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90% of plastic polluting our oceans comes from just 10 rivers
Sanguine:
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Over the last decade we have become increasingly alarmed at the amount of plastic in our oceans.
More than 8 million tons of it ends up in the ocean every year. If we continue to pollute at this rate, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050.
But where does all this plastic waste come from?
Most of it is washed into the ocean by rivers. And 90% of it comes from just 10 of them, according to a study.
By analyzing the waste found in the rivers and surrounding landscape, researchers were able to estimate that just 10 river systems carry 90% of the plastic that ends up in the ocean.
Eight of them are in Asia: the Yangtze; Indus; Yellow; Hai He; Ganges; Pearl; Amur; Mekong; and two in Africa – the Nile and the Niger.
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https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plastic-polluting-our-oceans-comes-from-just-10-rivers/?fbclid=IwAR1XPZvTRi-HoUHZeefRoAL3KvRJX8V3-3FSG0eTKk6u9W-m-H4z6YrmNBk
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Some of these countries are used as dumps for plastic.
TomSea:
--- Quote from: Sanguine on June 12, 2019, 10:22:20 pm ---Some of these countries are used as dumps for plastic.
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That's an important statement because I was just hearing about this today.
That Trudeau fellow seems to be guiding some sort of effort on plastics in Canada, I don't know much else about it. Maybe they are going to legislate the use of plastics. But this is a good heads up for everyone, I should try to just use the same water bottle again and again basically.
Bill Cipher:
Interesting. And suggestive.
Wingnut:
--- Quote from: Bill Cipher on June 12, 2019, 10:53:03 pm ---Interesting. And suggestive.
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But with merit. Correct?
Bill Cipher:
--- Quote from: The Ghost on June 12, 2019, 10:54:29 pm ---But with merit. Correct?
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Yes, if I understand what you mean.
To me, it suggests that environmentalists would get much more bang for their buck if they stopped trying to demonize every last little piece of plastic in the developed world, and instead focused on getting the developing world to build up a proper trash collection infrastructure.
A lot of the plastic in those countries ends up in the environment because there is little in the way of a comprehensive trash collection system, so trash just gets dumped in the open and in empty lots, where it ends up getting carried to the rivers by rainfall and wind.
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