
Stomach of Dead Whale Contained 'Nothing but Nonstop Plastic' - Ultramanoid
https://www.npr.org/2019/03/18/704471596/stomach-of-dead-whale-contained-nothing-but-plastic
======
cageface
These stories rarely mention this for some reason but the bulk of the plastic
junk in the ocean is discarded fishing nets, not consumer waste. Reducing the
plastic waste you personally generate is still a good idea, of course, but if
you really want to have an impact then stop eating fish.

[https://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/ocean-plastic-made-
disca...](https://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/ocean-plastic-made-discarded-
fishing-nets/)

[https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/great-pacific-
ga...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/great-pacific-garbage-
patch-plastics-environment/)

~~~
ehnto
I am not sure that is good advice. Fixing the fishing industry is important,
overfishing is rampant as is plastic waste from it. But fish is probably one
of the best alternatives we have to other environmentally unfriendly meats we
currently raise. As populations grow it is proving to be key to keeping
everyone fed. Farmed fish most importantly will soon be the majority of fish
consumed.

Getting ocean based fishing to not use plastics will be very difficult but
moving the majority of fishing into farms by making it more profitable could
very well make that problem go away by reducing ocean fishing in general.

Make trade restrictions on non-farmed fish and the demand for ocean fish from
nations fishing with plastic would hopefully go down. If fish from the ocean
now contains plastic it would probably be a health boon to only accept farm
fish anyway.

You might create a new problem of corporate fish farms decimating local
fishermans livelihoods, which sucks. But at this rate they will overfish and
pollute their own jobs away anyway.

~~~
cageface
We don't need to eat meat or fish at all to be healthy, and meat & fish are
very resource intensive. We're better off redirecting all the resources we
currently waste trying to feed 8 billion people this way into sustainable,
plant-based diets anyway.

~~~
isolli
I was vegetarian for 20 years, vegan for 7, yet I started eating meat and fish
about a year ago. Here are my thoughts:

\- I started eating animal products again for health reason; I believe many
people can thrive on a vegetarian or vegan diet, but I couldn't. It makes me
unhappy, but there I am.

\- Similarly vegetarian and vegan for a long time, my wife started craving
animal products the minute she got pregnant. And after birth she became very
ill, and survived on chicken broth. In short, there is no one-size-fits-all
solution.

\- There is no reason for anyone to eat meat twice a day; and above all there
is no reason for heavy subsidies so that everyone can eat meat cheaply twice a
day.

So my preferred solution: animals raised humanely and sustainably to allow for
healthy, limited consumption of animal products, with products priced at
actual cost in order to eliminate over-consumption.

~~~
usrusr
> limited consumption of animal products

It would be more impactful get three people to reduce meat by 50% than to get
one to reduce by 100%. Unfortunately, "meals that don't have a chunk of meat
as their centerpiece but that are still far from vegetarian" does not have the
same ideological zeal as veganism (speaking in the context of a western
industrial background).

When eating out (again: western cuisine), the meat-free choices are getting
better and better and I applaud that, but it seems to just get more polarized.
In aggregate, either vegan or an ever bigger focus on a meat centerpiece is
hardly an improvement. Low meat dishes seem to have a serious branding
problem.

~~~
mcv
I have a number of friends who eat meat only 2 times per week. I used to be
vegetarian for about 15 years until I met my wife and we agreed to eat meat,
but only organic/otherwise sustainable and only a limited number of times per
week.

When eating out, I still eat vegetarian unless I know where the restaurant got
its meat from. Increasing numbers of restaurants in Amsterdam do care where
their meat comes from, fortunately.

~~~
enkid
Organic and sustainable are not the same thing.

~~~
mcv
That's why I mention them both. I'm generally fine with anything that has
animals outside rather than locked up in a tiny cage, but I prefer meat grown
locally in a field that's not certified over meat that's technically certified
but shipped from the other side of the world.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
As much as I'd love to brain the next deer that's eating under my apple tree
I'm also aware that that deer might have been stuffing its face at god knows
what dumpster or drinking from the river downstream of town (which has a
several hundred year manufacturing history so I wouldn't drink the river
water).

Farming animals for meat has its problems but it does impose much stricter
controls on the inputs. No farmer raising livestock for human consumption is
feeding their animals contaminated food and water if there are other options
available. If DuPont is upstream of your farm you're probably SOL but that's
the exception not the rule.

------
eecc
Just like Climate Change, oceanic plastic pollution is a case of Tragedy of
the commons. I can separate my waste and recycle as much as I want (and I do!)
but it’s all useless if a random idiot proceeds to dump my weekly household
recycling output into a river and call it a day.

This is nothing that can be solved with personal initiative and
responsibility; it requires international regulation and enforcement. There’s
no other way

