[HN Gopher] Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plas... ___________________________________________________________________ Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021) Author : sweetheart Score : 72 points Date : 2022-08-09 20:03 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.nature.org) (TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.org) | epistasis wrote: | To place this in context, it's 50,000 tons/year of fishing waste, | versus 200,000 tons/year of microplastics from car tires: | | https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/14/car-tyre... | | Further, microplastics enter the ecosystem far easier than the | bulky big plastic from fishing gear, so the tire microplastics | should be far more concerning to people. | | It's really weird how cars get a pass for so much. Try to live a | life without a car, and people think you are weird, and pass laws | preventing you from building a community that is accessible | without a car (at least in the US). And that's before we get to | the violent deaths caused by car crashes, or the wheezing deaths | caused by COPD, or the quality years of life reduced by asthma | from cars... | kohanz wrote: | I'm not sure if it was your intent, but that comparison makes | the fishing output seem even more outsized to me, given the | size of the auto industry. | [deleted] | notch656a wrote: | Do you need recommendations on places in the US you can work in | tech without a car and still enjoy the community? Because I can | speak from many years of experience, it's not a difficult life | to setup for yourself. | [deleted] | zonotope wrote: | I'd love to hear these recommendations. I know you thrive | without a car in New York and Boston, but I would love to | hear about other places like that in the US. | bsedlm wrote: | by this point, being able to eat (like in crimes of the future), | or at the least, resist eating plastics and other toxic | ubiquitous substances (PFAS) seems like the most viable strategy. | taeric wrote: | Lest the headline not be obvious, this is industrial fishing | gear. | digdugdirk wrote: | Just to expand for those who haven't read the article - These | types of nets are specifically designed to catch and trap sea | life, so cause outsized damage to ecosystems than their | size/weight/volume might suggest. | | The images you might see of a turtle with a 6-pack ring around | a flipper are nothing compared to the damage a torn off chunk | of a trawler's net might cause. | painted-now wrote: | This was also my key takeaway from watching "Seaspiracy" on | Netflix | csmpltn wrote: | What about boats with fiberglass hulls? | picture wrote: | Hulls of boats generally don't just go missing or left behind. | And, the fiberglass doesn't cause as much damage as high | surface area fishing nets. I remember reading that the paint | can be an issue though, as there are added particles to get the | aesthetic glimmer that will get into the water over time | speed_spread wrote: | Anti-fouling paints applied to hulls contain organometallic | chemicals that are, by design, toxic to marine life. This is | to prevent algae and molusk to attach to the hull, slowing | the boat over time and requiring extensive cleanup. You can | imagine the effect these paints have when they chip off. | notch656a wrote: | Anti-fouling paint chipping off seems better than going | through 3x as many hulls after they | delaminate/rust/disintegrate and become unsalvageable, | tossed into the ocean by 3rd world vessel scrappers. | dark-star wrote: | It is so obvious, and has been known for years, yet the EU banned | plastic straws because of the waste in the oceans, so now every | drink tastes like a schoolbook. Well done EU... | chefandy wrote: | If only there was a way to convey liquids from handheld | containers to your mouth without using a little tube! | anm89 wrote: | This sounds pretty complicated | RajT88 wrote: | Sippy cups are underrated. | [deleted] | ksaj wrote: | There are starch-based "plastic" utensils that look/feel like a | slightly more matte version of the plastic most people are used | to. The school my partner works at used them as a trial for a | year. They had straws, spoons, forks, knives and plates made | from it. The problem is they are more expensive than regular | plastic or paper/cardboard, and people in general seem to be | unwilling to pay that bit extra to keep non-biodegradable waste | down. So everyone ends up with paper-based straws, etc, or | sticking with plastics instead. | | In this case, they literally get what they pay for, because | after the trial, they're complaining about all the paper | products instead of budgeting to continue with the starch-based | solution that was so very much better. | 01100011 wrote: | I wonder how they break down outside of a compost | environment? My company uses "compostable" plastics which | feel like normal plastic. I've used the same compostable | clear plastic cup for months on end and it isn't showing any | signs of degradation. I suspect it would break down in a | proper compost pile(high temps and such) but outside of that | environment it seems as durable as traditional plastic. | Hopefully in an environment like the ocean it would be | susceptible to bacteria and fungi but I wonder if that is | sufficient. | pfdietz