Plastic to outweigh fish in oceans by 2050, study warns

originally posted by: SaturnFX
Actually you will find most civilized nations have pretty strict environmental laws. so, what can we do with 3rd world nations that have no laws. I dont think you can pin this on any party or political ideology in the west. Pretty much everyone likes our oceans and waterways.

I think technology is gonna have to help us out here. innovation made the mess, innovation will sort it out. watercraft drones can be deployed to collect and recycle all the junk..will take a few generations of development for such waterbots, but it will be done

I was pretty shocked by the numbers because I thought we had advanced pretty far in terms of recycling, but apparently only 14% of plastics are reused globally.

The report does single out Asia as the largest contributor (80%) to plastic in the oceans, but I think rather than the blame game the biggest take home message here is just how much damage humans can do as a species when we don't pick up after ourselves. Seems a lot of people still want to pretend this isn't true.

I do agree we have the technology to fix it, but it's a question of motivation, aka money. Not a lot of profit in cleaning up the ocean, while there's tons of incentive to just keep churning out the junk that's filling it up.

originally posted by: mc_squared

"In a business-as-usual scenario, the ocean is expected to contain one tonne of plastic for every three tonnes of fish by 2025, and by 2050, more plastics than fish," it said.

Plastic to outweigh fish in oceans by 2050, study warns

I don't even know what to say to this, it's so insane.

The first thing I thought of is how often you see some anti-science, quasi-religious comment on how "arrogant" environmentalists apparently are for thinking puny humans can actually affect the planet on a global scale. I'd say putting more plastic in the ocean than fish fits that criteria pretty well though.

It's weird reading about this too from a meeting of the world's economic elites, who generally depend on our gross consumerism to make themselves economic elites in the first place. At least someone there is paying attention I guess...more than you can say for most people, sadly.

I doubt it, they are forgetting about the bloop, the leviathan, the Nordic serpent, and the kraken. No way plastic can outweigh all of them.

This company should get more funding.
www.theoceancleanup.com...

a reply to: mc_squared


Ummm...it kinda makes one wonder...if ocean level rise is more due to suspended plastic...water displacement...rather than melting glacial ice...




YouSir

a reply to: mc_squared

another reason is over fishing. reduce the population of fish and it is very easy to replace it with trash.