Remote South Atlantic Islands Are Flooded With Plastic (smithsonianmag.com) 83
Thirty years ago, the ocean waters surrounding British islands in the South Atlantic were near-pristine. But plastic waste has increased a hundredfold since then, and is ten times greater than it was a decade ago. From a report: The islands of the British Overseas Territories in the South Atlantic, including St. Helena, East Falkland, and Ascension Island, are so tiny and remote that most people don't even realize they exist. For centuries, that kept them relative clean and pristine, but in recent decades discarded straws, fishing nets, and millions of bits of degraded plastic have begun washing up on their shores. Now, reports Marlene Cimons at Nexus Media, that pollution is getting even worse. A new study in the journal Current Biology shows that plastic trash on the beaches and in the ocean has increased tenfold in the just the last decade and a hundredfold over the last three decades.
During four research cruises between 2013 and 2018, researchers from the British Antarctic Survey and nine other organizations aboard the RMS James Clark Ross sought to quantify the plastic around the islands. The crew took samples of marine debris from the water's surface, the water column, the seabed and the beaches. They also investigated plastic ingestion in 2,243 animals comprised of 26 different species ranging across the marine food web from plankton to apex predators, like seabirds; all were found to consume plastic at high rates. What they found was plastic, and lots of it. About 90 percent of all the contaminants they analyzed were made of plastic, which abundant in the ocean, on the beach and inside the animals.
During four research cruises between 2013 and 2018, researchers from the British Antarctic Survey and nine other organizations aboard the RMS James Clark Ross sought to quantify the plastic around the islands. The crew took samples of marine debris from the water's surface, the water column, the seabed and the beaches. They also investigated plastic ingestion in 2,243 animals comprised of 26 different species ranging across the marine food web from plankton to apex predators, like seabirds; all were found to consume plastic at high rates. What they found was plastic, and lots of it. About 90 percent of all the contaminants they analyzed were made of plastic, which abundant in the ocean, on the beach and inside the animals.
Can the waste be tracked to origin? (Score:2, Insightful)
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When it comes down to money, political support for doing the right thing magically disappears. It would take a massive effort to shame the world into being better stewards, though I sadly agree that's where we have to start now.
Once upon a time there was a body of international countries that United to try to accomplish what was in the interests of its members, but it's been all but gutted functionally now and serves as a false veneer of its former mission.
It's very disheartening to realize that there rea
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"86% of this global input coming from asia"
https://www.theoceancleanup.com/sources/
But hey, plastic straws are the devil, right?
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No, most of the ocean trash goes down third world rivers.
Where are all the pictures (Score:5, Insightful)
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the skeptic in me feeling that it's not as bad as it sounds.
Millions of bits of degraded plastic should create a photo-op.
But so would hundreds of thousands, which is what we had a decade ago.
And tens of thousands three decades ago.
Most people get upset if they see tens of pieces of crap on the beach. But tens of thousands, not so much? Tens of thousands of bits of degraded plastic is "near pristine".
I'm a bit concerned when the beginning of a story talks in hyperbolic terms. ("Near pristine", "flooded".) It is nice that they start using actual numbers, even i
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Re:Where are all the pictures (Score:5, Informative)
Despite the common public image of islands of floating rubbish, its low density (4 particles per cubic meter) prevents detection by satellite imagery, or even by casual boaters or divers in the area. It consists primarily of an increase in suspended, often microscopic, particles in the upper water column.
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Look up pictures from space of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Is this what they teach in modern geography classes? That the Great Pacific Garbage Dump is in the waters surrounding the British Isles in the south Atlantic?
Then tell me that it isn't as bad as they are saying.
Someone else managed to provide a link to a picture from the actual place. Yes, it looks bad. But I'd say that 1/100 of that amount would also be bad. The scientists are calling 1/100 "nearly pristine". I do not think that word means what they think it means.
The other pix, from Antarctica, also aren't from the British Isles. You can't prove that the w
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No moron. The fact that the Pacific moron is poluted that bad.
This is a story about the British Isles in the South Atlantic, not the Pacific Ocean. It is about beaches that were "near pristine" thirty years ago, not the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The comment was about not having pictures of the plastic on beaches of the British Isles in the South Atlantic. It had nothing to do with the "Pacific moron". I don't know what the "Pacific moron" is, I usually call it the "Pacific ocean", but I'm not a moron. I can tell Pacific from Atlantic, at least.
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https://www.google.com/maps/@-16.0039275,-5.7149202,3a,75y,73.24h,53.95t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sAF1QipPFuqoeAf4r3BBco3ARtu0a8D6QxvM5d62YWTSf!2e10!3e11!7i7776!8i3888
Google streetview. bits of colored plastic all over the beach. not covering the entire surface area but clearly visible.
