
Wave After Wave of Garbage Hits the Dominican Republic - okket
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/world/americas/dominican-republic-garbage.html
======
lisper
My wife and I were traveling in Borneo a few years back. They have "water
villages" there where all the houses are built on stilts in shallow water. You
could not see the shore because it was completely covered in a layer of
garbage. It was like living on top of a landfill. At first I thought it was
garbage thrown out by the villagers, but it's not. It was garbage that washes
in on the tide. Every now and then the villagers try to clean it up, only to
be overwhelmed by a new batch. We were told that it only takes a few weeks for
the garbage to completely cover the shore again. It was heartbreaking.

[UPDATE] Here's a photo:
[http://www.flownet.com/ron/trips/Borneo/Images/165.jpg](http://www.flownet.com/ron/trips/Borneo/Images/165.jpg)

~~~
mjfern
This photo is surreal. I can't believe a trash filled planet is becoming a
reality and we are doing little to nothing to stop it.

~~~
Shivetya
Please, the Western world is doing a lot of work in keeping it out of water
ways and oceans. The majority of trash is from China and other Asian
countries. [1]

What can we do? Simple, this is where trade requirements include treating the
environment right. We already have restrictions on seafood harvesting and
protecting certain species like whales and dolphins. no reason we cannot hold
trade to require proper handling of waste and pollution to include penalties
and fees on offending nations

[1] [https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-01-13/5-countries-dump-
more...](https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-01-13/5-countries-dump-more-plastic-
oceans-rest-world-combined)

~~~
bpicolo
To be fair, part of the way we "take care" of it is by shipping a bunch of
it's trash to China [0].

[0] [https://bigthink.com/philip-perry/why-china-isnt-taking-
amer...](https://bigthink.com/philip-perry/why-china-isnt-taking-americas-
garbage-anymore-literally)

~~~
wyattpeak
I mean, true in the most technical sense, but given the Chinese paid an
estimated half billion dollars for it in 2016 [1], the implication that it's
being dumped there is disingenuous.

[1] [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-bans-
foreig...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-bans-foreign-
waste-but-what-will-happen-to-the-worlds-recycling/)

------
dsabanin
I'm curious. Quotes from the article:

\--

“It happens pretty much all the time if there is a strong rainfall or a
storm,”

The phenomenon is not confined to the Dominican Republic, he said, and can be
seen in many developing nations with a coastline. “Everybody uses the rivers
and the beaches as dump sites.” \--

So we're being told that ocean's plastic garbage patch is somehow made out of
the contents of landfills around the globe (and western countries) making it
into the ocean with rain water. To anyone who has seen a landfill in real life
that looks wildly improbable, except for a very minuscule amount of material.

I feel like developing countries using ocean as a waste dump is much more
likely to be the true cause of the garbage patch.

~~~
mc32
There was a recent study which has been circulating. Most (90%) of the
plastics in the ocean that are not related to fishing equipment come from 8
rivers in Asia and then the Nile and Niger rivers in Africa. Mostly due to
poor or unregulated waste disposal infrastructures.

~~~
gfo
Can you link the study? Why do they believe that's the case? Is it just the
lack of a waste disposal infrastructure?

~~~
chlvsl
A simple google search yields:

[https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plastic-
polluti...](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plastic-polluting-
our-oceans-comes-from-just-10-rivers/)

[https://www.dw.com/en/almost-all-plastic-in-the-ocean-
comes-...](https://www.dw.com/en/almost-all-plastic-in-the-ocean-comes-from-
just-10-rivers/a-41581484)

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-
plas...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plastic-
tide-10-rivers-contribute-most-of-the-plastic-in-the-oceans/)

------
Alupis
I've wondered for a time, why we put so much energy into banning certain
plastic items, instead of improving biodegradable plastic technologies in
conjunction with efficient trash sorting at waste management plants.

If we can replace most plastics with biodegradable forms, a large part of
these issues go away completely within our lifetime; plastics decomposing in
as little as 24 months![1]

> According to a 2010 EPA report, 12.4%, or 31 million tons, of all municipal
> solid waste (MSW) is plastic. 8.2% of that, or 2.55 million tons, were
> recovered[1]

A large part of our recycling problem is that it's entirely dependent on
people doing the right thing and putting recyclable materials in the correct
bin. Why not have machines that can sort recyclables from true decompostable
trash? Plastics tend to float, glass tends to sink, tin and many other metals
are magnetic... etc. Removing a dependence on people to remember what's
recyclable and where to dispose of used items would be a huge win for the
environment.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodegradable_plastic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodegradable_plastic)