~~~
wespiser_2018
I disagree. Tragedy of the Commons is a situation that is about the management
of wildlife and natural resources for the purposes of maximizing yield, with
the lesson being regulated consumption results in maximal natural harvest.
Pollution is just a negative economic externality, or consequence of an action
that is unseen by the participants, where more pollution is always worse.
Unfortunately, no one owns the oceans, and the normal ways for resolving
externalities don't work without an aggrieved property owner.

~~~
EB66
Your understanding of the tragedy of the commons is not accurate. Cases of
pollution in public waters are typically prime examples of tragedies of the
commons. Just because it's a "negative economic externality" does not mean
that it is not a tragedy of the commons. Even the wiki page for tragedy of the
commons lists "water pollution" as an example:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Example...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Examples)

Maximizing yield via regulation is usually the ECON101 lesson that accompanies
discussions about the tragedy of the commons.

~~~
wespiser_2018
Still, I disagree, the mainstay of Tragedy of the Commons is about resource
management through regulation, which does not apply well to oceans plastics.
The "Water Pollution" example provided is about water management for the
purposes of irrigation, and pollution of groundwater that needed for said
irrigation. Ocean plastics could be different, if its just the systematic
degradation of an ecosystem, orthogonal to resource management interests.

~~~
EB66
:smh:

------
verasio
China. Indonesia. Philippines. Vietnam. Sri Lanka. This chart says it all:
[https://www.statista.com/chart/12211/the-countries-
polluting...](https://www.statista.com/chart/12211/the-countries-polluting-
the-oceans-the-most/) They are everyone's oceans and these countries are
disproportionately choking them with plastic. Blame must be focused on them
for meaningful change to happen.

I'm a foreigner living in one of these countries and it is shocking how
absolutely careless and ignorant the majority of the population is with their
plastic waste. Tons and tons of it. I see it every day. First hand. They view
waterways as trash cans. Formal waste management is rare. Ask a local where to
throw a plastic bottle and they are more than likely going to point to the
ground.

~~~
bleigh0
So called "developed" countries were once similarly careless with their waste.
And their developed status was a result of such carelessness and the free
expansion of their industries. It seems slightly unfair to expect developing
countries to achieve a similar level of development via a sustainable
methodology immediately, when that has not been the path for the richest
countries in the world. (Given that developing countries are likely more
concerned about the health of their population, and as such, focused on
raising GDP, then the health of the ocean). Skipping to sustainable-led
development is not impossible and obviously would be hugely advantageous for
all, but it is still equally unfair to assign blame to such countries and
label them as careless.

~~~
koheripbal
The countries listed above are far more developed than you are giving them
credit for. They absolutely have the ability to recycle.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
I mean... no where I personally traveled in Indonesia had trash service. Maybe
Jakarta and Java do, IDK. But it’s REALLY common to just dump your trash
behind your place and burn it. It’s just what you do.

Malaysia was better, but I’m sure people there and in Taiwan still burn trash.

Asking people who are still burning trash to recycle might be a step too far
just yet.

------
jillesvangurp
The attitude to recycling needs to change. Right now it is something you have
to do or something that makes you feel good about yourself. But it is
fundamentally still an optional thing and an afterthought. It's nice that that
iphone is packaged nicely but that wasn't the reason you bought it.

It needs to stop being optional and it needs to be something that is part of
the product design process. Companies are not currently doing more than the
bare minimum here because it is not their problem and mostly they do it to
look good and there are a lot of companies for whom looking good is not much
of a priority or for whom it is more about the looks than the reality. That
needs to change. It needs to be their problem.

Sustainable production processes are not sustainable unless they consider the
whole product cycle from production to discarding. And the simple truth is
that everything gets discarded eventually. Forcing companies to think about
the post sales life of their products changes how they build their products.
Planned obsolescence is a lot less lucrative if you have to clean up the
obsolete mess you helped create. If they are forced to think about efficiently
recycling used products they produced, the economics change. Durability
becomes a topic. Repairability as well and facilitating recycling by using
materials that are easy to recover and products that are easy to disassemble.

