Who is polluting the ocean with plastic?
Plastic pollution is destroying ocean life and coastal livelihoods. With small island states suffering most, what do they reveal about how to solve this global problem?
00:00 The plastic problem
00:43 What challenges do small islands face?
02:48 Where is the plastic coming from?
07:47 How are small islands combating plastic pollution?
11:13 How is plastic waste managed? / Where does plastic end up?
12:30 Future solutions
14:31 The global plastic treaty
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No one mentions the problem of shipping containers containing used plastic going from Canada to India to the Philippines. Of course when a hurricane or tropical storm hits a island the garbage is taken off the island where it ends up in the ocean. There should be a ban on large countries shipping their garbage to smaller countries.
The source is rather obvious: Countries with poor waste management. As I recall it, the BBC showed that 90% of all plastice in the oceans come from 10 rivers, 8 in Asia plus the Nile and Zambesi or possibly Kongo.
We're sh**ting in our own nest. We can and must fix this urgently.
Oh you know her?
@@michaelrclements Share with us what YOU are doing about it, genius. Or are you late for school?
That's wishful thinking lol, humans have long showed that we are a REACTIVE species not a PROACTIVE one. This is proof of that.
Thanks. I simply won't buy anymore plastic. We need to band together as a world and stop further plastic production. ❤❤
The problem is at the top. Oil companies want to produce as much plastic as possible and our politicians and regulators allow it to happen, for a fee.
Ask yourself, if we force consumers to buy everything in refillable bottles and bags, are we ready? Plastic bans have not worked in many countries, so blaming only the producer will not work!
@@ecoideazventures6417 What hasn't worked is plastic.
@@ecoideazventures6417 I come from a poor country _ Algeria, and there's a couple of beverage companies that have used refillable bottles since the 70s. If you buy a bottle of beverage without returning the packaging you'll be charged.
Yes, the problem is at the top and it is you. We are all responsible for this problems as it comes from our consumerism. But, fundamentally, we use plastics because it is CHEAP. Plastics are cheaper to produce compared to paper or glass, and counterintuitively with an overall lower carbon emissions.
@@joefish4466this. If you participate or benefit in any way from modern society, you’re part of the problem. We’re all part of the problem. There happen to be some rich and powerful people at the top, but they merely allow it to happen and benefit the most. But we all benefit from ruining our planet. The ones that won’t benefit are the animals of today and our children of tomorrow.
We all need to reduce plastic use!
I first saw this many years ago and it was a very big deal back then humans need to understand how to deal with this problem now
I am in Vanuatu at the moment and yes there are no more plastic bags in the shops. However i see many many times a day where they just discard rubish into the street or sea. After it rains the amount of plastic washed into the sea is massive. They have no feeling of pride in their country at all. Until this is reversed there is no hope. In the capital Vila there are thousands of very expensive stainless steel waste bins that some country must have gifted them. They are cleaned often, but only in the town, outside just forget it. But if you go up to Porto Santo you hardly ever see a waste bin and if you do it is over flowing and has not been emptied in months if ever.
Serious issues, but interesting potential for the future. Thank you for this report.
Tell it to the people who make all the plastic. Go back to tin cans, glass and paper. I can sum it up in one word GREED. Greed is a natural thing in the human mind and doubt it can ever be stopped.
I wonder why a part of plastic waste isn't turned into a layer/sheet which covers all plastic waste not to be blown away by 'bad' weather
Recycling is NOT a solution. It's just a temporary retardant and greenwashing method. It's the overuse of plastic for single use food packaging that's the problem.
"Yep, Son, We've met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo
I was in a ship repair yard at Guangzhou in 2019, the yard workers' lunch was delivered in plastic bags with plastic bottles of water, when finished, all of it went in the river and then the cigarette butts; I was at the port in Abidjan not long before and the whole surface of the water was discarded plastic bottles. There is a lot of work to do and not just in the 3rd or 2nd world, just look around the average British town...
Jeez, gotta love humanity.
Fiji used to be some of the most beautiful places in the world. Just horrible there’s so much plastic everywhere
Beach Cleaner from Vancouver, Canada right here 👋
Net Zero resources should be diverted to the plastic issue, this is impacting our entire biosphere and will cause far greater damage
Porque no los dos?
