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Cargo ships source of plastic pollution

6K views 47 replies 22 participants last post by  MikeOReilly 
#1 · (Edited)
A new study looking at plastic pollution has concluded that most of it is coming from CARGO* ships, not land-based sources as has been commonly blamed.

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/09/24/1909816116

Ships are illegally dumping plastic trash at sea, study suggests

"It's a surprise in that it makes us rethink the source of the garbage in our oceans," said Robert Ronconi, a Halifax-based researcher, currently with the Canadian Wildlife Service, who co-authored the new study. "One of the common assumptions is that most of the garbage in the oceans is flowing out of rivers on land."
Also interesting (to me anyway) is the paper identifies plastic drink bottles as a major source of this pollution:

During the last 3 decades, plastic drink bottles have shown the fastest growth rate of all debris types...
Recently there's been this big focus on getting rid of plastic straws. Seems to me this study shows that we'd do a lot more if we could get rid of all these single-use plastic drink bottles, most especially for water - what a waste.

*I made a mistake.
 
#2 ·
What else is interesting is how cruise ships aren’t the boon thought to the local economy.
Compare someone visiting and staying in a local b&b, hotel or resort. They use local labor for maintenance, construction, services and transportation. They do all their eating and drinking on land keeping local restaurants and bars open doing business and offering work.
A cruise ship comes with its own labor, services and infrastructure.
What islanders need is jobs. Hospitality jobs are good paying as are construction and maintenance. Other than taxi drivers no one makes out much from the cruise ships. Maybe a lunch or a few drinks. Even tours are done in large groups so offer fewer jobs. Still, you see huge projects throughout the islands to provide berthing for these monsters. Money talks...bs walks.
We see a cruise ship we leave. It changes an idyllic setting to the New York subway in winter.
 
#3 ·
A new study looking at plastic pollution has concluded that most of it is coming from cruise liners, not land-based sources as has been commonly blamed.
The foregoing is not correct. Both reports refer to "ships" not "cruise liners".

While I am no fan of cruise ships, my (much) better half is and, consequently, I have been aboard a number of the Celebrity liners and, during such cruises, spent a lot of time going through the ships vitals with a number of the officers and engineering staff while my wife did the Spa thing. As I have been critical of waste from "ships", and particularly plastic water bottles, I was particularly interested in how the ships managed waste.

Aboard Celebrity, and I am reasonably sure other cruise lines as well, I found that trash is sorted, plastic bottles, glass and cans separated out, shredded or crushed and bailed/bagged for shore side recycling or disposal. As we did two cruises "back-to-back" on one occasion, we remained aboard during a lay-over and I watched from our stateroom balcony as bails of shredded plastic, compacted cans, and bags of crushed glass were unloaded to trash haulers on the dockside below. The ship's officers, and particularly the ship's Captain/Commanding Officer--a lady by the way--were all very impressively concerned about the quality of their waste management. I suspect other cruise lines have similar protocols but doubt that commercial cargo vessels come even remotely close and there are far more of those a sea.

One needs lay blame where it is due and not generalize from the specific in the reports. (FWIW I think disposable plastic drink bottles should be entirely banned but that's another discussion.)

FWIW...
 
#7 ·
The foregoing is not correct. Both reports refer to "ships" not "cruise liners".
Yes, you are correct. My bad. I assume since most transport ships carry few crew, hence produce little garbage, the main source must be those ships that carry thousands of people. But you're right, it only refers to ships, so it could be either, neither or both.

So what do you propose to replace them with?
What did we all do before these plastic bottles became the norm? Reusable glass was the norm when I grew up. Make the deposit large enough and most people will return them.

The growth of people carrying their own travel mugs is another example of how it could be done. A significant number of people use their own mugs for coffee. Why not extend that to all beverages. Obviously wouldn't work everywhere, but it is an example of how things can change.
 
#5 ·
I do a lot of litter pickup, both land and along the shore. On land, cigarette filters are a huge problem. Along the shore, I find tons!! of balloons, with their attached strings--more than anything else.

I pick up very few plastic drinking straws on either land or shore. The few I find are typically still stuck in the lid.
 
