alt Hacker NewsI largely agree with what you say but I have my doubts about the following statement.
> If you live in a first world country the ocean plastic isn't from you
I live in Ireland and I’m not sure that’s the case for us. Plastic was collected in the recycling bins and then shipped to China for processing. I was always skeptical of the environmental soundness of shipping plastic to the other side of the planet – and the lack of transparency about what happens to the plastic waste after. I always wondered if any plastic that wasn’t PET was just dumped in a river or the sea. A few years ago, China stopped accepting plastic refuse from Western countries so the plastic was sent to other Southeast Asian countries but they also find it to be not economically viable to process. I looked into this issue before but found it hard to get solid evidence that the plastic is actually recycled. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the plastic that is collected in the West for “recyling” ends up in the ocean, while we in the west pat ourselves on the back for doing the “right thing”.
Personally, I do my best to Reduce and Reuse rather than Recycle.
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I guess that mostly proves my point in the sense that it's not most people's personal choices that determine if plastic ends up in the ocean- it's either incompetence or downright deliberately deceptive actions by someone else- it's crazy to think that we need to make chairs out of bottles because someone decided to ship the plastic to another country rather than actually deal with it properly.
In that sense, saying "recycle or it'll end up in the ocean" is like saying "eat your food because people are starving in africa". Not only are the cause and effect not related but then people ignore the true underlying causes.
I do as well but it's more recognizing that large companies and govts created or allowed these problems to occur. So even when we try as individuals to slow the damage, they are capable of undoing all that with one bad decision. Like you say with the lack of records for where the stuff goes.
Also anecdotally when staying with a friend in a different city I had to break the news that the bin they thought was recycling went into the same truck. They had been separating their recyclables for months. You can try but it might not matter cuz they don't care.
I still try but would be lying if I wasn't a bit bitter they successfully shifted blame onto consumers.