Why the Ocean Cleanup hasn't solved the plastic pollution crisis

They may not have solved the problem, but at least they are doing something about it. In my opinion, that's better than doing nothing at all. I've seen firsthand how their solutions have been implemented and have had a positive impact on the environment. How often do we hear promises from NGOs or government entities claiming they will solve humanitarian issues such as housing shortages or hunger, only to fail miserably while spending billions of dollars in the process? Meanwhile, others grow rich from government tenders and contracts at the expense of the unfortunate beneficiaries.

The title of the article is kind of technically correct but still misleading.

It is true that The Ocean Cleanup "we're going to trawl the ocean for plastic" approach isn't working terribly well.

But they did pivot to stopping trash from washing out of rivers and into the ocean which is working. Stopping the mess from growing is also a very good thing.

This seems like some combination of the enemy of good is perfect and also sour grapes that someone else is doing the thing.

"The river interceptor design was clearly based on existing solutions" like Mr. Trash Wheel, Dr. Richards says. "Rather than work with the organizations who had successfully been removing trash from rivers for years, they ‘reinvented’ a similar design, at a much higher cost, and claimed to be innovators."

This is a great summary of lots of flashy commercial and non-profit work. Proposal for a product: AI-assisted "Who is already doing this?" database. Extra credit for linking to audited annual reports.

Once plastic is in the middle of the ocean, it's game over. Much better to invest in reducing plastic use in the first place all those one-time-use plastics and invest in developing and improving recycling of the plastic.

Germany, for example, has facilities that can automatically sort plastic both by type and color, which is quite impressive.

The plastic devouring bacteria breeding program is going very well. Typing this on a phone that dissolves as we speak. As if a million million-sided dice are thrown in unison, always landing on the six-up - a thousand times in a row to get through a labyrinth.

Ah right, so it would be far better if the Ocean Cleanup did not exist, technology were to not have been tested for cleaning up ocean plastic, and people would not have known about plastic in the ocean via the Ocean Cleanup's social media?

Right, trust the experts, who appear to be more interested in their own expertise than people at least trying to do something, trying to create better technology, and trying to educate the public on plastic ocean waste.

What's the point of this article again?

Sympathetic to other strategies but that writeup is wholly unconvincing. It comes across as astroturf.

Sources of ocean plastic https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Global-emissions-of-plas...

> The Ocean Cleanup didn’t work, for the reasons experts said it wouldn’t. What can we learn from this?

Listen to experts. At least they recognize the "I told you so".

Ocean Cleanup is still hard at it cleaning major plastic emissions sources worldwide. I'm surprised they're still going and that they've managed to scale into different modalities of mass cleaning. Sure, it's not cleaning the world or placing consumer deposit on all plastic, but they're doing significant good.

It’s capitalism. The market has determined that plastic in the ocean is the most efficient way to produce goods and services.

Sometimes is crazy how deluded people can be on all this safe the planet initiatives... All you have to do to figure out whos contributing the most with the whole plastic in the sea is go a beach and see what plastic do you see... maybe in a few hours walk you collect about 2 shopping bags of coke bottles, the other 2 tons you cant carry is all fishing industry discarded gear.

Cleaning the ocean, yeah right... tackle the fishing industry first.