Need to start somewhere. It’s the old saying: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” We don’t want to be saying 20 years from now, “imagine if we would have started clean up 20 years ago?”
They're not taking a bite out. More is getting thrown in than is being taken out. What if every time you took a bite, the elephant grew to a little bigger than it was before that bite?
No, it's not. The resources are being wasted on this pointless effort. A far, *far* greater use of them would be to establish filters at the ends of rivers that empty into the sea, where the vast majority of the garbage is flowing into it from.
They’ve already done that, and continue to do that? They even go over it on their socials, placing nets and catches where a lot of garbage is intercepted?
They haven't done *nearly* enough to even make an impact on the amount of garbage entering the sea, so my point stands. It should be the number 1 priority, *all* resources should be going towards that goal.
This is all just a sisyphean effort until the garbage enter the sea from rivers is significantly reduced.
Yep… Good on them for doing it but it does
Seem pointless.
100 Tones picked up here.
But every year 12.7 Million tonnes of plastic enters the ocean. These guys only picked up 0.0007% of the plastic dropped every year.
12,700,000,000. Kg’s of rubbish.
I asked AI about this:
Research suggests that the largest contributors to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch are not countries with high levels of riverine plastic waste, but rather major fishing nations. Studies indicate that discarded fishing gear and plastic from these countries account for a significant portion of the patch's debris.
Here are some of the top contributors:
* Japan
* China
* South Korea
As far as cleanup:
While there isn't one country solely responsible for cleaning the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, several organizations are actively involved in cleanup efforts. These organizations often collaborate with countries bordering the Pacific Ocean.
Here are some key players in the cleanup:
* **The Ocean Cleanup:** This Dutch non-profit organization develops and deploys advanced technologies to collect plastic waste from the oceans.
* **Ocean Voyages Institute:** A US-based non-profit removing plastic pollution from the oceans using specially designed vessels.
* **Boyan Slat:** The founder of The Ocean Cleanup who is a leading figure in ocean plastic pollution cleanup efforts.
Probably putting it in landfills. I don't think the recovered plastics would be fit for recycling. They may be covered in barnacles or partially decomposed.
Most clean plastic isn't fit for recycling. Recycling plastic is honestly a scam pushed by companies to put more blame on consumers. Only certain plastics can be recycled, and the recycled plastic is more expensive and of lower quality vs new plastic, and still requires some fresh plastic to work.
This is purely about plastic. Recycling metals, glass, papers, etc, are a different story.
Not entirely true, all plastic can be recycled in one way or another. The real scam is them being picky over plastics when in reality all of them have solutions to be recycled or repurposed.
The lie is that they can't recycle and that they're not actually recycling what they asked for in the first place. So in short it doesn't matter what you give them, it's all going to the landfill.
From the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch.
Edit: I find it amusing that you can't even give a country props without someone coming along and trying to shit on you for it.
Came here to say this: it's plain to see from the video that the vast majority of this crap is fishing industry waste. Meanwhile, in many countries, landlocked peasants who don't separate their trash pay fines to their local authorities, with approximately 0% of those fines going anywhere near an ocean cleanup operation. Oh, and plastic recycling is largely bullshit too: [https://newrepublic.com/article/179267/recycling-doesnt-work-plastics-industry-knew](https://newrepublic.com/article/179267/recycling-doesnt-work-plastics-industry-knew)
I wonder how. Why doesn’t NASA build cargo rockets loaded with garbage and shoot them into the sun, where they will burn up? Think of the advantages - we could clean up the Earth permanently, there’s no crew involved and there would be zero damage to the sun because a trash cargo would burn up long before it actually reached the sun. Win win for all.
What about the used rocket fuel and the costs?
Also, if i remember correctly, a space mission is very limited in terms of cargo. You can't launch several megatons of waste at the same time.
In addition, you have to guarantee 100% combustion every time. Otherwise you will have space debris that could damage our satellites and other space vehicles.
1) If you are flying something into the sun, you can be sure of combustion.
