Hearing the Falconer #39 ~ 6-May-2019 ~ Plastic Pollution in Our Oceans

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world....
from The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats, 1919

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

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6-May-2019: Plastic Pollution in the Oceans
Banning Plastic Straws Will Not be Enough
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To solve a problem, independent thinkers will gather information in order to focus on the real causes of the problem, while moderates will be likely to look for ways to attack different parts of the problem simultaneously, instead of focusing on just one element, that will leave the bulk of the problem unaddressed.

Over the past year there has been a lot of attention on banning plastic straws to reduce the problem of plastic in our oceans, but, as this article points out, “straw bans alone … will barely dent the flood of plastic spewing into the environment each year.” So what else can we do to tackle this problem?

According to this article, the most common type of plastic found in the ocean in 2017 was cigarette butts with plastic fibers in their filters. This accounted for 22% of plastic objects found. How about encouraging tobacco companies to design a new type of filter that does not use plastic filters?

If we combine plastic bottles and caps we have an even greater contributor: 24% of all plastic in the ocean. How about bigger deposits on bottles to encourage people to return them for a refund?

Plastic food wrappers account for 16% of the plastic in the ocean. So, how about mandating paper wrappers instead of plastic?

These three suggestions alone, or something similar, would help us tackle 62% of the plastic found in oceans in 2017.

This article also points out that huge amounts of plastic enter the ocean through rivers. China's Yangtze River alone dumps an estimated 1.5 million tons of plastic into the ocean every year. That's about 17% of the total. A focus on cleaning up the Yangtze could have a big impact on solving this global problem.

I was surprised to learn that 46% of the garbage in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is from fishing nets. So, how about encouraging net manufacturers to eliminate or reduce the amount of plastic used in nets?

Getting back to straws, one thing I have heard before, and that is mentioned in this article, is that straws are very light, which makes it difficult for recycling systems to “contain” them and so they “escape” into the waste stream. How about enclosing the recycling systems so the straws can't escape?

Finally, how does this plastic actually get into the oceans? According to the article there is 275 million tons of plastic waste every year. 99.5 million tons is produced along coasts, 39.9 million tons is “mismanaged,” and about 8.8 million tons ends up in the ocean. If we do further research on HOW this coastal plastic waste is mismanaged and then put smart new regulations in place maybe we can have an impact that way.

By gathering facts like the ones reported in this article we can focus our attention on the key factors causing the problem. By attacking the problem from multiple directions simultaneously we should be able to make significant progress.

In the meantime, if you want to do something right now, stop using those plastic straws!

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The "Hearing the Falconer" Library

Books for Independent Thinkers

Truman

Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today

The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It

Unapologetically Moderate: My Search for the Rational Center in American Politics

The Deliberate Moderate: Influencing From the Middle

Eisenhower: The White House Years

The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison

Lincoln

Reflections of a Radical Moderate

Washington: A Life

The Reluctant Republican: My Fight for the Moderate Majority

Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party

Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life

Theodore Roosevelt: A Life

The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides

Beyond Red and Blue: How Twelve Political Philosophies Shape American Debates

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Copyright © 2019 by Joseph Wayne Gadway