One is not more important than the other take away subsidies for fossile fuels. Several trillions will be available.
Really cool what science is looking for.
Why this terribly loud background music? It makes it very hard to understand.
No one is planning for the future. We're just living day-to-day like our history will never catch up to us.
Mostly China
It’s all trade-offs. I say we need more garbage incinerators, you can make filters to reduce the emissions and use the heat to generate energy. Takes a lot less room to store the used filters and ash than store the trash, plus you can mine the bottom ash for useful raw materials.
Yes. Plastic has a very high heat value, like oil. So it's easier to get value out of burning it.
Great video. But I think something needs to be emphasized about this subject. This plastic pollution problem is barely related to climate change. I can't tell you how often I hear from my students that they think they're making a difference regarding climate change because they are recycling. Recycling does almost nothing to combat climate change. However! Plastics are also a major byproduct of oil. It's one of the reasons why it's so cheap. As we slowly shift away from using oil for our energy, I believe plastics will get more expensive. And that'll really help solve this problem.
Underrated comment 👆🏽 End users should not be expected to clean up the plastic problem. That's a stall tactic anyway (delay and deny). There are only a handful of companies in the WORLD that make plastic, and they all rely on fossil fuels. We need to move as quickly as we possibly can to HALT the production of plastics until we know how to responsibly manage the lifecycle. It's not complicated.
Not true. Taking the example of PET bottles, making new bottles from recycling requires only 40% of the energy required to make new bottles from raw materials. Worse, making new bottles from raw materials is taking carbon out of the ground and adding it to the surface environment in a form which will take a long time to break down, and adds to the amount of carbon in the surface environment. So even taking only the energy to make bottles into account, recycling PET bottles requires 60% less energy - which is still mostly being generated through fossil fuels - and is simply more efficient. By recycling, it keeps useful materials out of the oceans and landfill. No new plastics should be made from fossil fuels.
You gotta read the whole comment before responding, dude. Pretty sure the OP wouldn't disagree with this. @@theharper1
@falsificationism I did read the whole comment. The main part which I disagreed with was the claim that recycling doesn't have anything to do with global warming. It absolutely does, even if you only consider the difference in energy requirements.
From that standpoint I agree. I think a world without ANY plastic, save for very narrow uses (e.g., medical devices) should be the goal. Recycling isn't great. Reduce and reuse are better. Upcycle during the transition (but it doesn't yield much). The goal for climate activism should be to END the cycle, not to recycle.@@theharper1
"Just 65 million people..." That's a LOT of people not "just."
i live on la digue island in seychelles and I and my father pick up 3kg every morning on our walks on the beach every morning.
It's oil companies, big companies the ones for they sell sodas contained in plastic, pills, bottles among others made of oil.
The smartphone/ PC/ iPad from where you posted that comment is also made of plastic. Environmentalism for thee, but not for me
So what do you suggest we use for packaging? Stainless steel? Aluminum? Glass? Paper for water? All of these options are either not practical or cost far more than plastics. It costs more in what you pay and the net amount of carbon emissions released, all because petroleum products (plastics) are energy dense and highly versatile. Also, look in the mirror when you complain about plastics, because you are using tons of it every day.
@@joefish4466 Are you serious? Look for some solutions instead of feeding them.
@@nh41 I'm not an environmentalist and don't feed them any more if you want to save the planet from plastic. Why do you complain on people who "pollute" environment though you don't say a word on big companies? Besides, environmentalists are paid for them to protest for whatever reason but not against them and sooner or later they'll get what they deserve. By the way, how do you want me to give my point of view if there's no other way?
No, it's people that don't dispose of it properly.
Last time I saw the ocean was in Oregon and the beach was covered in garbage, dead seals and all. My kid couldn't stop crying. You really would think that the people that live near them beaches would try to keep them clean.
How about the people inland stop using so much packaging?! Did you not LOOK at the video and see how much time and effort it takes to clean this up? I would also like to know if YOU are involved in clean ups in your local river or cleaning abandoned areas or even your streets. Because unless YOU are growing your own food, do not drink ANY kind of bottled water or cold drink etc. I can GUARANTEE that YOU have added to the plastic in the ocean or washing up on a beach somewhere in the world!
