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by flavor8 3247 days ago
So how _does_ the plastic get into the ocean? Clearly litter washes into rivers during storms and thus ends up in the ocean, but that seems like it must be a relatively insignificant source. Are there countries who are dumping barges full of trash out at sea? Which ones?
3 comments
soperj 3247 days ago
Victoria BC actually pipes all sewage right out to sea currently. So anything w/ micro plastic beads gets sent right into the ocean. This is also the case with the storm drainage system, so anything left on the road also right into the ocean.
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irrational 3247 days ago
Source? That's crazy if true. I assumed only poor 3rd world countries still did stupid stuff like that.
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soperj 3247 days ago
https://thetyee.ca/News/2015/01/26/Victoria-Raw-Sewage-Dumpi...

There's one for you. People here actively protest against building a tertiary system for tax reasons and because they think they don't need it (there's actually a lot of people who even think that it's less environmentally friendly to have it dealt with on land). It's been an on going debate for over 30 years.

These people also see themselves as "green".

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DanBC 3247 days ago
(What other people said, plus)

When you wash clothing that contains artificial fibres you dump a load into the water system, and depending where you live some will end up in the sea. All those acrylic fleeces and blankets shed thousands of particles each wash.

Some cosmetics contain plastic microbeads, and when you use those and wash them off you dump the microbeads into the water system.

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dflock 3247 days ago
There is a lot of macroscale dumping of garbage - and the plastic stuff just accumulates over a time, until sunlight and wave action break it down.

However, a lot of this plastic _starts_ as micro-plastic particles: microbeads from cosmetics and polyester fibres from clothes (water from washing machines is full of this) - these are in household waste water and often end up in the ocean.

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kpil 3247 days ago
Probably mostly from clothes and possibly from ropes, but I'm just guessing that plastic microbeads haven't been around that long. It seems as such a fantastically stupid idea.
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