International researchers estimate that as much as 73 percent of the garbage in the Atlantic Ocean originates from Chinese merchant vessels, Canada’s National Post reported on Tuesday.
Researchers from Canada and South Africa studied waste washed up on the beaches of Inaccessible Island, an island in the heart of the southern Atlantic Ocean, on a series of trips that began in 1984.
Nearly three-quarters of the trash they sifted through originated in Asia, produced by China. The research challenges long assumptions that plastic debris at sea primarily originates on land.
“When we were [on the island] last year, it was really shocking how much drink bottles had just come to dominate,” lead author Peter Ryan told the BBC.
“What was really shocking was how the origin had shifted from largely South American, which is what you would expect from somewhere like Inaccessible Island, because it’s downwind from South America, to predominantly Asian.”
In addition, 90 percent of the debris recovered was time-stamped within the last year, and it would take an average of three to five years for that same garbage to make it from land to sea.
The study was published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday. As it explains in summary:
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.
“I think the evidence is pretty strong that it’s coming from merchant shipping,” Ryan said, “surprised” by the discovery because he had assumed the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships would have better regulated that particular avenue.
“I think we need to look quite carefully at better monitoring and enforcement of regulations,” he concluded.
China is widely considered the world’s most egregious polluter. In 2018, the country produced more carbon emissions than the United States and the European Union combined.
Thus far, their attempts to ensure their country remains habitable have had mixed results.
Young environmental activist Greta Thunberg and several of her peers notably filed a complaint with the U.N., citing the Convention on the Rights of the Child, against Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, and Turkey for their lack of effort against the pollution.
As China is not a signatory to that convention, it did not appear on the list of defendants.
Read more at Breitbart
You would think a country with over a billion people in the population would care if their water is clean and the fish safe to eat, or maybe this is a new form of population control?
We don’t have a plastic problem, we have a trash handling problem. At least the U.S. isn’t shipping all their plastic to the Pac Rim so they can cost efficiently dump it into the ocean.
Oh look China their Litter bugs dumping their load of garbage in the Oceans.So just when will those idiots from Greenpeace sail over to China and block their shipping lanes like they do all the time and make total pests of themselves
If they do, they will find out how Communism handles/treats those that dare to speak up against them. Remember Tienanmen Square.
The reason Greenpeace would never enter Chinese waters to protest is because unlike the American and Europeans the Chinese will sink their ship pronto without any remorse and claim that it was an unwelcome ship on their territorial waters and therefore a security risk. The world would whine and complain but the Chinese do not care what anyone says they can mobilize their huge military that is well stocked with hundreds of thousands if not millions of soldiers in 24hours or less. China is a massive threat to the Free world and our prime minister is playing along with acolades about how great the communist party has done to become a huge leader in the commerce markets. China does not need a deal with the US because they already do quite well with other markets.
Why did this article have ro conflate garbage being dumped with CO2 (not CARBON!) release? China is the world’s largest polluter but carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.
Let’s face it. If you believe CO2 is a pollutant & imminent threat to civilization, then China, India and other emerging Asian nations need to be part of the conversation. The U.S could go to ZERO GHG’s this afternoon and it will make a miniscule “dent” in greenhouse gas emissions by 2100. We need to start having a well informed, thoughtful & rational debate about energy transition & environmental protection. All the rest of this is just like that floating trash…FRESH GARBAGE…