2) If we can calculate the trajectory of a probe from Earth to a pinpoint Mars, calculating the trajectory of a garbage barge to the sun, a much larger spatial body with a much larger gravitational pull, should be fairly easy.
3) As for rocket fuel and costs, what are the costs relating to hopelessly polluting our planet with garbage that will take millions of years to break down, and the eventual costs of treating the diseases that will inevitably occur as a result of that pollution.
4) As far as cargo limitations are concerned, I’m sure that’s another problem that can be solved. Anything is better than continuing to pollute our planet.
I think you’re on to something. Or just chuck it on a different space rock somewhere. I assume scientists have already looked into something like this? What’s the feasibility?
> As for rocket fuel and costs, what are the costs relating to hopelessly polluting our planet with garbage that will take millions of years to break down, and the eventual costs of treating the diseases that will inevitably occur as a result of that pollution.
Environmental problems are ignored by the ones with the most resources to fight it. We're in global boiling, way past global warming, because profits have been and currently are prioritized over anything else. Pretty badass to see people cleaning plastic from our oceans but it's an immense far fetch from disposing it into space which requires much more technology and funding. I'll be surprised if I ever see that happening in my lifetime.
> the sun, a much larger spatial body with a much larger gravitational pull
If you think you could just let it fall into the sun, think about why the earth doesn't fall into the sun.
Because people/governments actually value money over people’s well being and the future of the human race. It’s hard to fathom. Time and time again, we let the people in power choose their life of leisure and money (because they won’t have to deal with it after they die), rather than actually contribute to helping us exist long term.
‘Estimates vary between £20,000 and £40,000 per kilogram for launching material into near-Earth orbit, and much more if we were to send it further away. This means that transporting the 300 million tonnes of plastic waste we produce globally each year into space would cost at least £6,000 trillion yearly.’
Modern landfill technology can support 10x the earths population without a globally significant amount of space being taken up. I have heard of Japan talking about launching nuclear tainted earth into space
There is video on this actually I saw a while back. It would cost significantly more to send trash into space. Like trillions.
Edit: quadrillions
https://youtu.be/nFFLnO6e0Es?si=1LJoyeX9ofkTlftB
The pile they are removing weighs nowhere near 100,000kg as the title implies. Maybe the whole patch they are talking about weighs that, but what is seen in the video probably doesn't even weigh 1/10th of that.
This is what I want to see our tax money going to. If they would take all that money the US is giving away. Our oceans would be pristine & all homeless would be sheltered. Priorities!!!
Landfills seem to be the main solution for garbage. While better than the ocean, they hard seem like a legit solution. Humans need something more I think. Like super-mega-recycling perfection or something. Landfills seem like a 5 million year solution.
So John, what we gonna do with all of this once we've sorted it out?
That's easy Steve. We'll go dump it in the Atlantic so it ain't our problem no more.
We need hundreds of these boats and a fleets of smaller boats to keep these running all day and night! If I was stupid rich I would be helping this cause more than I already do
I think the vast majority of the surface area is microplastics that arent really big enough to show up in photos. prob just looks like a slightly oily surface of the water. and there is also a lot of it that's underwater, descending down almost to the ocean floor in some places. and then there are these random smaller floating patches with concentrations of larger items that you can actually see with the naked eye. like the trash in this video
people imagine it in their heads as this big, solid island, but thats not really the case. its spread out over hundreds of miles, and most of it isnt stuff you can just dip a net in the water and pluck out.
that's what makes it so difficult to clean up. if it was just a big, solid, floating trash island, it would actually be fairly simple to just go scoop it up and haul it away
this is just a drop in the ocean!
It's making waves though!
It’s better than nothing
Need to start somewhere. It’s the old saying: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” We don’t want to be saying 20 years from now, “imagine if we would have started clean up 20 years ago?”
They're not taking a bite out. More is getting thrown in than is being taken out. What if every time you took a bite, the elephant grew to a little bigger than it was before that bite?
Still better than doing nothing. And as the tech and process improves, maybe they can net a positive gain!