~~~
MikeKusold
The problem with Biodegradable plastic is that it still requires a special
process to break it down. You can’t just toss it in the ocean and have it
magically break down. Compostable materials are the ideal.

~~~
Alupis
> The problem with Biodegradable plastic is that it still requires a special
> process to break it down

That's not true, actually. From the article:

> A peer-reviewed report of the work shows 91% biodegradation in a soil
> environment within 24 months, when tested in accordance with ISO 17556

> Under proper conditions, some biodegradable plastics can degrade to the
> point where microorganisms can completely metabolise them to carbon dioxide
> (and water). For example, starch-based bioplastics produced from sustainable
> farming methods could be almost carbon neutral.

~~~
dragonwriter
The ocean is not a soil environment; so it degrading well in soil doesn't
necessarily help if it is a waste stream that ends up in the ocean.

~~~
Alupis
The article references starch-based bioplastics - and the ocean is quite an
environment, filled with micro-organisms and minerals which readily decompose
other organic materials.

I don't see a reason we cannot create something that works in that environment
too - however, the overwhelming majority of our plastic waste isn't going into
the ocean; rather, it's going into landfills where it will sit for thousands
of years.

~~~
njarboe
Things sitting in landfills are not a problem for the environment. It is
producing them in the first place that causes environmental damage. Imagine
everything going into a landfill as a resource our ancestors can mine in the
future.

~~~
Alupis
> Things sitting in landfills are not a problem for the environment

That's not true either.

Toxins, leachate, and greanhouse gases are given off from landfills and leach
into ground water, or pollute the land around landfills[1]. Plastics will stay
there, be washed away into streams/rivers, or be unburied in the future,
practically in the same condition they were originally - even hundreds or
thousands of years in the future.

> Products that are not biodegradable or are slow to decompose, like plastic,
> can remain in landfill sites for centuries, often emitting gases that could
> be harmful to the environment.[2]

> Landfills and dumps buried over often become suburban home sites in later
> years, unbeknownst to people who may live on them. Landfills have a
> distinctive effect on air pollution, nature, land and humans. Soil in the
> area may be saturated with chemicals or hazardous substances[3]

[1] [https://environmentvictoria.org.au/resource/problem-
landfill...](https://environmentvictoria.org.au/resource/problem-landfill/)

[2]
[https://greenliving.lovetoknow.com/How_Does_Recycling_Affect...](https://greenliving.lovetoknow.com/How_Does_Recycling_Affect_the_Environment)

[3] [https://sciencing.com/effects-landfills-
environment-8662463....](https://sciencing.com/effects-landfills-
environment-8662463.html)

~~~
njarboe
I guess I should have said, "Putting things into a recently (last 30is years)
constructed landfill with methane capture is not a problem for the
environment. The point is putting things into landfills is a great alternative
to just releasing them into the environment. The major problem with stuff,
from an environmental view, is not its disposal in well designed landfills,
but surface dumping and the problems with how its made and transported.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I guess I should have said, "Putting things into a recently (last 30is
> years) constructed landfill with methane capture is not a problem for the
> environment.

Well, other than the problem that landfills will need to continue increase in
size and consume the entire environment, and the environmental impact of
converting land into landfills in the first place, that might be approximately
correct.

> The point is putting things into landfills is a great alternative to just
> releasing them into the environment.