I can also recommend using YT Thanks to donate to the Ocean Conservation Namibia channel. They are a bunch of volunteers that are out on the beach each day capturing seals and cutting off snares, fishing lines, plastic pieces and more than embedded in the necks of seals. They are not paid salaries but there is a need for equipment and fuel etc.
Surely, I'm not the only one to notice this, but the irony I see is that the items used to contain plastic trash are also made of plastic. Perhaps made of waste plastics, but....
Absolute truth consists of multiply truths, so many people could be right and wrong at same time. Yes, Oil companies is getting richer by plastic, especially because they will be put at a side when car and other technologies will turn green, so that would be theirs major income, or at least one of them. And yes, people tend to pay less for the plastic rather than glass, for example, and producers know that so they continuing use of plastic. And there a lot of other factors, but important one is human mindset and mentality, if everything was ok with that, we don't have such problems in the first place. I can only say that people live on this planet, but I can't really call it "Human Civilization", we quite not there yet, by a lot.
LOL "Who is doing this?". Everything. Everyone.
But mostly India
Why was the video so vague in saying where those plastic pollution come from? Just shame them already!
At no point did they mention REDUCE. We need to REDUCE our consumption of plastic, not only recycle. And we need to move away from this economic model of constant growth.
At a lot of points in this video actually
I wish the US has better standards for this (and many, many other things) like other countries in the world. So many steps behind in too many ways.
Republican, is the answer.
How said that you think simply choosing "republican" or "democrat" will solve these problems. I guess their indoctrination in the school system is working well. @@Theoryofcatsndogs
Did you watch the video?? Although they made it vague, it wasn't the US or Europe causing the pollution.7:00
Does America still use plastic shopping bags at the supermarkets?
I think the Chinese fishing trawlers decimating fisheries in the Pacific have a lot to do with the lack of fish actually.
you think you mud B
DO YOU LOST YOUR MOTHER?
"Would it be technically feasible to set up some kind of unique identifier for each piece of plastic, thus making it possible to determine its geographical origin? This measure could facilitate the imposition of fines on the countries concerned, by establishing a link between the quantity of plastic found on the continents and its origin, with pricing defined by the ton."
Easier to just do a global tax on fishing licenses and plastic goods tied to the amount of money necessary to clean up the pollution each year.
"We investigated ourselves and found that we did nothing wrong."
Who is going to enforce these fines? Just do your bit, don’t buy plastic that can’t be recycled.
@@tsunamis82 "ignore the systemic issue and just try to solve a collective action problem by yourself" - lol
Paper under cultivated sources is essential to replace plastic manufacture pollution. It is also essential for countries to enforce the chemical weapon manufacture treaty purpose and obligations to achieve the purpose of the Treaty. The serious and persistent damaging effects to the environment are from the functional groups on the plastic. The monomers of plastic are more toxic than the polymer of plastic made from pesticide or herbicide.
2:07, typo...
Just clean it up? I don't know what to tell you other than that.
Were you trying to drown out the voices with that nothing music?
The companies that make it.
It say it’s Asian and Indian countries….
Rich countries export a lot of waste to Asia. Corruption in both the west and Asia plays a huge part.
@@oneshothunter9877Corruption in the west is the reason china dumps it’s trash in the ocean?
Fiji is in the South Pacific Gyre so the overwhelming majority of the plastic "should" be coming from places like Peru, Ecuador, and Chile if the theory of currents is correct. Yet all of the labels on this plastic waste are in ENGLISH. Fijians speak English, not Spanish. So, this looks to me like a local waste management problem. NOT an imported one. Vanuatu banning single use plastic items is a smart step forward. We need to ban all plastic that is not able to be recycled economically.
😢 Thanks video ❤
Automobile tire particles created as they wear and get washed into the oceans are a large percentage of all ocean micro debris. Often overlooked......
Yes that is an issue not well known. Washing synthetic clothing also adds a burden to the oceans.
The worst is styrofoam & polystyrene which quickly breaks down into plastic pellets & finally into microplastic due to the UV rays from the sun.