wrote: | Our local composting company explicitly excludes | compostable utensils and food containers. Compostable | doesn't mean biodegradable. For example, compostable | cardboard food containers may be coated with perfluoro | compounds to prevent liquids from soaking into the | cardboard. These don't biodegrade. | ksaj wrote: | Yes, that also goes for paper cups with the wax coating. | They don't biodegrade and they aren't recyclable because | of the wax. That's probably the same coating you mention. | It seems that this solution just replaces one problematic | material with another when it coats something that would | otherwise be biodegradable. | ksaj wrote: | My understanding is that they are starch and cellulose, so | I'd expect them to eventually completely degrade like any | other plant material. I'm not an expert, but that seems to | be the point of products made with it. | | Our liquor store (LCBO) used to have bags made from the | same stuff. When our provincial premiere got everyone to | charge 5c for each plastic bag, they just stopped using it | entirely and went to paper bags. I liked those original | compostable/recyclable ones because they were less stretchy | and therefore less likely to break than normal plastic | grocery bags, and way easier to carry because of the | handles. | | But the same reasoning applied - it was more expensive than | paper bags, so that's all they use there now, too. | hh3k0 wrote: | > [...] yet the EU banned plastic straws because of the waste | in the oceans, so now every drink tastes like a schoolbook. | Well done EU... | | Issues are not the Highlander: there can be more than one. | Single-use plastics just happen to be a problem as well. | | And, for what it's worth, people who complain about paper | straws remind me of sulky toddlers. Just FYI. | pas wrote: | if there were a post with "Single use plastics account for an | alarming amount of plastics in the oceans" would you think | otherwise? | | both are a problem. the industrial fishing nets degrade slower, | the microplastics (that then likely bioaccumulates) comes from | all sources. | [deleted] | Alupis wrote: | The data the plastic straw bans were based on was entirely | made up by a 9 year old[1][2][3] for a school report. | | Entirely made up, based on nothing. Yet... here we are with | plastic straw and bag bans... | | Let's think about that for a minute while we contemplate all | of the similar "data driven" bans we endure. | | [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/07/18/anti- | straw-mo... | | [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/business/plastic- | straws-b... | | [3] https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-no- | evidenc... | washbrain wrote: | Wait, the article you linked said he called manufacturers | to get a range of daily production/market estimates of | straw production. Hardly seems fair to say based on | "nothing". | Alupis wrote: | He called a couple manufacturers who gave him round | estimates of production, not consumption and certainly | nowhere near accurate enough to extrapolate across the | entire country or world. It also doesn't provide any | metric to which to gauge this made up consumption rate | against - is his number expected, high or low? | | So... entirely made up. | recycledmatt wrote: | It is 50,000 tons per year. In plastic recycling terms, not that | much volume. A very large plastic recycling facility can do about | 200,000 tons in a year. http://intelligentliving.co/worlds- | largest-climate-neutral-p... | | A tractor trailer hauls roughly 20 tons - so all the sea nets in | the world in a year could be hauled by 2,500 trailers. Not that | much in the scheme of things. | dakr wrote: | From the article: | | "Unlike other forms of marine debris, fishing gear is | specifically designed to catch marine life. Under certain | conditions, derelict gear can continue to catch and kill | organisms for years." | fleddr wrote: | Maybe you missed the part where it's IN THE OCEAN. | notch656a wrote: | floating recycling center then. Believe there's a video | somewhere of one in the Charles River or something. | hairofadog wrote: | If you'd like to see anecdotal impacts, you can watch the sad yet | thrilling and satisfying YouTube channel Ocean Conservation | Namibia, which features a team that captures seals and untangles | them from fishing gear: | https://www.youtube.com/c/OceanConservationNamibia | dakr wrote: | Not to minimize the impact to ocean life and the environment, but | lost fishing gear costs money. The upside of which is that there | is direct financial incentive to recover lost gear. I know | nothing about this space, but a former coworker started a company | about ten years ago in part to allow fishers to track and recover | their gear: https://www.blueoceangear.com/ | RajT88 wrote: | One report I read was that much of it was discarded as it got | too damaged to use. So hardly an accidental loss. | dmurray wrote: | I would say the bigger incentive is not to lose the gear in the | first place, but even that doesn't seem to be enough. | albatross13 wrote: | You guys haven't seen anything yet: | https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2022/august/pandemic-fac... ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-08-09 23:00 UTC)