In the sense that being kicked in the genitals is a great alternative to
having cigarettes put out on them, sure, but neither is _good_ from an
environmental point of view.

~~~
njarboe
The total US garbage production in 2016 was 254 million tons[1]. If you assume
that compacted garbage has about the density of water(hard to find good
figures for this), then all of the garbage for the US for one year can be fit
into a space of about 2.30E+08 cubic meters. This works out to a square mile,
300ft thick. A huge pile of trash and would be large to walk around it on a
human scale, but geologically an almost infinitesimal amount of the Earth
surface.

I would say that current US farmland is about as destructive to the natural
environment as a properly designed covered landfill, give or take. With about
1.5 million square miles of farmland in the US, landfill use for a hundred
years of US dumping is about 15,000 times less of a problem than farming for
the environment. Garbage is very visible and a visceral expression of humans
impact on the planet, but farming, ranching, and housing uses of land are the
real destroyers of the natural environment, not how we dispose of all the crap
we make (in the US at least).

[1] [https://www.treehugger.com/environmental-policy/trash-
number...](https://www.treehugger.com/environmental-policy/trash-numbers-
startling-statistics-about-americans-and-their-garbage.html)

------
Confiks
The article title and introduction is pretty misleading, as only halfway the
article it is revealed that "the plastic waste washing onto Montesinos Beach
comes from the Ozama River". So while this is obviously an example of plastic
reaching the ocean to form a garbage patch, the article's examples of beaches
filled with plastic are not a result of the patches reaching the shore again.

------
21
The title makes you believe that this garbage comes from somewhere else,
across the ocean, but it's actually coming from their own river into which
everybody is dumping waste.

~~~
beagledude
I'm assuming you don't know how oceans work. Eventually, we'll all be
ingesting that.

~~~
irrational
Do you mean people that eat seafood will be ingesting that, or are you
thinking of some other means by which we will be ingesting it?

------
unfunco
I didn't realise how big of a problem it was until Blue Planet II last year,
and then earlier this year I stayed in Unawatuna, and the hotel had a small
private beach that is cleared of plastic daily, and it was covered again
within hours. I didn't take any photos of the litter directly, but in the top-
left of this photo: [https://www.instagram.com/p/Bg7qXxyH-2c/?taken-
by=unfunco](https://www.instagram.com/p/Bg7qXxyH-2c/?taken-by=unfunco) it is
somewhat visible.

It's endless, it'll just keep washing up for the foreseeable future. In the UK
you're now vilified if you ask for a plastic bag to carry your shopping home,
and the pubs and bars near me no longer offer plastic straws, I'm fine with
this, but our waste is an almost literal drop in the ocean compared to the
waste being dumped in rivers and oceans by developing nations.

------
jcoffland
> Mr. Gutsch said that recycling was a short-term solution and amounted to
> only a bandage. Parley for the Oceans advocates phasing out single-use
> plastic altogether.

This is the key. We must hold the companies producing single use plastics
responsible for the massive amounts of toxic waste they dump on our planet.
For too long, they have been allowed to pass the responsibility and blame on
to the consumer. Recycling programs have not been sufficiently successful.
It's time to stop the problem at the source.

------
btbuildem
> The plastic waste washing onto Montesinos Beach comes from the Ozama River,
> which flows into the Caribbean nearby, one of those in charge of the
> cleanup, Gen. Rafael Antonio Carrasco, told Reuters.

Maybe I misread this, but it sounds like the source of the garbage is
relatively local.

It's not the Great Garbage Patch or anything like that, it's the DR's own
garbage they they throw in the Ozama River that's washing up ashore.

------
alexirobbins
Natgeo recently published this great data visualization / article on the
ocean’s plastic and where it comes from:
[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/06/the-
jour...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/06/the-journey-of-
plastic-around-the-globe/?beta=true)

------
pkaye
Same thing happened in Mumbai a week back. The monsoon rains pulled back all
the trash. [http://observers.france24.com/en/20180720-video-mumbai-
ocean...](http://observers.france24.com/en/20180720-video-mumbai-ocean-
rubbish-trash)

Also the Dominican Republic is pretty developed country but in neighboring
Haiti things are in pretty bad shape. I saw in a Youtube video by somebody who
went there on an eco tour the piles on garbage on a river. He said the garbage
was so bad you could walk across the river on the garbage. I can't locate the
video clip anymore.

