Shooter has been following a most interesting attempt to clean up the ocean by a Dutch fellow, name of Boyan Slat.

See, there are 5 huge islands of crap floating around the world's oceans, made up mainly of plastic that one way or the other ends up in the water. We're talking thousands of tons of the crap, covering massive areas of ocean. The biggest one, in the Pacific, covers an area twice the size of Texas.
Get that?
Twice the size of Texas.
Fucking huge.
And, average depth of the crap?
10 feet.
Imagine, an area twice the size of Texas, covered 10 feet deep in plastic.
Jesus

So Boyan decided to pick up the trash. With a unique boom and scoop system that he hopes won't scoop up fish or other sea life. You see, fish and turtles and what not tend to gather under these piles of shit and that complicates the clean up cause, you know, sweeping up turtles and fish in the process is counterproductive. And of course, some of those turtles get tangled up in the shit and die anyway, but Boyan wants to save them, not scoop them up.

So anyway, Boyan has his pilot system ready to go and is headed for the center of the Pacific, where the biggest of these trash piles is floating around. They will be scooping up all manner of plastic shit; bottles, nets, crates, chairs ............ stuff from micrometer size to small car size.

The interesting part of this is how Boyan plans to scoop this stuff up. See, he's got this really long boom, with which he will corral the stuff, then concentrate it, and finally scoop it up, compact it into bales, and haul it home. He figures he could scoop up half of the big Pacific patch in 5 years, assuming no more shit gets tossed in the ocean.

Boyan figures he's gonna need a whole fleet of these ships and booms, which of course means money, which of course he wants contributions for.

Shooter thinks if he wasn't retired, or at least about 20 years younger, he'd love to be part of the crew out there, scooping up that shit.

https://www.theoceancleanup.com/

 

Why did it take this long to clean up what has accumulated for decades?

And the solution is to refuse plastic straws with drinks in restaurants. But of course, free plastic syringes for all.

But I agree with Shooter, I'd love to be a part of that clean-up effort. At my age, I guess a contribution monetarily is best.

 

Your National Parks all have volunteer slots available for general clean up and beautification projects. They accept codgers.

 

Some of the talking points used to describe this challenge are problematic. There is no "island" of garbage. It isn't 10ft (or even 10cm) deep anywhere on "it". Half of the total mass of this "thing" is made of old fishing nets. The garbage is diffuse and difficult to find in the open ocean actually (which is why his solution is very novel - you've got to gather it together first to make collection at all efficient) The real concern is when the plastic breaks down into microparticles and can more readily get into the food chain, which is already under quite a bit of stress.

I like this guy and the coalition he has built - I hope somebody just as inventive and inspired can tackle the problem at the front-end - limiting or reducing introduction of the waste in the first place.

 

Most of the plastic waste in the oceans come from 10 rivers and eight of the ten are in Asia/India, the other two are in Africa. China has dedicated itself to trying to stem the flow of plastic on the Yangtze, which alone accounts for almost half of the total plastic waste deposited in the oceans each year. So while the reduction or total elimination of plastic waste in the US is laudable, it is a wasted effort with the major contributors doing the same. The publicity seeking folks in California should be doing much more than stopping the use of plastic straws.

Why we need plastic packaging is a question in itself, it is mainly for convenience and cost reduction in food processing.

 

Just an observation on the rivers on which we have travel, all of which directly wind up flowing to the Gulf of Mexico and thus the Atlantic Ocean. Each of these rivers is dam controlled, with locks to allow the passage of vessels of all types. At these dams vast rafts of flotsam accumulate against the structure and within the locks themselves. They are mostly vegetation, wood and plant life, which surround , then encapsulate the plastic and other undesirable waste within them. These rafts are of varying size from a few inches to many feet across, but are still very observable.

There are many efforts along the entire Mississippi and Ohio River systems to remove the waste before it reaches the sea, but much more needs to be done. IMO, Styrofoam packaging should be banned, along with plastic beverage bottles and other non-essential plastic packaging. Manufacturers are beginning to get the message, using recycled paper for cushioning shells and real popcorn for pour-able package cushioning. If it isn't biodegradable it should be investigated for elimination.

 

It would be nice if the money wasted on fake man made global warming were used to clean up the worlds oceans and come up with ways to keep them clean in the future.

This is something mankind can actually do and it would benefit the planet and every living thing on it....

 

Did I ever tell you Old Tool you actually are better educated and smarter than me?

If not let's just get that on the record now.

Because I have been wondering. If we could just go out and gather up all the plastic in the oceans, where would we put it?

 

Since Truthful 1 is supposedly in Jersey (uh huh) which is closer than most others, I propose he make an effort and collect up all of the Coney Island Whitefish.

No sniffin' them Truthful 1, or washing them out and reusing them (those neighbor's poor chickens )



Hush....an alias

 

Yeah Hush, consider this one stolen.

 

I know I am out of my league here.

But did you guys know that we never ever have to worry about natural gas? For all the drilling there are miles and miles of natural gas in hydrate form. It just gathers there in huge layers at deep depths. And the whole balance oi that chemical reaction actually depends on the amount of CO2 in the water. Which are otherwise known as dead zones.

However, one thing the geologists say is in the past when those cliffs of hydrates broke off and released the natural gas the fire ball would cover continents.

Don't worry about that though. Must of us will have been long dead.

 

counterpoint

 

You know I will have to mute MSNBC for this so it better be good.

Made the time line.

Great trip down memory lane.

But this is what Native Americans have been saying for 500 years.

 

The

the real answer to this problem is go back to glass , illuminate plastic bottles completely there a big problem on my jobs also plastic bottles clog everything up . this is very interesting after he collects all these bottles off the ocean floor where will they go after that after they bale them and hual them out of the ocean what do they do with them . Plastic is the earths enemy and believe me I'm no tree hugger . I hope to God this plan works because I love nature. Ever watervway where I work is litered, with virtually indestructible plastic bottles it sucks .

 

Psst. The universe existed billions of years before man existed. And will undoubtedly be here billions of years after humans are gone. (roughly translated) Fredrich Netzsche

 

Eh, they'll just make more plastic bottles and sell them. There's value in that floating plastic.

 

I already do you cute little whore
I only wish I could do more in a faster way. Plastic and styrofoam as 10 guy said Plastic bags , are truly a real concern unlike global warming . It's a devastating problem to our environment

 

When I was in the newspaper business one of the first things I covered was the creation of our new landfill dump. And then 3 years later I was still covering it. And then when all the paper work was finally signed my soon to be brother in law and his friend went out and built it from pits to fences in 14 days.

Because no one wants a dump in their back yard.

 

Lol lol eliminate not illuminate lol sorry. Of fuck. That's funny