this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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Futurology

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[–] ArcaneGadget@lemmy.world 96 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (35 children)

"The Ocean Cleanup" is a great effort and I support their mission wholeheartedly. BUT looking at the bigger picture; it seems completely asinine to fish garbage put of the ocean and call that the solution to pollution, instead of preventing it from getting there in the first place. This is not meant as a criticism of "The Ocean Cleanup", but of global society in general. One minute you see them removing the Pacific garbage patch and the next you see whole rivers covered in plastic waste flowing out into the ocean from certain countries.

Edit: Fishing it out of the rivers before it enters the ocean is also a good effort. But it doesn't address the underlying problem any better than cleaning ot out of the ocean. Also; some people seem to think I'm bashing "The Ocean Cleanup" and similar organisations. I'm very much not. They do great, necessary work. I'm just frustrated that said work is needed, and more importantly; that it doesn't seem to be on track to stop being needed anytime in the near-ish future.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 9 points 4 weeks ago (5 children)
[–] ArcaneGadget@lemmy.world -4 points 4 weeks ago (4 children)

No one specifically, but in a lot of cases it feels like certain interest groups, tout projects like this as the be all and end all of solving the issue. I just fear for a sentiment where people go: "Look at what "The Ocean Cleanup" is doing! We don't need to abolish single use plastics. Any that end up in the environment is simply picked up!" That is of course a bit of a caricature, but at this point my trust in humanity as a whole, is not very high...

[–] ShellMonkey@lemmy.socdojo.com 1 points 4 weeks ago

Or one could view it as regardless of efforts at future prevention, we still need to pick up from the past. If we stopped every scrap of plastic in production today that pile of junk would still be floating about for the next millennia.

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