~~~
bargl
I was in Haiti. This is true, mounds and mounds of styrafoam lunch disposal
because there is NO place to put garbage. If it is collected it's burned. The
people will burn it themselves because again there is no place to collect it.

~~~
dajohnson89
Ditto. Haiti's beaches near the city center were HORRIBLE. The only people on
the beaches were poor folks trying to find scraps. Didn't help that they
functioned as a de facto dump as well.

------
notadoc
And nearly every other beach in the world. The amount of trash on shorelines,
floating around, embedded in reef, etc is staggering.

The next time you're on vacation in the Caribbean, SE Asia, or South Pacific,
wake up extra early and head out to the shoreline before any clean-up crews
arrive to rake up the garbage (and seaweed). Or just visit an unmaintained
beach away from resorts where tides work in favor of the garbage coming ashore
and where the trash is never picked up. The oceans (and rivers which flow into
them) are treated like a giant garbage dump in most of the world, and it
shows.

------
njarboe
While plastic in the ocean is a big problem, this amount of pollution is a
local problem. It could be completely fixed by local people with known
methods. "The plastic waste washing onto Montesinos Beach comes from the Ozama
River, which flows into the Caribbean nearby." Caribbean beaches and the Gulf
coast in general do not have beach pollution like this.

------
wavesounds
In a number of poorer regions in developing countries I've been too people
don't have the capability or perhaps knowledge to properly dispose of garbage
so it ends up on the side of the road, which eventually makes its way into
rivers and the ocean.

------
zaroth
Nice bit of auto playing video at the bottom of the article (picture worth a
thousand words) or could have been an GIF.

My first thought was it looks like a great problem for some robots — they need
a small fleet of floating Rhombas.

~~~
jpindar
There are devices for scooping trash out of rivers, I don't know how well they
could be adapted for the ocean.

[https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/02/mr-trash-
wheels-...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/02/mr-trash-wheels-
professor-trash-wheels-baltimore-harbor-ocean-trash-pickup/)

------
swerveonem
Why can't they organize a weekly trash service and tell all people to stack
the trash at the end of the road?

~~~
LeifCarrotson
Culture, Money, and Infrastructure (the latter of which requires a combination
of Money and Time).

------
EGreg
I bet if this happened in major US or Chinese beaches they’d actually enact
policies to curb this dumping.

------
SonnyWortzik
It reminds me of George Carlin save the planet:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c)

------
pulse7
Most probably created in China, used on the West then dumped in the sea...

~~~
deepvibrations
It says in the article it's from the Ozama river which is a local river that
runs into the sea nearby.

~~~
ramy_d
I read that in the article, then i checked it on google maps
[https://goo.gl/maps/pVJeXBUE4Ck](https://goo.gl/maps/pVJeXBUE4Ck) . It's
still hard to believe so much trash can wind up on a beach through that river.
Wait, what does the river look like? Should they just install a shallow net?

It's crazy

~~~
wavesounds
They should stop dumping trash in the river

~~~
jandrese
Easier said than done. First you have to develop the infrastructure (garbage
trucks, dumps, entire departments in local government, etc...). Then you have
to convince the villagers to change their way of life through littering fines
that everybody will hate.

I don't think anybody is happy with the situation, but practical alternatives
are in short supply. Worse, you have to apply the situation throughout the
whole country or the people who follow the law but still get smothered in
garbage from upstream will be angry and disincentiveized to continue trying to
clean up.

------
sev
So the fish we consume is most probably consuming garbage and plastic.
Veganism to the rescue?

~~~
clircle
It's precisely why my wife and I no longer eat meat.