Here are all the pictures (Score:5, Informative)
I've checked the link in the article. I've sourced the original press release. Where are the pictures?
here https://phys.org/news/2018-10-... [phys.org]
here https://www.bas.ac.uk/project/... [bas.ac.uk]
here https://www.bas.ac.uk/project/... [bas.ac.uk]
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Somehow, your comment is modded Informative, 5 when it doesn't answer OP's actual question.
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Plastic pellets #nurdles on the beach at Sandy Bay, St Helena island, South Atlantic Ocean. Believed to be part of the spillage in Durban harbour, South Africa on 10 October 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyjgupjJRj0
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Tragedy of the Commons (Score:4, Insightful)
Is there a better example of the Tragedy of the Commons than the worlds oceans?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Perhaps the atmosphere..
Do you believe this is important? If so... (Score:5, Interesting)
...we should immediately bring the full front of US Foreign Policy against the five countries that put out more than the rest of the world combined: China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam [pri.org].
China might be a bit of a realpolitik pass (or at least warning) given its economic position and (more validly) the fact that it has the highest population in the world. Everyone else? Tell them to knock it off, and then go bomb them if they don't.
Think that's too harsh, but the US needs to ban straws? That's a clear sign that you're simply not serious about the issue and are more interested in meaningless, performative wokeness than you are in a utilitarian solution.
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Leaving the US out of your proposed solution makes it pretty much meaningless, we are definitely contributors to the problem and do not recycle our own materials. It's retarded to say this can be solved without pointing fingers at ourselves also.
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https://www.earthday.org/2018/... [earthday.org]
The USA is at the very bottom of that list ranked #20. So sure, we're not innocent. Ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the plastic pouring into the oceans is from other countries isn't going to help the situation though.
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Yes, but how much of the plastic dumped from those other countries is from garbage generated in the US, then shipped overseas?
(hint: if we're at the top of the list for consumption.. it has to go somewhere.)
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If China decides to dump the materials that we sold to them for recycling into the ocean, that is only tangentially our fault. However if you want to stick by that then the blame should probably shift right back to China because much of that plastic waste started as a product made in China and shipped to the USA as an export. But maybe we should go back even further and lay the blame at the feet of whoever pumped the oil out of the ground that was then used to make the plastics.
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They'll get sick of their rivers catching fire soon enough.
Environmentalism requires a level of prosperity.
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Think that's too harsh, but the US needs to ban straws?
Yes the US needs to ban straws, so does the rest of the west for a couple of reasons. Firstly by leading by example some of the culprits are actually following: There are plastic bag bans in several western countries already, guess what, Asian countries are following suit.
That and you can get back on your high horse when you stop exporting your plastic waste to Asia.
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Who's responsible for all this mess? (Score:1)
Ironically, it's the communists and poor-as-fuck proletariat.
The rich capitalists want clean communities, and have therefore built massive recycling and waste-management industries.
Long live Capitalism.
How does the plastic get there? Waste in rivers. (Score:5, Informative)
For example: Five Asian Countries Dump More Plastic Into Oceans Than Anyone Else Combined: How You Can Help [forbes.com] (Apr 21, 2018)
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I know there are people who want to blame "The West" for everything including this plastic issue, but I just returned from SE Asia and I can say first-hand that the use of plastic *anything* is so widespread over there. They wrap their plastic in plastic, and then wrap it in plastic again. And the idea of proper garbage disposal does not exist. EVERYONE opens the window and just throws it out.
This is not an issue "The West" has caused. This is an issue the SE Asians have caused. (P.S. I am married to
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and yellow fever sexual fetishism is fucking disgusting.
My favorite kind of porn is definitely not disgusting.
Re: disgusting yellow fever sexual fetish is unrel (Score:2)
It is if you're a third wave feminist or a 19th century Victorian.
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If nobody lives there ... (Score:2)
...why not use it as garbage catcher? ,that has to travel to a spot where there's much plastic, to collect it.
They built an expensive boat and released a couple of days ago
Here the plastic comes to them by itself. Why not use it and burn it in emission-free ovens to generate electricity.
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yeah in 1982 the Argentinians thought no-one lived there too. Big mistake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Sounds like an opportunity (Score:2)
Sheesh people, you see challenges; I see opportunities ... it washes up there? Scoop it up off that very beach then and dispose of it properly. Win!
Li'l Lisa's Patented Animal Slurry (Score:2)
Sounds like an untapped resource to me.
And you could probably get the greenies to pay you for cleaning it up while you sell the material back to the Chinese plastic factories.
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Mixed plastic scrap has near zero value. Only value is as fuel, which requires it to be burned mixed with something that burns hotter (gas, oil or coal).
This could easily be solved (Score:3)
Las Malvinas son Argentinas (Score:2)
Maybe the Argentines can clean it up, since they say the Falklands are part of their territory...