#8 · (Edited)
#10 ·
To be clear, the conclusion of the article is that a large proportion of the plastic pollution on one island in the south-central Atlantic is from shipping, mostly plastic bottles that came from China. It makes no statements about worldwide pollution sources, except to reiterate that 80% probably comes from the land, and most of the rest is fishing nets.
 
#11 ·
The commentary in the news article says researchers suspect “cargo ships.” So I was wrong to conclude it was cruise ships. I wonder if the title of this thread can be changed. I’ll ask…

And yes, the paper and the news item does not let fishers or land-based sources off the hook either. The research simply suggests that, due to the age of much of the garbage, that it could not have come from either in this case.
 
#19 · (Edited)
Just and FYI plastic straws are a large problem not to be made light of.

https://www.plasticpollutioncoaliti...raws-and-how-each-of-us-can-make-a-difference

500 million per day thrown away��������������

Just a small example. I run 26 restaurants, Average Gross 1.5 million per year. 3500 customers per day. Open 250 days per year. I just ran a straw usage report for one of them.

88 cases at 10,000 straws per case x one average restaurant.

Going to paper compostable straws is a strong contribution to the issue of plastic in the landfill. Every little bit counts.
 
#21 ·
We grew up with paper straws and no plastic water bottles - never even knew we were missing anything.

I was in Bar Harbor this summer and they had water bottles which they called paper but were really a plant based type of plastic that is claimed to degrade and disappear once disposed of.

It seems that certain cruise ships are worse than others.

https://www.mdislander.com/maine-news/cruise-ship-company-pleads-guilty-to-illegal-dumping-charges
June 13, 2019
One of the cruise ship companies whose ships regularly visit Bar Harbor was ordered in federal court last week to pay a $20-million criminal penalty after dumping contaminated waste in the ocean and intentionally covering up those actions.

Princess Cruise Lines and its parent company Carnival Corp. were ordered to pay the penalty after admitting to violations of probation in a 2017 case, in which Carnival had already paid $40 million. Carnival Cruise Lines will also be subject to three more years of probation and enhanced supervision.

The cruise ship company was convicted and sentenced in April 2017, after pleading guilty to felony charges stemming from its deliberate dumping of oil-contaminated waste from the vessel Caribbean Princess off the coast of England in 2013, and intentional acts to cover it up.

The company admitted to six probation violations since 2017, including dumping gray water into Alaska's Glacier Bay National Park, dumping plastic waste in Bahamian waters, and falsifying records ahead of court-ordered audits.
 
#22 ·
It looks like people slid without a thought into a life style which harms the environment. This destructive way of living was facilitated by industry and business we deal with day to day. They likely did what was most profitable.

Then consciousness of the issue began to change things... but this was in advance of solutions. Recycling began for plastics... but not 100% and so the problem mushrooms. Now industry and science is looking for and in some cases providing solutions. Paper straws can certainly replace plastic. We have stainless steel straws for the grand kids. Many products made from plastic can, are and will be made from sustainable materials. But will it be fast enough and extensive enough... this is a world wide problem.

Groceries are just beginning evolving into more sustainable packaging. In suspect in a few years single use plastics for packaging will be a thing of the past. So there is some hope... or light at the end of the tunnel. And now almost everyone is aware of the problem. Sure some idiots are in denial and too many still profit from destroying the environment. That has to change... And this includes shutting down or severely limiting the environmentally harmful practices of some entire industries.

I think most sailors get it. They do try to leave a clean wake and are perhaps more keenly aware of pollution around them.

The question in my mind is if the momentum of wrong headed behaviors is be too great for our environmental reforms to save the planet and keep it habitable by humans and other living things. Are we doing enough? How can we tell?
 
#24 ·
Going back to the original article and the research...

And locating where that island is... Ive never heard of it and I bet few have even heard of the group of islands!

So its got me wondering what they mean by plastic being dumped off ships? Really, could some goose on watch drinking his favourite water off the bottom of the Horn and The Cape and tosses it into the sea really add up to 174 new plastic bottles washing up over 10 weeks in this forsaken remote pin ***** of an island?

