Asia’s rivers send more plastic into the ocean than all other continents combined

I have been making this point for a long time.  Plastic waste pollution in the ocean is huge in some places and it is invariably blamed by Greenies on the West.  But Western waste disposal is normally strict. Stupid individuals can and do throw empty drink bottles into rivers and the ocean but almost everything else goes into landfills  -- INCLUDING PLASTIC BAGS.

It is the third World where waste disposal is often slap-dash and it is they who originate most flotsam.  Cracking down in various ways on Western use of plastics is aiming at the wrong target and will therefore fail to achieve anything positive.  It satisfies Greenie hatred of their neighbours to claim that it is they who are behind the pollution but it does virtually no real good.  Bans on plastic bags, in particular, are mindless


Every year, millions of tonnes of plastics are produced and trashed, with some ending up in the sea, and gobbled up by tiny fish. Even though countries don’t report on how much plastic they are flushing, a recent study suggests that around 86% of the plastic running through rivers was coming from a single continent—Asia.

An estimated 1.15 to 2.41 million tonnes (1.27 to 2.66 million metric tons) of plastic waste enters rivers every year, around one-fifth of the total plastic in the sea from coastal populations worldwide, according to a study published in Nature on June 7. (Other plastic ends up in landfills which can also “leak” into the oceans.) The researchers from Ocean Cleanup, a Netherland-based foundation working to extract plastic from the sea, found that a majority of the inputs are from Asian countries like China, Indonesia, and Myanmar.

Seven of the top 20 rivers from all continents, which originate or pass through China’s major cities, are contributing around two thirds (67%) of plastic released through rivers into the oceans. The Yangtze River that runs through Shanghai, one of China’s most populous areas, tops the list, followed by Ganges, a trans-boundary river that runs through northern India and Bangladesh. Next is Xi River, the western tributary of the Pearl River, a major water source for the 100 million people residing in Guangdong Province, China’s most populous province.

The Dutch researchers found that the Yangtze river’s mouth, where the conduit meets the sea, had a plastic concentration of 4,137 particles per cubic meter—and contributed 20,000 tonnes (22,046 metric tons) of plastic every year to the oceans. In December, two ships dumped more than 100 tonnes (110 metric tons) of waste such as needles and plastic tubes into the Yangtze river.
Asia has contributed the most plastic pollution into the marine environment every year.

The study echoes earlier research on how plastic enters the ocean, says professor Daniel Hoornweg, an energy systems professor at University of Ontario Institute of Technology, who was not involved in the study. Ocean plastic levels depend on the amount of waste production, wind or rivers carrying plastic into the oceans, and the quality of urban waste collections.
Although Asia generates relatively little waste per person, especially compared to the consumer-oriented West, the total waste generated by the continent adds up.

China, for example, manufactured the most plastic products—around 74.7 metric tons—in 2015, according to the 2016 report by Plastics Europe, a trade association that tracks the plastics industry. It’s followed by 49.8 metric tons from Canada, Mexico, and the US combined. China began charging consumers (link in Chinese) for plastic usage in 2008 to fight against pollution. The country’s booming delivery industry, fueled by e-commerce, is often not recyclable. For example, last year delivery companies used 12 billion plastic bags (link in Chinese).

SOURCE


1 comment:

  1. I too have been saying that for about 15 years, to the annoyance and disbelief of my lefty colleagues. The crusade against plastic bags cannot be justified by western usage of them and by common western waste disposal practices that have existed for many decades. Asia is the polluter. Most greenies and western women (yes it is mostly women who are passionate recyclers and anti the plastic bag) who support greenie causes are naïve though, and are not aware of the wider world as it is, only as leftist manipulators tell them it is. They naturally want to do the right thing in accordance with their limited world view, which limited view is not really their fault. Smarter lefties who hate the west are by reflex always working towards what is most inconvenient or destructive to the west, and naturally and deliberately deceive and manipulate the mass of their well intentioned but naïve and emotionally addicted followers.

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