Tell us what to do with it‼️🤷🏻♀️
We need to stop making plastic but the corporations tell us what to do now, we have no say in it
Indonesians?
Chinese
If you look at anything, it comes in plastic America it’s always big corporations. It’s not the butcher shop down the street they wrap it in butcher paper. No styrofoam, no plastic see-through wrapper. The same with fruit and vegetables if they’re local, they don’t need to come in a can unless you’re storing them for later. They don’t need to be put in a Styrofoam container and wrapped with cellophane. Everything that you buy including your pack of cigarettes that is wrapped in cellophane, doesn’t need to be put into a plastic bag so that you can walk out to your car with a bag.
Who has created and produced the pollutant?
In the United States, only about 5% of plastic waste is actually recycled; and Canada, only 9%. Most of our plastic waste ends up in landfills.
But not in the ocean.
00:05 Plastic pollution is destroying life in the ocean and impacting small island developing States the most. 02:15 Plastic waste in the ocean is a global issue, affecting small economies and Pacific island countries. 04:18 Plastic pollution in the ocean affects coastlines and small islands, especially in subtropical areas. 06:17 Plastic pollution is impacting turtle nesting beaches and Sea Shells worldwide. 08:23 Coastline cleanup and plastic bans are effective in reducing ocean pollution. 10:12 Small island nations struggle to be plastic-free due to limited control over the life cycle of plastics. 12:23 Recycling plastic with new technology is crucial to solve the ocean pollution problem. 14:06 Enzymes with plastic eating abilities have potential to reduce waste and local communities can potentially benefit from it. You Can't Judge A Video By Its Cover. you can by its first few chapters and certainly by its last.
Nobody's teaching their children not to trow trash , we see it in our city ,just oh, its a giant garbage disposal, but its not ! See ! 👀 woah ! 💝
I think we need to study ocean currents, that’s where the plastic could come from. Could be Asia pacific countries, or America pacific region.
Huge amount of plastic waste comes from southeast Asia and theres no political will or societal push to change anything. People are either ignorant to the issue or wilfully blind. Corruption is a major barrier toward action.
Much worse is the micro-plastic from poor people cloth made with so-called fleece, which can nozt be re-collected and will fill up our food and lungs. I already heared from lung infections due to bundles of tiny fiber allocations in the lung.
Are you referring to polar fleece? Polar fleece originated in Massachusetts in 1979 when Malden Mills (now Polartec LLC), and Patagonia developed Synchilla (synthetic chinchilla). It was a new, light, strong pile fabric meant to mimic, and in some ways surpass, wool. Malden Mills CEO Aaron Feuerstein intentionally declined to patent polar fleece, allowing the material to be produced cheaply and widely by many vendors, leading to the material's quick and wide acceptance. Malden Mills registered PolarFleece as a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on October 6, 1981.
@@globalnewsnetwork7357 I do not now polar fleece. I can not wear any type of plastic plastic clothes, because it makes me sweating, ill and let me feel bad. The worst kind of it is this fuur-like stuff. Millions of microplastik fibers that polute even or lungs.
globalnews I think they are referring to microfiber fleece which is made from polyester - a synthetic plastic fiber
All synthetic fibres release micro plastics, apparently.
@@ryancraig2795every time you wear them or wash and dry them. Every time. Buy cotton and wool. Both have fibre problems but they do break down.
It's just laughable that you see all the "environmentally conscious" messages embedded in every other ads while doing essentially nothing about one-off uses of plastic products.
notice that this video does not mention big oil insudstry that benefits from creating plastic
The acronym SIDS (Small Island Developing States) also stands for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
The United States, without doubt!
Consider to investigate Those fishing vessel especially the big three in Asia..china, Japan, Korea, Taiwan etchtera.. including merchant vessels..they should be brief for proper garbage disposal as part of thier requirement before boarding ship.. authority should inspect garbage management pacility in every Port..
China.
Who? Try big ships traveling the oceans. I spent many yrs collecting river glass along the Delaware river. Since the beginning of shipping along the river, ships would lighten their loads of trash to keep the hull off the bottom. I can only assume it still happens today, it's easier to just dump trash overboard.
Whose not polluting the ocean with plastic?
