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Comment on Ten Rivers Contribute Most of the Plastic in the Oceans (2018)parent

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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.

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?

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.

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