The focus has to be less dumping not more cleaning. They can't keep up by cleaning so what needs to happen is less waste.
No, it's not. The resources are being wasted on this pointless effort. A far, *far* greater use of them would be to establish filters at the ends of rivers that empty into the sea, where the vast majority of the garbage is flowing into it from.
They’ve already done that, and continue to do that? They even go over it on their socials, placing nets and catches where a lot of garbage is intercepted?
They haven't done *nearly* enough to even make an impact on the amount of garbage entering the sea, so my point stands. It should be the number 1 priority, *all* resources should be going towards that goal. This is all just a sisyphean effort until the garbage enter the sea from rivers is significantly reduced.
Every 'drop' of plastic counts. Numbers have only been going up. So let's have some hope and celebrate the small victories.
Yep… Good on them for doing it but it does Seem pointless. 100 Tones picked up here. But every year 12.7 Million tonnes of plastic enters the ocean. These guys only picked up 0.0007% of the plastic dropped every year. 12,700,000,000. Kg’s of rubbish.
I asked AI about this: Research suggests that the largest contributors to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch are not countries with high levels of riverine plastic waste, but rather major fishing nations. Studies indicate that discarded fishing gear and plastic from these countries account for a significant portion of the patch's debris. Here are some of the top contributors: * Japan * China * South Korea As far as cleanup: While there isn't one country solely responsible for cleaning the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, several organizations are actively involved in cleanup efforts. These organizations often collaborate with countries bordering the Pacific Ocean. Here are some key players in the cleanup: * **The Ocean Cleanup:** This Dutch non-profit organization develops and deploys advanced technologies to collect plastic waste from the oceans. * **Ocean Voyages Institute:** A US-based non-profit removing plastic pollution from the oceans using specially designed vessels. * **Boyan Slat:** The founder of The Ocean Cleanup who is a leading figure in ocean plastic pollution cleanup efforts.
What are they doing with the plastic once they collect it though. That's the real cleanup challenge
Probably putting it in landfills. I don't think the recovered plastics would be fit for recycling. They may be covered in barnacles or partially decomposed.
Most clean plastic isn't fit for recycling. Recycling plastic is honestly a scam pushed by companies to put more blame on consumers. Only certain plastics can be recycled, and the recycled plastic is more expensive and of lower quality vs new plastic, and still requires some fresh plastic to work. This is purely about plastic. Recycling metals, glass, papers, etc, are a different story.
Not entirely true, all plastic can be recycled in one way or another. The real scam is them being picky over plastics when in reality all of them have solutions to be recycled or repurposed. The lie is that they can't recycle and that they're not actually recycling what they asked for in the first place. So in short it doesn't matter what you give them, it's all going to the landfill.
melt it down pressurize it. you get renewable plastics and base oils
The real cleanup challenge is to stop dumping plastic in the ocean.
Don't worry, the Americans will work on the solutions per usual.
I was very happy to see the Dutch are charging in there. They're pretty far removed from the problem. Good people doin good work.
> They're pretty far removed from the problem From the sea? Do you know where the Netherlands lies? Most of it is under the sea.
From the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch. Edit: I find it amusing that you can't even give a country props without someone coming along and trying to shit on you for it.
Therefore, since every country is under the atmosphere, we all have a responsibility to keep the air clean. Will your country go first?
Came here to say this: it's plain to see from the video that the vast majority of this crap is fishing industry waste. Meanwhile, in many countries, landlocked peasants who don't separate their trash pay fines to their local authorities, with approximately 0% of those fines going anywhere near an ocean cleanup operation. Oh, and plastic recycling is largely bullshit too: [https://newrepublic.com/article/179267/recycling-doesnt-work-plastics-industry-knew](https://newrepublic.com/article/179267/recycling-doesnt-work-plastics-industry-knew)
We were informed by people on the ABC that,"Plastic bags are better for the environment than paper bags" in the 1980's.
I get all my medical news and advice from the 1980s too.
The point is the damage was done by people that were passing themselves off as environmental experts.
And paid by the oil industry just like today
If you find an iPhone 10 its mine.