This is so disgusting, that it’s so hard to watch. That everybody just turns a blind eye because it’s so hard to deal with but the problem is that it’s been such a problem for so long that it’s a huge problem now and it’s only getting bigger stop buying single use plastic in America, we need to figure out a better way because everything comes wrapped in plastic even a toothpick
it's the sharks, obviously.
All plastic going into landfill should be burned to generate heat. PET is the only easily reciclable plastic, by hydrolysing it into glycol and tereftalic acid. Almost all plastics should be made floatable as by including minute air bubbles so they do not sink avoiding recovery. Sailors like any users should get paid for returning plastic so they do not throw it overboard. The money for this would be paid by the customer, hence all plastic and deposit money would circulate in a closed loop.
That is the best joke I have heard in years, the polluters can be ¨ named and shamed ¨ 😂. Is that the best we are capable of ? As long as convenience supersedes sustainability we are doomed. We could also try to be virtuous, in all of our interactions and with our manifestations.
Yeah, shaming nations will definitely not work. Laws and fines will though.
It's funny they are talking about not using single use plastics while they are cleaning up the beach, throwing the garbage into single use plastic bags.
I mean if it is discarded in right way it‘s not an issue in this context right?
Are the fisheries and big corporations being held responsible? Where is Big Business in this problem? ....suppose they're washing their hands in innocence.
The current is coming from Asia
9:26 using (new) plastic trash bags to measure the ban on plastic bags...the hypocrisy is real
That's why avoid buying plastic unless abs necessary. Some make clothes out of plastic.
Who is polluting the ocean with plastic? The Indians top the list, where an open sewer called the Indus River carries the waste of millions of people to the sea. In the number two position: the Yellow River in China. Number three: the Hai River in China. Number four: the Nile River, which carries the garbage produced by Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt to the sea.
You can hardly see any piles of plastic here in China like 20 years ago. Even fishing in major rivers and lakes is banned due to environment concerns.
The solution to the plastic problem is vaporization. Plastic has to be returned back to its liquid form or completely incinerated.
I think this is a marine litter public service ad
Return to glass bottles with deposit from consumers.
😢 💚🌍 ♻️
I NEED THIS PLASTIC!!!!
wealthy countries are hypocrites
WITHOUT SEEING THIS VIDEO AS AN INDIA I TELL ITS INDIA SEE HOW INDIA IS UTTING ALL PLASTICS AND WASTES IN NEAR BY SEA ,
Ocean Cleanup’s System 03 and Interceptor are the solution to help the Fiji islands.
They're not a solution, they're a bandaid--albeit a necessary one. The solution lies with plastic USE, not plastic waste management
I wonder how many plastic straws used Germany actually ended up in the ocean.
who else, the industries who produces them & use them because they make money from it.
WE ARE STEWARDS OVER GOD'S CREATION!
The people of Fiji sounds like Capetonians
% 90 of it from california alone .
All you have to do is be addicted to plastic and pile it up in your own space best thing made
Blame game? 95% of all plastics are a by-product of fuel production.
there is ZERO problems with plastic there are a HUGE problem with the way people behave and act
rich nations must buy the residual plastic that's landing on the beach of poor countries that it's discarded by large industries .
I'm hoding out hope that someday soon we'll have armies of robots that are able to clean up this mess.
Robot made from plastic and rare metal ?
Why not armies of people to clean up their own mess?
They may be able to clean up the mess and also procreate!
@@theharper1 Arguably because it is a backbreaking job to which robots would better be suited. I do hear where you're coming from though.
@@geordi-gabrielrenauddumoul449Good point. I do hope they'll be made from recycled components.
I have no problem with it. I love it!
Everyone outside of the western world. And tsunami
I stopped eating fish, I can’t support what the industry has done.
The problem with humans.
We first don't manage our trash and now we want to accelerate the ability of enzymes to eat plastics. Yes we need to find a solution but please answer, what will happen to all the windows, pipes, cables, car interiors etc etc that should not be eaten?
Oh, the humanity. LOL.
Humans, I'll bet it's humans.
Ocean...i bet you forget fukushima's nuclear wastewater...
What is really horrible difficulty of understanding experts using bad microphones..pls check that before recording. Thanks
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