SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for Sulla
A recent study paints a sobering picture about the state of our oceans.
According to the paper, published last month in Environmental Science and Technology, rivers deposit up to 4 million metric tonnes of plastic into the sea -- and about 95 per cent of that comes from just 10 waterways.
Previous studies suggested about 67 per cent of plastic in the oceans came from 20 rivers. For this study, researchers out of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research and the Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Science used a larger data set to reach their findings, sampling from 79 sites along 57 rivers around the world.
Eight of the 10 rivers are in Asia. [...]
- Yangtze River, Yellow Sea, Asia
- Indus River, Arabian Sea, Asia
- Yellow River (Huang He), Yellow Sea, Asia
- Hai River, Yellow Sea, Asia
- Nile, Mediterranean Sea, Africa
- Meghna/Bramaputra/Ganges, Bay of Bengal, Asia
- Pearl River (Zhujiang), South China Sea, Asia
- Amur River (Heilong Jiang), Sea of Okhotsk, Asia
- Niger River, Gulf of Guinea, Africa
- Mekong River, South China Sea, Asia
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
A Recent Study Show 95% of Plastic in the Sea Comes From Just 10 Rivers
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 58 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
TOO BAD YOU CAN'T BUY a voodoo globe so that you could make the earth spin
real fast and freak everybody out.
-- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 10 2017, @10:49PM (5 children)
That was not the problem, the real problem was that other countries had lax regulations. The only disturbing part is that we allow sociopaths to run industries.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday November 10 2017, @11:23PM
Sociopath may therefore be another word for "shareholder" as much as for CEO.
Profit/dividend is everything: customers, the environment, the employees be damned!
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2017, @12:31AM (2 children)
We control our own regulations. Unless you propose to invade China, we don't control Chinese regulations. The same goes for India and Africa, the other places mentioned for this pollution.
We can choose moderate regulation, or we can effectively choose weak regulation by making ourselves uncompetitive. When we try to choose strong regulation, we just end up with pollution and jobs being produced elsewhere. Business mostly will not do this work in places with strong regulation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2017, @04:21AM
And this is the tragedy of the commons that makes me listen to nationalists every now and then.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Saturday November 11 2017, @05:40PM
We control our own regulations.
Yes, we do. We could use those regulations to ban the practice of outsourcing all our pollution.
Of course, this is all begging the question anyway. The only people getting a pass on global pollution treaties these days is the US.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 11 2017, @06:18AM
I know! We could allow non-sociopaths to run industries too! Another problem solved by the internet.