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Study: 8 Million Metric Tons of Plastic Dumped Into Oceans Annually

Posted by Soulskill on from the going-for-the-high-score dept.

hypnosec writes: According to a new study (abstract) that tracked marine debris from its source, roughly 8 million metric tons of plastic gets dumped into the world's oceans annually. Plastic waste is a global problem, and until now, there wasn't a comprehensive study that highlighted how much plastic waste was making it into the oceans. "The research also lists the world's 20 worst plastic polluters, from China to the United States, based on such factors as size of coastal population and national plastic production. According to the estimate, China tops the list, producing as much as 3.5 million metric tons of marine debris each year. The United States, which generates as much as 110,000 metric tons of marine debris a year, came in at No. 20."

17 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds like a business opportunity... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...go trolling for plastic, turn it into fuel or something else. We probably are reaching a point where oil exploration is going to remain diminished... a glut of current supply. With so much waste in our landfills and in the environment, we can just mine our waste for resources for a while.

    1. Re:Sounds like a business opportunity... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      The real problem *is* money.
      There's a fairly new technology out that uses plasma to melt and reduce landfill garbage into a non-toxic sludge which can then be processed into more useful stuff, the resulting heat from which can sustain the plasma reaction once it's started. The problem is it costs a lot to purchase and install. Landfills are *extremely* profitable businesses. I read not long ago that each truckload of waste driving out of manhattan is worth well over $10,000 in profit. One truck can probably make a couple of trips per day. Subtract a couple $100 for fuel and the driver's paltry salary and you can see how much of a cash cow it is.

    2. Re:Sounds like a business opportunity... by MickyTheIdiot · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Which is, yet again, a great example how every little thing in a society shouldn't be run on profit motive only. There are lots of things worth doing for the good of everyone that might lead to a fat cat getting a little less money but are still worth doing.

    3. Re:Sounds like a business opportunity... by taiwanjohn · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's been over a decade since I first saw thermal polymerization mentioned here. I've often wondered if it would be economical to build a ship around such a contraption in order to trawl through the great ocean gyres, scooping up plastic garbage, squeezing out the water, and rendering it down into some kind of fuel. I reckon the process could be made energy-positive, but whether it would be enough to turn a profit is a tougher question.

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  2. I have a solution by Iniamyen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Maybe retail stuff could be packaged in a simple cardboard box with biodegradable stuffing, instead of those stupid, stupid plastic clamshell containers that frustrate and then cut me when I try to get them open.

    1. Re:I have a solution by Higaran · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That won't work because it would be more expensive to package, so the the stores will close because the $1 item will be priced at $1.50 or $1.75, and people will stop buying krap they don't really need, or only use a couple of times a year.

    2. Re:I have a solution by c · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Online shops is the obvious place to enforce this. No packaging for simple stuff like cables, plain bags for non-breakable loose stuff, plain boxes for everything else. People are buying from pictures and reviews and shoplifting is a non-issue, so packaging only needs to be minimally functional. I think AmazonBasics products use this approach, and it'd be nice to see Amazon push it back a bit on their suppliers.

      Ideally, it should be the responsibility of the retailer to display the product attractively rather than the job of the package, but blame Walmart. They've done a pretty solid job of unloading a lot of traditional retailer jobs back on the manufacturers.

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    3. Re:I have a solution by Penguinisto · · Score: 4, Informative

      The clamshell packages weren't made for you the consumer... it was originally designed for the retailer to slow down shoplifting.

      After all, it's much harder to smuggle out a bigger-than-your-pocket-sized plastic container with a 64GB geek stick in it, than to simply smuggle out the geek stick itself. Being hard to open w/o damaging it prevents a shoplifter from just taking that 64GB geek stick out of its original package and putting it into a 8GB package (with an obviously cheaper price tag) before strolling to the checkout stand with it.

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  3. Re:Not that much by wierd_w · · Score: 3, Informative

    Assumption based on uniform distribution.
    Plastic distribution in the ocean is not homogeneous.

    Please read up on the "gyres" in the ocean. Places where a large corriolis current causes mechanical concentration of suspened particulates in the oceans. The concentration of suspended microparticles of decaying plastic are sufficiently high in these locations that it is affecting bottom-tier filter feeders, which suck in the plastic particles as if it were plankton, then concentrate it further inside their bodies, which are then consumed by higher trophic level fauna, with toxic results.

  4. Re:Not that much by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem is far worse than that. The plastic degrades into microscopic particulates which then enter the food chain. It affects *all* marine life--since it's all connected. They even discovered recently how much paint (from ship hulls) is floating around and being consumed by animals--which is also a problem.
    We need to stop dumping *anything* into the ocean--it's a primary source of food on our planet.

  5. Re:Not that much by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Informative

    I think the point here is surface area, not volume.

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  6. Re:Sure, 8 million tons, but that's the free marke by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, you're quite right. All that really counts is money, so providing someone is making money by not dealing with plastic trash entering waterways, that's good. Aquatic life, future generations, they don't really make us that much money, so fuck them, each and every one.

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  7. Simple solution by F34nor · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Put a deposit on everything sold. The company gets an interest free loan for the life of the product and people are motivated to pick up trash. Yes I know its complicated but microdots or chemical signatures make even plastic bags traceable.

  8. Re:Not that much by wierd_w · · Score: 4, Informative

    Because the excretory systems of simple invertebrates of this type (Corals, sponges, etc) preclude the existence of a dedicated GI tract as you would normally envision it. (A sponge is literally just two layers of cells that suck in water on one side, and push out water on the other, for instance.) They are unable to digest the particle, it stays large, and it cannot pass through. This is bad for the filter feeder, and toxic to the organism that consumes the filter feeder.

  9. Re:"Metric" tons? by Tobenisstinky · · Score: 3, Informative

    Because there's a few countries that haven't seen the shining light that is the metric system.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

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  10. Re:"Metric" tons? by netsavior · · Score: 4, Informative

    ton(UK) 2240lb
    ton(US) 2000lb
    Tonne or Metric ton 1000kg (2204.62lb)

    so yes, it matters.

  11. Re:Not that much by orgelspieler · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I only put about 1 microgram of E.coli (about 1,000,000 cells) into this five gallon jug of water. That's like 0.000000005% of the mass of the water. Do you want to drink it?