The headline is click bait. It's not "most of the plastic in the ocean", it's "most of the plastic in the ocean that comes from rivers". And that long rivers from more densely populated areas would contribute more is hardly surprising.
Iirc, most of the plastic isn't even from rivers. It's from the fishing industry, illegal trash dumping and the wear on car tires.
Hi Downvoters, please explain what is factually wrong about my comment. Thanks.
I didn’t downvote you, but am wondering if you could provide any source supporting your statement?
This is a website giving the ocean plastic sources, saying mostly from rivers:
https://www.theoceancleanup.com/sources/
Not sure what you mean by illegal trash dumping. Trash that's dumped directly on the coast and not into a river first?
Trash that's illegally dumped off shore. It's harder to dump large amounts of trash in a river and not have somebody notice - it's easier to say you're transporting it and "lose" part/all of it while at sea.
I'm not an expert and I'm not that interested in arguing specific numbers - I have no emotional attachment to them. The article being discussed here disputes your claim.
A recent study estimates that more than a quarter of all that waste could be pouring in from just 10 rivers [...] The 10 rivers that carry 93 percent of that trash [...], so 10 rivers are said to contribute 25% of total trash and 93% of river-trash. That'd leave ~68% from the shore, which sounds very high.
You're not wrong, this headline is very poorly worded.
From the article:
A recent study estimates that more than a quarter of all that waste could be pouring in from just 10 rivers, eight of them in Asia.
The 10 rivers that carry 93 percent of that trash are the Yangtze, Yellow, Hai, Pearl, Amur, Mekong, Indus and Ganges Delta in Asia, and the Niger and Nile in Africa.
So to say "10 Rivers Contribute Most of the Plastic in the Oceans" is not really correct, they contribute something like 25%.
Comments
The headline is click bait. It's not "most of the plastic in the ocean", it's "most of the plastic in the ocean that comes from rivers". And that long rivers from more densely populated areas would contribute more is hardly surprising.
Iirc, most of the plastic isn't even from rivers. It's from the fishing industry, illegal trash dumping and the wear on car tires.
Hi Downvoters, please explain what is factually wrong about my comment. Thanks.
I didn’t downvote you, but am wondering if you could provide any source supporting your statement? This is a website giving the ocean plastic sources, saying mostly from rivers: https://www.theoceancleanup.com/sources/
its in the article itself -
"A recent study estimates that more than a quarter of all that waste could be pouring in from just 10 rivers, eight of them in Asia."
10% from fishing industry
Not sure what you mean by illegal trash dumping. Trash that's dumped directly on the coast and not into a river first?
Trash that's illegally dumped off shore. It's harder to dump large amounts of trash in a river and not have somebody notice - it's easier to say you're transporting it and "lose" part/all of it while at sea.
Shipping waste is 5% of plastic in the ocean.
85% comes from either rivers or shorelines.
I'm not an expert and I'm not that interested in arguing specific numbers - I have no emotional attachment to them. The article being discussed here disputes your claim.
A recent study estimates that more than a quarter of all that waste could be pouring in from just 10 rivers [...] The 10 rivers that carry 93 percent of that trash [...], so 10 rivers are said to contribute 25% of total trash and 93% of river-trash. That'd leave ~68% from the shore, which sounds very high.
https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution#ocean-plastic-s... also has more input if you're interested.
You're not wrong, this headline is very poorly worded.
From the article:
So to say "10 Rivers Contribute Most of the Plastic in the Oceans" is not really correct, they contribute something like 25%.