I don't think so..

It sounds more like wilful dumping of huge amounts of plastic waste on purpose. The who voyages garbage is ejected somewhere a long way away.

Thats just criminal.
 
#26 · (Edited)
...So its got me wondering what they mean by plastic being dumped off ships? Really, could some goose on watch drinking his favourite water off the bottom of the Horn and The Cape and tosses it into the sea really add up to 174 new plastic bottles washing up over 10 weeks in this forsaken remote pin ***** of an island?

I don't think so..

It sounds more like wilful dumping of huge amounts of plastic waste on purpose. The who voyages garbage is ejected somewhere a long way away.

Thats just criminal.
I agree, which is why I initially (and wrongly) jumped to the cruise ship conclusion. It makes no sense to me that this pollution could be coming from random plastic bottles tossed off of cargo vessels. Most of these vessels operate with crews less than a few dozen. I know the traffic is heavy, but the numbers don't seem to add up.

My sense is that the source has to be much larger, and probably more concentrated. This sounds like intentional mass dumping to me.

I would, kinda, generally agree with you.... until Bill Gates and Harvard University decided they want to spray TONS of sulphur into the atmosphere to block the sun!
Yes, seriously!
Yup… insanity.

As I said, I'm no fan of theatrics. But as a pragmatist, I understand that sometimes doing something easy, if fairly meaningless, is important as part of an overall strategy. That's how I view most of the actions we in developed countries have done so far. One can be cynical (as I often am), or it can be seen as a necessary step to get people moving.

But let me be clear, if the science shows an action to be counter-productive, then I would not support the action, even if it is good theatre.
 
#31 ·
We have lots of people in Canada, including some high profile politicians, who argue that Canada's contribution to the global problem is so small that we need not worry about our nasty habits. The strategy is apparently to show high population developing countries how they should live while we continue in our wasteful ways.
 
#36 ·
At first blush, it might be better. But a full life-cycle analysis would be required. Tin and aluminum seems easier to recycle than plastic, but plastic is a lot lighter to transport. Both require significant extraction and refining costs.

When I was studying to become an certified environmental assessor in Canada I recall one of our case studies was to look at the shift from paper bags to plastic bags. This is dating me, but there was a big uproar against paper, so everyone switched to plastic. But the analysis I examined suggested paper was probably better overall.
 
#40 · (Edited)
I read that article and despite their assumption that the bottles come from ships they offer no data to actually establish that. They are making a lot of assumptions. It is a well known established fact that container ships often lose containers at sea. Frequently these containers break open and spill their cargo. A significant example is the yellow rubber duckies case https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/w...000-rubber-duckies-lost-at-sea-teach-us-about This happened in 1992 and yellow rubber ducks are still floating onto beaches all over the world. So those plastic bottles could have come from lost containers. There is a lot of available data on this, but they did not cite this.

Regardless, plastic flotsam is a huge problem in all the oceans. Back in the 70's laws were put in place that required ships to keep their trash and dispose of it ashore at proper facilities. Most passenger ships do this. Most modern ships, especially cruise ships have huge holding tanks for sewage and that is disposed of at the dock by connecting to the local sewage treatment system. Since most cargo ships are foreign flagged it is hard to know if they are complying with environmental laws unless they call at the US or other country that requires enforcement of the environmental regulations (such as the EU)

PS: A lot of our trash gets shipped to China. Could be a source of this trash.

And I agree, we need to do away with single use plastic bottles. Not only the ocean, landfills are full of them.
 
#42 ·
And I agree, we need to do away with single use plastic bottles. Not only the ocean, landfills are full of them.
I have done away with them. Almost. I won't touch a plastic bottle if I can help it. On the road (Kerouac reference!) I find plenty of drinks in aluminum cans or glass. I never touch bottled water unless I can't get good tap water. In the few instances I drink out of a plastic bottle I wash it and reuse it several times and then recycle it. I put it in a recycle bin - I hope it actually gets recycled but I am beginning to doubt.
 
