Pardon my own ignorance, but isn't it also bad to have all of this trash on land? I would love for it to get removed from the ocean, but what's the terminal state plan? I'm sure there's a plan, I'm just wondering what it is.
Well-managed landfills are among the best solutions I know. (After all, the oil that the plastic was made from was originally buried underground, and wasn't harming anyone there.)
> After all, the oil that the plastic was made from was originally buried underground, and wasn't harming anyone there
While I agree with your main point, that isn't really solid reasoning. Oil wells are typically so deep down, that yeah, the oil was too far in the ground to have the potential to harm anyone. But ground water (and ground water pollution is one of the concerns with landfills) are much higher up in the ground, and if you now put a landfill on top of it, it has the potential of seeping into ground water (if badly managed).