~~~
protonfish
Recycling is the problem. It takes additional fossil fuels for transportation
and processing to ship to across the ocean and be dumped in a river.

Disposing of plastic waste in landfills is by far the best environmental
option.

~~~
jillesvangurp
Not producing the plastic is a better solution. Making disposing of that
plastic the producers problem is the way to get there. It will cause them to
rethink whether they need that plastic and what type of plastic to use. When
dumping in a landfill, bio-degradable becomes a nice feature.

Landfills are already overflowing. Nobody likes living on a toxic waste dump.
That's why the current madness of shipping waste halfway across the planet
persists.

------
jl2718
Third grade me believed that my recycling got recycled. But it didn’t. We paid
extra taxes for corrupt deals to get it dumped in the ocean. That was my
plastic that killed the whale. Why did they lie to me? I did always wonder
where all the recycling plants were. Would it really have been worse if we had
put it in the landfill?

~~~
EGreg
Government propped up fossil fuels and held back electric cars since 1910. We
could have had CHOICE in how our energy is generated.

Why in all this time haven’t some alternatives to non-biodegradable plastic
emerged?

~~~
chrisco255
It's called glass. We used to bottle everything with it.

~~~
avuton
Don't know why you got downvoted. I've made a effort in my life to replace new
plastics in my life with glass & metal when it makes sense.

------
seanwilson
For people saying vegan diets might not be healthy it's trivial to find
information online about this:

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

> The American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly known as the
> American Dietetic Association), Dietitians of Canada and the British
> Dietetic Association[6] state that well-planned vegan diets can meet all
> human nutrient requirements and are appropriate for all stages of life,
> including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and
> adolescence,[1] while the German Society for Nutrition does not recommend
> vegan diets for children, adolescents, or during pregnancy and
> breastfeeding.[7] The American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics adds that
> well-planned vegan diets are also appropriate for older adults and athletes,
> and that vegan diets may reduce the risk of certain health conditions, such
> as cancer.[1]

> Special attention may be necessary to ensure that a vegan diet will provide
> adequate amounts of vitamin B12, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, calcium,
> iron, zinc, and iodine.[1][2] These nutrients may be available in plant
> foods, with the exception of vitamin B12, which can only be obtained from
> B12-fortified vegan foods or supplements. Iodine may also require
> supplementation, such as using iodized salt.[8]

There's well-known athletes that are vegan as well:

[https://www.businessinsider.com/vegan-athletes-and-why-
they-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/vegan-athletes-and-why-they-changed-
their-diet-11?r=US&IR=T#fabian-delph-soccer-8)

~~~
LMYahooTFY
None of this means a vegan diet might not be healthy for _some subset_ of the
population.

No one on earth has ANY diet that can be said to be "healthy" for anyone and
everyone.

Putting allergens, auto-immune disorders, GI disorders, etc. aside, people
have been shown to process various energy sources with varying degrees of
consequences.

~~~
seanwilson
> None of this means a vegan diet might not be healthy for _some subset_ of
> the population

> No one on earth has ANY diet that can be said to be "healthy" for anyone and
> everyone.

Why the hair splitting? Obviously nobody is claiming that. If the word
"healthy" is supposed to be used in that way it wouldn't be useful for
anything.

------
vfc1
The problem is that micro-plastics are eaten by the fish and end up in our
plate.

It gets worse because pollutants in fish bioaccumulate a lot (fish eats
smaller fish, gets eaten by larger fish etc.).

Fish high in the food chain like salmon have a lot higher concentration of
these pollutants, to the point that it's not even recommended food for
pregnant women anymore.

Farmed fish also creates bioaccumulation, because it gets fed other smaller
fish, like sardines.

~~~
notacoward
> The problem is that micro-plastics are eaten by the fish and end up in our
> plate.

I think you meant to say that's _a_ problem. There are others, even if that
one looms largest for you.

------
hbarka
Why hasn’t Amazon, Costco, or Walmart used their clout to effect a positive
change? Have you seen all the plastic and unnecessary packaging in the goods
they sell. The size of the packaging relative to the actual product is so
ridiculous sometimes.