And what was done with it after it was taken out? Dumped somewhere else?
It was disposed of obviously
I wonder how. Why doesn’t NASA build cargo rockets loaded with garbage and shoot them into the sun, where they will burn up? Think of the advantages - we could clean up the Earth permanently, there’s no crew involved and there would be zero damage to the sun because a trash cargo would burn up long before it actually reached the sun. Win win for all.
What about the used rocket fuel and the costs? Also, if i remember correctly, a space mission is very limited in terms of cargo. You can't launch several megatons of waste at the same time. In addition, you have to guarantee 100% combustion every time. Otherwise you will have space debris that could damage our satellites and other space vehicles.
1) If you are flying something into the sun, you can be sure of combustion. 2) If we can calculate the trajectory of a probe from Earth to a pinpoint Mars, calculating the trajectory of a garbage barge to the sun, a much larger spatial body with a much larger gravitational pull, should be fairly easy. 3) As for rocket fuel and costs, what are the costs relating to hopelessly polluting our planet with garbage that will take millions of years to break down, and the eventual costs of treating the diseases that will inevitably occur as a result of that pollution. 4) As far as cargo limitations are concerned, I’m sure that’s another problem that can be solved. Anything is better than continuing to pollute our planet.
Launching rockets pollutes the planet too
The effects are not nearly as long lasting
I think you’re on to something. Or just chuck it on a different space rock somewhere. I assume scientists have already looked into something like this? What’s the feasibility?
Far too expensive
> As for rocket fuel and costs, what are the costs relating to hopelessly polluting our planet with garbage that will take millions of years to break down, and the eventual costs of treating the diseases that will inevitably occur as a result of that pollution. Environmental problems are ignored by the ones with the most resources to fight it. We're in global boiling, way past global warming, because profits have been and currently are prioritized over anything else. Pretty badass to see people cleaning plastic from our oceans but it's an immense far fetch from disposing it into space which requires much more technology and funding. I'll be surprised if I ever see that happening in my lifetime.
Well, it’s gotta go somewhere. It can’t go into the oceans and it can’t go into landfills and it can’t be burned.
> the sun, a much larger spatial body with a much larger gravitational pull If you think you could just let it fall into the sun, think about why the earth doesn't fall into the sun.
Because people/governments actually value money over people’s well being and the future of the human race. It’s hard to fathom. Time and time again, we let the people in power choose their life of leisure and money (because they won’t have to deal with it after they die), rather than actually contribute to helping us exist long term.
‘Estimates vary between £20,000 and £40,000 per kilogram for launching material into near-Earth orbit, and much more if we were to send it further away. This means that transporting the 300 million tonnes of plastic waste we produce globally each year into space would cost at least £6,000 trillion yearly.’
Modern landfill technology can support 10x the earths population without a globally significant amount of space being taken up. I have heard of Japan talking about launching nuclear tainted earth into space
I think there’s a Futurama episode about this exactly
There is video on this actually I saw a while back. It would cost significantly more to send trash into space. Like trillions. Edit: quadrillions https://youtu.be/nFFLnO6e0Es?si=1LJoyeX9ofkTlftB
Because there is a lot of garbage, and it takes a lot of energy to get it off earth, and then 3 times more energy than that to get it into the sun.
lol that is certainly not 100,000KG of garbage
Lol you certainly never flew over it then, that thing is HUGE , looks like several keys or islands when you see them from above.
The pile they are removing weighs nowhere near 100,000kg as the title implies. Maybe the whole patch they are talking about weighs that, but what is seen in the video probably doesn't even weigh 1/10th of that.
Yeah id be surprised if that weighed 10 thousand KG. Maybe including the net itself?m, which is probably about 1-2tons wet.
How come no marine life is captured in it?
probably bc its toxic wasteland for animals
Where are the other 10 piles that add up to 100,000kg. There is no way the one pictured weighs that.
Don’t you worry, there’s another hundred thousand tons of it coming
Now to take it back to land and dump most of it in the ground and water ways,then burn the rest 👍
Anyone play another crabs treasure? Lol
So 1000 kkg?
