Clean Oceans Campaign Goal: Remove 1 Million Pounds of Plastic

Sometimes we have options in packaging. I try to choose glass. My city has multiple culmingled recycling stations and they are popular.

@Dave  wrote: "Ok. My question is, once this crap is removed what happens to it since we humans do such a horrible job of recycling and proper disposal and we refuse to decrease consumption? I want clean oceans as much as the next person but as usual we will not deal with the source of the problem." Ciao Professore! Well, you know, there's this handy dandy information tool called a "Search Engine." Don't know about the "Engine" part so maybe it should be called "Information Searcher." Anyway. It's readily available on computers, tablets, and smartphones. If you learn how to use it, you can get some answers to evaluate. But there are no guarantees. It's up to you to ask follow-up questions and then whether to make a plan and follow it. I like two sites that address many aspects of your most excellent questions. 1. Tips to Use Less Plastic - Green Education Foundation | GEF | Sustainability Education http://www.greeneducationfoundation.org/nationalgreenweeksub/waste-reduction-tips/tips-to-use-less-plastic.html It has some ideas I can easily follow, others not so much. I bought a bunch of steel straws, including a set in a pocket-size case to carry the straws around. But they do get kinda of funky after a while if you don't rinse them. But, no more paper or plastic straws! 2. Next is "What to Do With Non-Recyclable Plastic" https://www.greenmatters.com/p/non-recyclable-plastic This page helps you learn about different types of plastics, the levels of toxicity, and how to handle them. Professore, believe it or not, there have been people acquiring and sharing knowledge about plastics for many decades. I have a good friend who went off to get a doctorate in the late eighties to work on systemic environmental issues. Last I heard, she was working on the ocean plastic problems. I used to make fun of her getting her PhD in waste management. Who knew?! While living in NYC we were required to do lots of recycling. Drove some people nuts, myself included at times. Cardboard and newspaper in one bag, plastic bottles in another bag, and, ugh, table scraps for composting in another special container. Disgusting! My wife, however, has been very diligent. Back in the nineties, when I was younger and more limber, I participated in beach clean up. It was exhausting! Much less fun than I hoped. If I were younger and had a trust fund I would jump on a cleanup ship and put some time into this then I would be able to tell you how to best sort unidentified plastics and share depressing tales about the situation and how we need laws and plastic police and plastic coast guard. As with many things, its up to us. Ciao Professore! Peace! ✌️

Ok. My question is, once this crap is removed what happens to it since we humans do such a horrible job of recycling and proper disposal and we refuse to decrease consumption? I want clean oceans as much as the next person but as usual we will not deal with the source of the problem.

The US has for years, shipped plastic refuse to foreign countries willing to take it including China and some of the less developed countries. China no longer accepts our plastic waste and other countries are beginning to follow suit. The source, of course, is the use of plastics for so many things because it’s cheap and can be used for throw-away items, like package wrapping and as containers for a wide variety of food items. One solution would be to use bio-degradable plastics for anything that is used as a simple wrapper, bottle or food container - with a design life of something like 150% of the annotated ‘use-by’ date. If only those things that are designed to be more or less permanent like building materials would be made with non-biodegradable materials, the used plastics that needed special handling would be greatly reduced. … … … For plastic bottles specifically designed to be recycled, authorize or legislate return fees similar to the way glass drink bottles used to be handled. Incentivize the return of plastic grocery bags which can be recycled for something like 50¢ a pound - paid for by 2¢ charge for each plastic bag used at checkout. The costs of incentivized collected items can be paid for by ‘usage charges’ for items purchased. Sure, there is not a lot of incentives for moderately well off people but would be great ways for the most desperate of us to generate some income, and would be a great way for kids to gain spending money and gain some work ethic as well. … … … I think the biggest problem is to control the source of plastic pollution first and see if there are not ways to share the costs to help clean up the oceans - like other ocean traversing craft used for shipping, for example, which could be incentivized to ‘barge-drag’ select polluted ocean surfaces as they travel. Getting rid of plastic waste under water and at depth is a more difficult and costly problem. … … … My grandmother had a saying that ‘When the old man peed in the Ocean he said, every little bit helps’. Solutions for cleaning up and limiting plastic pollution are kind of like that. I think this can best be accomplished with everyone doing just their little part. Plastic pollution starts everyplace where there are people. If these people collectively do their part, we can reduce and manage this global problem. … … … Now I have to get some dinner and ingest my daily dose of micro plastic residue that is showing up in many food sources. We all ingest about a credit card’s plastic content annually - it is everywhere and it is increasing.

Why did we not stay with glass containers? I still look for glass packages in order to avoid plastic waste. We used to get fresh cut meats and fish wrapped in paper. Now we are forced to take these items lying on a plastic tray with a plastic liner wrapped in a plastic sheet. I avoid eggs in plastic containers in favor of cardboard cases. All the plastic is to avoid breakage and increase profits. I hope my earth friendly choices don’t disappear.

Plastic is actually not that recyclable, and the oil/gas industry (which promotes its use) has known that for decades. (https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled). We would be better off moving away from single-use plastics altogether and find more sustainable materials so we can both reduce the use of fossil fuels to create it and minimize the amount of waste plastic creates. I am very concerned about the amount of plastic we accidentally ingest and how it ends up in our water systems. Let's all do what we can: donate, stop buying single-use plastics, and urge our representatives to pass legislation to reduce plastic manufacture and use.

Causes promotes their pet "causes" like Oceans. Congress must end this. Causes, or Countable Must be an open platform for American Citizens to express their viewpoints. Currently, like countable before it this is slanted radical left. The countries that produced the pollution, plastic, or sewage must be the ones to clean it up. USA is not the problem .

Causes must not be allowed to openly promote this, or any issue. This must be an open platrorm for American Citizens to express free, and open opinions on issues.

Why not go back to using glass? It may be more expensive but it can be recycled.

Let’s be very clear, till it becomes laws that plastic being used for anything thing must contain 50% recycled plastic, nothing is going to happen! Nothing! Very little plastic that we use is recycled because no one demands that it contains 50% of used plastic! All of you food containers, less than 3% is recycled! The sorting argument is meaningless! ! Check and you will find out most plastic is still going to landfills!

jimK you have forgotten that Comrade dear leader Beijing Biden has already got us covered. Here are facts about plastics. Plastics are made from natural materials such as cellulose, coal, natural gas, salt and crude oil through a polymerisation or polycondensation process. Plastics are derived from natural, organic materials such as cellulose, coal, natural gas, salt and, of course, crude oil. So as you know Comrade dear leader Beijing Biden has make great steps to halt all fossil fuels from use in America., so the manufacturers will no longer be able to make plastics no later than 2035.

This is all the more reason to use hemp as the alternative to the fossil fuel as plastics and fuel for transportation. It is renewable and better for the environment and lessens our dependence of foreign oil. Hemp is biodegradable so if it did make it into the oceans, (not saying to turn the oceans to a dumping grounds) but, if it did it would make less of an impact should the careless toss garbage.

Plastic in the oceans per Government sadistic‘s 90% of all plastics in the oceans come from 3 nations 1 China, 2 Viet nam 3 Thailand and other SE Asian nations the other 10 % is India and Africa ... But somehow The USA IS PAYING FOR IT....