#41 ·
A new study looking at plastic pollution has concluded that most of it is coming from CARGO* ships, not land-based sources as has been commonly blamed.

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/09/24/1909816116

Ships are illegally dumping plastic trash at sea, study suggests

Also interesting (to me anyway) is the paper identifies plastic drink bottles as a major source of this pollution:

Recently there's been this big focus on getting rid of plastic straws. Seems to me this study shows that we'd do a lot more if we could get rid of all these single-use plastic drink bottles, most especially for water - what a waste.

*I made a mistake.
You won't see that reported on CNN or MSNBC.

George Carlin on the environment - 1992
"The Earth Has Been Around 22,500 TIMES Longer Than Us"
"Earth: 4,500,000,000 years"
"People: 200,000 years"
"The Planet is Fine, The People are ****ed"
 
#44 ·
What’s so disappointing is the extraordinary low incidence of plastic actually being recycled even when you separate your trash. Was told by my trash man that since China no longer accepts our trash they bring it to the regional dump where it just sits. They’ve been doing that for quite
From what I understand paper and glass are currently more likely to actually be recycled than plastic.
The microscopic particles of plastic that result when it’s not recycled are now in every life form including us. This is true even if you use no plastic.
Today used a lot of Saran Wrap. Haven’t found anything better to use when varnishing. Similarly haven’t found anything nearly as good as aluminum foil when doing woodworking.
People talk about not using plastic but if you do stuff- building things, refinishing stuff, doing just about any sport you end up using plastic.
Those fancy lines on your boat, the coatings, all the packaging of your parts and many of the parts are plastic. Given its being ubiquitous some better way to manage its lifecycle needs to evolve.
 
#45 ·
Significance

Many oceanic islands suffer high levels of stranded debris, particularly those near subtropical gyres where floating debris accumulates. During the last 3 decades, plastic drink bottles have shown the fastest growth rate of all debris types on remote Inaccessible Island. During the 1980s, most bottles drifted to the island from South America, carried 3,000 km by the west wind drift. Currently, 75% of bottles are from Asia, with most from China. The recent manufacture dates indicate that few bottles could have drifted from Asia, and presumably are dumped from ships, in contravention of International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships regulations. Our results question the widely held assumption that most plastic debris at sea comes from land-based sources.

Above quote comes from the source article.
I call BullS**t!

"Presumably dumped from ships" is based on date of mfg. Why couldn't a bottle mfg in China be dumped into a river elsewhere in Asia or in S America? Also, 2yrs seems like plenty of time for a bottle to be carried almost anywhere. (a 1 kt current could carry a bottle about 18000 miles in 2 yrs)
 
#46 · (Edited)
Significance

Many oceanic islands suffer high levels of stranded debris, particularly those near subtropical gyres where floating debris accumulates. During the last 3 decades, plastic drink bottles have shown the fastest growth rate of all debris types on remote Inaccessible Island. During the 1980s, most bottles drifted to the island from South America, carried 3,000 km by the west wind drift. Currently, 75% of bottles are from Asia, with most from China. The recent manufacture dates indicate that few bottles could have drifted from Asia, and presumably are dumped from ships, in contravention of International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships regulations. Our results question the widely held assumption that most plastic debris at sea comes from land-based sources.

Above quote comes from the source article.
I call BullS**t!

"Presumably dumped from ships" is based on date of mfg. Why couldn't a bottle mfg in China be dumped into a river elsewhere in Asia or in S America? Also, 2yrs seems like plenty of time for a bottle to be carried almost anywhere. (a 1 kt current could carry a bottle about 18000 miles in 2 yrs)
Based on what data or science do you call "BullS**t!"? You don't think these researchers would not have considered this simple factors? Perhaps… but it's pretty unlikely.

I think a more credible criticism is that this finding is hard to generalize beyond the specific of the island studied.
 
#47 ·
coming back from HI in August we passed close to the plastic vortex. For about three days it was amazing and sad to watch all the plastic, bits small and large, go by. mostly it was pieces of things that had broken up of all colors, sizes and shapes. a few plastics bottles but those were not dominant.
 
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