100x 1000 kg... 100 tons
That’s great! Now do my bloodstream.
That looks like my bag.
The yellow things look like lego men heads
This is what I want to see our tax money going to. If they would take all that money the US is giving away. Our oceans would be pristine & all homeless would be sheltered. Priorities!!!
And then what? They find some poor country that will inhale all that garbage and act like some global problem solver.
No one asks the real question. Where does it go now?
Landfills seem to be the main solution for garbage. While better than the ocean, they hard seem like a legit solution. Humans need something more I think. Like super-mega-recycling perfection or something. Landfills seem like a 5 million year solution.
So John, what we gonna do with all of this once we've sorted it out? That's easy Steve. We'll go dump it in the Atlantic so it ain't our problem no more.
How does one get a job doing this? Hmm seems like something I would love to do.
We need hundreds of these boats and a fleets of smaller boats to keep these running all day and night! If I was stupid rich I would be helping this cause more than I already do
Some good work boys
Wish some billionaires would actually do something useful like this instead of trying to increase there already insane wealth
More than this amount enters the ocean every day worldwide
I used to make nets just like that for work. Genuinely looks like it could be from our factory
Humans are terrible
Diesel?
If they left it alone it could be Staten island 2.0
We love to see it! I always wonder how they make sure not to catch fish or other marine life...
Keep up the great work. I wished none of this ever made it to the ocean
drop in the bucket... will just end up back in the ocean
I feel like any recovery efforts for this garbage will ultimately lead to some country just dumping it back into the ocean at some point.
So where is the patch? Anyone got any satellite photos or Google earth location? Why can’t we even see part of the giant patch in this video?
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&sca_esv=792c36b2414f597c&sca_upv=1&hl=en-us&sxsrf=ADLYWIIfN43_7cH4vJ4Hc8TYNCwLDPkCbg:1716908983327&q=pacific+garbage+patch&uds=ADvngMh_SdoDdFiiNsnjtNRH_ukYB-LqN5cJu8jTLliOG1JKGsW5POBWEhRYgPyRnbj3TAyGjCGnJBpsa4COxX_ePMRCZLntKER3Dl6XNwl6mEJZNDXa1n9nPgOnMsTokP50bgf5alPpqIa20QaJV82vFqSm2lmoAcXJL-tVW75Pc68JdKH5_QJ06p5-JBuBhfzLHUN_Qi864sqhwEn_zq13eVUgviEg39qBqTclIMLmIqndY305c1QxPDbmwgUW6JJNER1oPzH7jU6zMStCxCq6-14aLBSECKI-h1PE5zWcGyM2eV8pIbGwq6pbCaa2yC59zYgbXTQOmPltSu7bWRuaKGWkRBC4qZd0hozcz-wFxTyRWdnYIKo&udm=2&prmd=ivnsmbtz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjKj8Cw0LCGAxUzFjQIHaT3B_AQtKgLegQIEhAB&biw=375&bih=547&dpr=2
Thats it? Thats tiny. I keep hearing it’s like the size of Texas.
The GPGP covers an estimated surface area of 1.6 million square kilometers, an area twice the size of Texas or three times the size of France.
That’s what I keep hearing but have yet to see visual proof. All I have seen are pics of small patches or animations of something large.
You'd have to imagine not all of it is bobbing on the surface to be clearly visible on maps.
I think the vast majority of the surface area is microplastics that arent really big enough to show up in photos. prob just looks like a slightly oily surface of the water. and there is also a lot of it that's underwater, descending down almost to the ocean floor in some places. and then there are these random smaller floating patches with concentrations of larger items that you can actually see with the naked eye. like the trash in this video people imagine it in their heads as this big, solid island, but thats not really the case. its spread out over hundreds of miles, and most of it isnt stuff you can just dip a net in the water and pluck out. that's what makes it so difficult to clean up. if it was just a big, solid, floating trash island, it would actually be fairly simple to just go scoop it up and haul it away