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Remote South Atlantic Islands Are Flooded With Plastic (smithsonianmag.com)
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.
If so, go after the offenders for littering.
I've checked the link in the article. I've sourced the original press release. Where are the pictures? If you want to make a difference with this type of news, show us the impacted shoreline, instead of one shot that might be a few square feet of beach. It seems ridiculous that this is all the visual impact that accompanies such a dire press release. It leaves the skeptic in me feeling that it's not as bad as it sounds.
Is there a better example of the Tragedy of the Commons than the worlds oceans?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
...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.
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.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
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-...
here https://www.bas.ac.uk/project/...
here https://www.bas.ac.uk/project/...
The problem is that some countries allow plastic waste in their rivers.
For example: Five Asian Countries Dump More Plastic Into Oceans Than Anyone Else Combined: How You Can Help (Apr 21, 2018)
We just need some really big plastic bags to put all this in.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
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 an Asian, so this is not about race, just about facts).