~~~
Ultramanoid
I routinely reply on Amazon's feedback that packaging was clearly excessive
whenever I am given the change to do so. To receive a micro SD card in (1) a
plastic container, inside a (2) cardboard container, inside an (3) A4 Amazon
cardboard envelope is bordering criminal.

~~~
chrisco255
Cardboard is perfectly biodegradable to be fair.

~~~
FooHentai
True, at least the stuff that's not glossed up with bonded plastic coating.

Easy to DIY recycle at home, too. Makes good mulch for the garden, just
flatten it out and lay it underneath whenever you put compost/soil down
anywhere.

Not so sure about the packing tape that inevitably comes with it.

------
jstewartmobile
It wasn't that long ago that we used wax paper, cardboard, tin foil, and glass
--and it all worked well enough!

And with the glass, you didn't even have to worry about getting man-boobs or
low sperm count from pseudoestrogens.

Nothing more expensive than something too cheap, and it looks like the kids
will have to settle the final bill.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Not only that it was all pretty easy to recycle and often reused. None of the
countless types of plastic, and composite materials that can't be currently
recycled.

------
NeedMoreTea
I do wonder when humanity will change our ways to stop wrecking the only
planet we have, while there's still a chance.

First step is acknowledging plastic is a systemic problem that is rapidly
becoming more trouble than it is worth. Then regulation to require degradable
alternatives, re-use and dramatically reduce our consumption in the first
place.

Or do we just keep relying on the economic myth of infinite growth until
collapse? Which, of course, doesn't even make sense economically.

~~~
kirkules
Plastic is just an example. Greenhouse gases are another.

The system in which it's a systemic problem already has and will continue to
introduce other such problems. And it's more than just that "under capitalism
there is no incentive to eliminate negative externalities", which is certainly
true; without a way to avoid unaccountable concentrations of power,
concentrated power will reinforce itself and find a way to cheat any system
oriented toward the greater good.

I'm not convinced it's possible in the long run to avoid the existence of
these problems. Our best hope is faster and faster problem recognition, and
magically broad solutions that work faster than the problems' deterioration.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Agree with most of this. I don't want to though - I find it inherently
depressing that we simply can't or won't do better. I want my kids to have a
half decent life. We seem destined to keep right on trucking until we drive
right off the cliff of collapse.

I don't agree it has to be the way of capitalism though, it's a problem of
unfettered capitalism. We have more than enough history to know. Post war we
were happy to constrain and limit capitalism to give an unprecedented period
of rising standards with rising regulation, services and low inequality.
Neoliberalism broke it. Rowing back the excess power and politicisation of
unions was one thing - removing them as a usable concept for two generations
entirely another. If negative externalities can be ignored, then regulate
until they can't, even if it has to be an entirely arbitrary tax on plastic,
emissions or whatever.

No country seems willing to go first, so we're stuck with the lowest common
denominator of international agreements. Agreements where one or two derail
any chance of global action and the rest won't get on without unanimity. Which
starts to look insane.

~~~
kirkules
I don't mean it has to be the way of capitalism, but I've become pretty
cynical about how long the kind of capitalism we'd prefer can last, precisely
because capitalism (which is actually superbly poorly defined wherever it's
used and you and I likely aren't even referring to the same thing in the end)
seems to inherently enable concentrations of wealth and power.

That said, I recognize that I don't know what the right alternative should be.

------
benj111
"According to the U.N. Environment Programme, some 9 million tons of plastic
end up in the ocean each year. According to a 2017 study from the
environmental group Ocean Conservancy, more than half of that waste comes from
just five countries in East and Southeast Asia — China, Indonesia, the
Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam."

Does anyone know how this fits in with plastic 'recycling'? These nations
either were or are big importers of waste plastic.

I don't really want to separate out my waste, only for it to be dumped in the
ocean somewhere else.

~~~
wespiser_2018
Imported plastic is only 12% of China's plastic waste. It turns out consumer
plastic is just to varied, too contaminated, and too low valued to reliably
recycle. More info here:
[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/china...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/china-
ban-plastic-trash-imports-shifts-waste-crisis-southeast-asia-malaysia/)

~~~
benj111
That's pre ban btw, now its virtually nil.

FTA (you linked to) "estimates that China’s waste purchases this year amount
to just one percent of the eight million tons it once bought every year."

------
BadassFractal
Not sure much can be done here without global investment and adherence to
never dumping plastics that are not biodegradable.

