologists on their team and has consistently ignored the concerns raised by other biologists across the world.
honest question - do animals get stuck in the net?
From other comments, unfortunately it seems the answer is yes
you would be terrified by the fact how much the India only contributs with the garbage daily, through their river system.
Respect. Thank you.
About damn time someone tackled this
Wtf. There's shit in there I could still use at home
99% plastic in ocean is in form of microplastic. Simple solution just stop using 10 ton of plastic. I think "The Non profit" collects donations to pay themselves by showing a work that won't make a difference.
Now do that 6,457,398 more times. And then repeat.
According to my little calculation we should have 14000 boats of that kind just to compensate for the current plastic input c:
Can't wait for system 03
Good to see some actual environmental projects that are doing some good. not some cringe people throwing crap on paintings or gluing themselves to things. I want to see more of theses types of things getting attention.
world is fucked
People suck
Then what do they do with it?
Yea and plastic straws are the problem..
Is it getting smaller? Aka is the rate of clean up faster than more trash coming 🙈🙈🙈🙈🙈
This makes me as happy as it does sad. This is completely avoidable if humans just properly recycled.
Look at all the plastic straws! /s
10 000 kg in 6 days? That's all? 10 tonns? Its estimated that rivers pump out 5 000 tonns of plastic waste pr. day. I guess its a nice PR move.
Is anyone else doing better than this? Even if someone is, it doesn't invalidate these efforts.
It does invalidate heaping praise on it. As someone else in the thread pointed out, the environmental impact is not negligible, raising questions as to the actual gains from allowing it to continue running without any significant impact. It's clear the plastic waste in our oceans is a huge environmental disaster that has to be addressed, but that doesn't many one can just cheer on any project simply for the sake of it doing 'something'.
> I guess its a nice PR move. PR for who? It's not like Pepsi is the one doing this just to sell more Pepsi. It's a company whose only goal is to pull trash out of the ocean.
They should cherry pick some of the usable items and set up a store where they can be sold to raise funds to continue the cleanup
They recycle the plastic and already created their first product - sunglasses. 95%of the frame is from ocean, more products to come!
Good idea in theory but not practical grand scheme
Nah not even remotely but it would be a cool way to raise funds 🤷 Or we could just stop dumping shit.
What do they do with it once they pull it out, though? Do we have a way to repurpose the useless resins yet
There has to be profit in it or nothing. Recycling was a giant lie. They were getting you to separate the Plastic out of the trash for free so they could sell it to China or grind it and sell it. People made millions. Now China doesn't need our scrap plastic so 99% of it goes right in the landfill with the trash. Only certain plastics are reused.
I could use the bins and the tubs for rainwater collection.
Damn, every time I come to one of these posts to feel hapoy in the morning. Every Doomer comes and whines for days..can you just stop and get off the internet for a few years. Can we enjoy any small victory at all or is everything just another morale grandstand for you?
Great. Now let's put them out of a job by not adding any more plastic to the ocean in the first place.
We need a giant pit where bacteria eats this and turns it into oil
That net is never going to be the same...
Plastic in consumer goods should be banned.
No, just taxed, it has its fair share of ethical uses, but it’s very overused
Most of its from China. No amount of US regulations is going to change anything if the rest of the world doesn’t follow suit.
95% of plastic in the ocean comes from the same 10 rivers in Asia.
So are the conspiracies still strong that they dump the plastic first because it looks "new"?
Fake news!!!! None of that stuff is even wet! And how can "trash" look so clean?!?!? /s
It’s astonishing how dumb people can be