This was the salient quote for me in the whole piece, in that it sums up human cognitive failings: There's no reason in physics and engineering why we can't develop a solution to the problem of...
This was the salient quote for me in the whole piece, in that it sums up human cognitive failings:
“We always love the idea of cleanups more than we love the idea of prevention, or mitigation,” she said. “We love treating illnesses more than we do preventing them. But our affinity for simplistic solutions isn’t innate; they’re narratives we’ve been sold.”
There's no reason in physics and engineering why we can't develop a solution to the problem of floating plastic in ocean gyres. But it's a symptom, not the root cause. Until we replace conventional polymers with bio/UV-degradables that are minimally toxic, the macro- and micro- plastic problems are just going to keep growing. It's both a chemistry and a utilization issue.
Prevention is something humans would see as unneccessary at first sight, simply said: "why put effort into something that's not there? It won't happen to me anyway.", with no returns or feedback...
Prevention is something humans would see as unneccessary at first sight, simply said: "why put effort into something that's not there? It won't happen to me anyway.", with no returns or feedback if it even works until said event happens and is successfully prevented.
Cleaning up afterwards is very measurable, now there's a patch of waste in the ocean and the next time period there's a little less. It "works".
Of course prevention is measurable too, but I think it's harder to visualize what the prevention number means to some people.
I think it's not just chemistry and utilization but people's mentalities as well.
edit: what I do like about this project is that it creates awareness for the issue; there's probably plenty of it out there already, but seeing this kind of stuff in the news constantly probably helps promote the fact that climate change and plastic waste are very real things.
It's a bit old now and was recorded before the latest design iteration failure discussed in this article, but the Joe Rogan Experience podcast with Boyan was pretty interesting and is well worth...
It's a bit old now and was recorded before the latest design iteration failure discussed in this article, but the Joe Rogan Experience podcast with Boyan was pretty interesting and is well worth watching, IMO. The Ocean Cleanup project may turn out to be a giant waste of money and ultimately fail, but it's still a neat idea, the various design iterations it has gone through over the years are interesting to learn about, and Boyan seems to have a pretty good head on his shoulders, especially for such a young man.
This was the salient quote for me in the whole piece, in that it sums up human cognitive failings:
There's no reason in physics and engineering why we can't develop a solution to the problem of floating plastic in ocean gyres. But it's a symptom, not the root cause. Until we replace conventional polymers with bio/UV-degradables that are minimally toxic, the macro- and micro- plastic problems are just going to keep growing. It's both a chemistry and a utilization issue.
Prevention is something humans would see as unneccessary at first sight, simply said: "why put effort into something that's not there? It won't happen to me anyway.", with no returns or feedback if it even works until said event happens and is successfully prevented.
Cleaning up afterwards is very measurable, now there's a patch of waste in the ocean and the next time period there's a little less. It "works".
Of course prevention is measurable too, but I think it's harder to visualize what the prevention number means to some people.
I think it's not just chemistry and utilization but people's mentalities as well.
edit: what I do like about this project is that it creates awareness for the issue; there's probably plenty of it out there already, but seeing this kind of stuff in the news constantly probably helps promote the fact that climate change and plastic waste are very real things.
It's a bit old now and was recorded before the latest design iteration failure discussed in this article, but the Joe Rogan Experience podcast with Boyan was pretty interesting and is well worth watching, IMO. The Ocean Cleanup project may turn out to be a giant waste of money and ultimately fail, but it's still a neat idea, the various design iterations it has gone through over the years are interesting to learn about, and Boyan seems to have a pretty good head on his shoulders, especially for such a young man.