
90 percent of plastics polluting our oceans come from 10 rivers - startupflix
http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/environment/90-percent-of-plastics-polluting-our-oceans-come-from-10-rivers/article/524230
======
lucisferre
In short, the problem isn’t really about plastics, but about waste management.

------
sctb
Previous submissions from the time of the original publication:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15918984](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15918984)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15459894](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15459894)

------
cdolan
What I find most interesting is that none of the top rivers are North American
- which to me says that while the North American method of waste disposal is
still not as efficient as Europe’s, it does seem to work.

I wonder what the consumption of plastics are in NA vs other industries.

~~~
dogma1138
I think you give too much credit to Europe which is ill deserved over here we
have no problem exporting our waste to Poland (which also imports it from all
over the world even Japan and Australia) that simply burns it. Currently over
a 100 landfills in Poland are burning their trash as we speak.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-29/poland-
to...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-29/poland-to-curb-
waste-imports-as-landfills-burn-amid-chinese-ban)

[https://newsmavens.com/news/smoke-signals/1608/is-poland-
the...](https://newsmavens.com/news/smoke-signals/1608/is-poland-the-next-big-
rubbish-dump-of-europe)

We also export our garbage to China, India, Mongolia and many other places. As
much credit as people here like giving the EU it’s the mother of don’t look
too closely because the reality is much much less pretty than the show we put
on.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5309215/Britains-
rec...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5309215/Britains-recycled-
plastic-dumped-landfill.html)

~~~
Doxin
Do note that while "burning trash" sounds absolutely horrific one shouldn't
imagine setting fire to a garbage dump but more a factory where trash goes in
on one side, and power and ash come out the other. There's fairly stringent
requirements on what sort of thing is allowed to come out the chimney.

All in all it's probably not worse than running a coal plant.

~~~
dogma1138
No, one should imagine exactly that as open landfills are set a blaze to burn
trash from all over Europe and in fact the world.

Unless this looks like a power plant to you:
[https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iZWE1fyTym4...](https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iZWE1fyTym4w/v1/1000x-1.jpg)

This has been going on in 100's of landfills in Poland and in other parts of
Europe for years now, this year its exceptionally bad for many reasons. This
is institutionalized intentional practice that is been swept under the rug for
far too long.

~~~
Doxin
Well jezus that _is_ horrific, but I doubt that that is legal anywhere in
europe. Doesn't stop people from doing it anyways obviously but still.

Over here (the Netherlands) burning trash looks like this:
[http://medias.photodeck.com/67e4af84-ce8c-4b05-86e1-a75e521d...](http://medias.photodeck.com/67e4af84-ce8c-4b05-86e1-a75e521db727/300735_xgaplus.jpg)

------
wildrhythms
Here's a link to the actual publication:
[https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.7b02368](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.7b02368)

------
maxk42
Which ten?

~~~
RyanZAG
It's in the article, and the article isn't terribly long. But here you go
anyway:

> Eight of the rivers are located in Asia: the Yangtze; Indus; Yellow; Hai He;
> Ganges; Pearl; Amur; Mekong; and two in Africa – the Nile and the Niger.

~~~
maxk42
Sorry, I was following the maze of links that all pointed to other articles.
Saw that a bit late. Thank you.

~~~
topspin
A map of all ten rivers appears here:
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4970214](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4970214)