The solution must be possible, but finding the will and the support to
convince every country in the world to switch sounds incredibly tough.

The US could flex its economic muscle here and say that it will not accept
products from abroad unless they're packaged according to its new standards
within the next 5 years. And of course adhere to the standards internally as
well to take a global lead on this issue.

~~~
viraptor
> global investment and adherence to never dumping plastics that are not
> biodegradable.

Or not producing the unnecessary packaging in the first place. We really don't
need every single cucumber wrapped in its own plastic film. (Like it's common
in the shops recently...) Lots of other packaging is completely useless as
well.

~~~
lozenge
Those wrapped cucumbers last longer on the shelf and at home.

~~~
titzer
They don't spend much time on the shelf at the grocery store. They last longer
in the supply chain, which means they can be shipped from farther, where it is
even cheaper to produce. Make no mistake, the plastic wrap is there for one
reason and one reason alone: to allow producers to make more fucking money.

------
AngeloAnolin
The discussion here was initially geared towards trying to reduce plastics but
leaned more over the food that people eat. Just a causal way of observing how
people tend to veer away from the point of the original issue needing to be
resolved.

------
MayeulC
I've been wondering how a fine on companies' products that are found in the
wild could affect their behaviour.

Of course, that means forcing (degradation-resistant) mandatory identification
of anything at any point of the supply chain, but I feel like it would
incentive companies to, at the very least, educate their customers and
encourage them to cleanly get rid of their product. It could also shift them
to more eco-friendly packaging, and I wouldn't be surprised if some companies
decided to implement their own recycling ecosystem.

Our government recently asked citizens to submit proposals on a few themes, so
I ended up submitting that very one [1]. I am curious to see how it will go,
or whether it will be considered at all.

[1]: [https://granddebat.fr/projects/la-transition-
ecologique/coll...](https://granddebat.fr/projects/la-transition-
ecologique/collect/participez-a-la-recherche-collective-de-
solutions-1/proposals/lute-contre-les-dechets-non-recyclables-rendre-les-
entreprises-motrices-a-laide-de-penalites)

------
throw2016
Another cynical thread derail on HN. The serious problems with plastics, out
of control plastic use and waste is swiftly trivialized into an individualized
'consumer problem' and 'meat eating' problem ie let's not do anything.

The first comment is splitting hairs about what kind of plastic waste with an
irrelevant link to a story about plastic nets? This when the article clearly
shows and mentions 40kg of plastic bags and there are thousands of articles
and studies on the toxic impact of plastic on marine life. These kind of
irresponsible comments are a serious problem as it makes readers feel we live
in an uncaring world.

Eat less fish? Only those who haven't thought about the world or those who
profit from plastic respond in this cavalier fashion to serious global issues.
Not a word about the packaging industry, regulating the use of better packing
and nets, or the inability of consumers to make choices because race to the
bottom leaves no effective alternatives.

Instead lets dissipate responsibility, affect 'helplessness' and do nothing
while the destruction of the planet continues unabated. This is a small minded
ideology that puts the 'freedom' of a few to profit without constraints above
all else.

------
gpmcadam
This is a terrible thing for a creature to go through. How common are cases
like this, or is this more of a one-off?

~~~
stevenwoo
There was an article on the front page recently where they found plastic
particles in the cells of creatures in the Marianas Trench. It's plastic all
the way down.

~~~
gpmcadam
How concentrated? Do you have a link to that article?

~~~
stevenwoo
Sorry I didn't see this when you posted but here are stories I found on the
topic, the news doesn't cover concentration but does mention they found
plastic in a higher percentage of samples versus earlier years surveys did not
find nearly that much:
[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/02/deep-...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/02/deep-
sea-creatures-mariana-trench-eat-plastic/) source article:
[https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.1806...](https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.180667)
I distinctly remember reading the researchers made sure their probes and
sensors were plastic free somehow before they sampled the digestive systems.

------
jiveturkey
If 1 whale can consume that much plastic, I have a great idea on how to
cleanup the ocean!

------
nukeop
I eat McDonald's once or twice a month and I'm looked down upon for eating
junk food, meanwhile a whale eats nothing but _literal_ junk and it makes the
news and the whale is called a victim? Something doesn't add up here.

~~~
chronolitus
Is your point that you should be held to the same standards of reasoning
ability than a whale?

