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by stesch 2517 days ago
Americans have landfills and Germans recycle and burn the plastic.

Where is all the plastic in the oceans coming from???

1 comments

From all over the world. Germans cannot recycle most plastics - it's simply not viable at scale at this time. Therefore things are shipped to Asia.

The plastic created and received in Asia often lands in landfills and subsequently in rivers. A handful of major streams transport massive amounts of plastic waste into the Pacific ocean [1].

That's at least where a good chunk of it is coming from. That's how you get US or European plastic running down rivers in China into the Pacific.

[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plastic-polluti...