Opinion by Kip Hansen – January 1st 2022
Just in time to ring in the New Year – a New Crisis!
CRISIS / ˈkraɪ sɪs / :
”a situation that has reached a critical phase”
or, alternately,”specific, unexpected, and non-routine events or series of events that [create] high levels of uncertainty and threat or perceived threat to [a society’s] high priority goals.”
And, of course, this crisis is man-made. Man-made in two senses:
1) Caused by something that mankind is doing
and
2) is a situation that ordinarily would be considered an interesting problem that has been declared a CRISIS! by a couple of dozen well-positioned single-issue advocates.
These crisis-creating advocates are endowed with societal clout by the fact that they are Scientists™. Not only scientists but scientists who have been (self-) appointed to an important committee of an important scientific organization. Which of the all-so-important scientific bodies? The august, venerated, always absolutely correct and perfectly reliable U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, more regularly referred to simply as The National Academies.
They, not the National Academies itself, but the members of the “Committee on the United States Contributions to Global Ocean Plastic Waste”, have stated plainly and upfront:
“In the United States, ocean plastic waste has become a top public concern, but the developing plastic waste crisis has been building for decades.”
And of what is this crisis of ocean plastic waste made up of?
“Sampling on the ocean’s surface has allowed scientists to assess the large-scale accumulation of floating debris across ocean basins, which occurs in ocean gyres in both the northern and southern hemispheres. These accumulation zones, commonly referred to as “garbage patches,” are mainly composed of microplastics that have broken apart from larger items, although large floating debris (especially derelict fishing gear, including nets, floats, and buoys) is also found.” [ source ]
You may be confused by the language used, even if you are a native English speaker. The “large scale accumulation” is not “of floating debris across ocean basins” at all, though the report expressly makes that claim, while simultaneously clarifying that the non-existent (but ever so popular in advocacy propaganda) garbage patches “are mainly composed of microplastics that have broken apart from larger items”.
Just what are these dangerous microplastics? They are bits of plastic that are 4 to 120 micrometers in size.How big is that in inches (it is, after all, the U.S. National Academies)
From one and a half ten-thousandths of an inch all the way up to five one -thousandths of an inch.
To see microplastics, you generally need a microscope. Your eye can discern a grain of fine sand, if you place it on a sheet of paper with a contrasting color and you would be able to see a bit of microplastic at 120um if similarly displayed (well, you younger people could, I could not). But even the young cannot see something only 4um in diameter without the aid of a microscope.
Almost all of the created-crisis-creating plastic pollution in the oceans is so small that you cannot see it. This admission aligns well with my personal experience. Like Nils-Axel Mörner, I am a dedicated fan of the “Oh yeah? Let me see for myself”-school of evidence. Until I retired five years ago, I had spent one half of my adult life living on the sea on boats and ships, both as a professional mariner and as Captain of my own vessels. I have a lot of sea miles under my belt. To actually see something floating on the surface of the sea is so very rare that it invariably calls for closer inspection at least by binoculars or at other times by a brief divergence from one’s intended course to “go have a look”. Failing to investigate an object large enough to be seen at any distance was considered negligent by the Captains I have served under and I have followed suit when I was the Captain. The “garbage patch” is a fraudulent invention – a fantasy.
Here is a view of the worst area of the pacific Garbage Patch:
You can read the entire 211-page National Academies’ report “Reckoning with the U.S. Role in Global Ocean Plastic Waste (2021)” in .pdf format by downloading it here.
The truest thing in the report is represented in this image (originally from Law 2017):
It at least shows that oceanic plastic, where found, fragments into smaller and smaller pieces and then undergoes (albeit with a “?”) biodegradation. Bio-what? Plastic are not forever as they wish you to believe, but are broken down into smaller and smaller pieces and then into simpler and simpler chemical compounds, they are literally eaten by microbes and itty-bitty living things in the sea.
The image below explains the repeated findings of trolling sieve nets through the sea to search for pelagic (ocean going) plastic – under a certain size, the number of plastic bits, which should be increasing exponentially as larger bits break into many smaller bits, sharply drops to zero as size decreases. Like ice chips in a glass of water, as size decreases, the ratio between surface area and volume increases. The biota eating the plastic bit from the outside in eventually end up consuming the entire little bit.
In every ocean basin, as particle size decreases through natural fragmentation, especially when the size drops below 0.5 mm, the number of findable plastic particles rapidly approaches zero. Plastic Waste Crisis advocates simply don’t mention this glaring scientific fact – it doesn’t contribute to their agenda.
The trumpeted crisis of Microplastics! involves bits of plastic that are 4 to 120 micrometers in size – 4um is 0.004 mm and 120um is 0.12mm – both below the vanishing point on the graph above.
If you read the Academies report, you will discover that the whole crisis is based on the new and developing ability to detect such small bits of plastic – the amount of plastic entering the oceans used in the report are, even by the most lenient scientific standards, mere wild-ass guesses. These SWAGs are then used in over-confident computer models to create further alarming estimates of total number of microplastic bits and potential harms, despite very few documented cases of any real harm at all (Creatures can become entangled floating masses of discarded fishing nets and the like, but not with microplastics). As with other invented crises, the presence of a thing alone is defined as harm.
Bottom Lines:
1. There is no crisis of any kind whatever involving plastics. Any claims to the contrary are fantasies.
2. Plastics are just another type of hydrocarbon compound, many created and used because of their ability to survive intact under many conditions and survive for long periods of time. Both are features not bugs.
3. It is not true that “Plastics are Forever”. Plastics degrade, breakdown, and are literally consumed by Earth’s lifeforms, which are all carbon based.
4. Plastics are made from petroleum and its byproducts. The petroleum converted to plastics instead of being burnt for energy sequesters that carbon for long periods of time just like trees ….and eventually is broken down by Nature into other chemical compounds, such as methane.
5. However, Kindergarten Rules apply at all stages and areas of life: Pick up after yourself — clean up your own messes. Thus, we need to do all we can to keep every sort of trash, including plastics, contained and disposed of in a responsible manner – this keeps it out of the oceans and the rest of the natural environment.
6. Plastics are valuable and should be recycled whenever possible into useful and valuable commodities, such as replacements for lumber in decking, shipping pallets, etc. Plastics that cannot be recycled are valuable sources of energy when burnt in properly designed clean Waste-to-energy plants.
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Author’s Comment:
I have written a lot about plastics over the last decade. You can find many of these essays using this link.
None of our society’s waste belongs in the ocean – or on the roadside or in the woods. But creating a crisis from almost nothing is not helpful.
Lady Bird Johnson taught my generation to “put your trash in the trash bin” and I have had a life-long habit of placing candy wrappers and other bits of trash in my back pockets – often to the annoyance of my wife.
The oceanic plastic waste hobby-horse is an outgrowth of all the other anti-petroleum madness.
By the way, while floating masses of discarded fishing nets and plastic ropes are a hazard to maritime shipping because they can become entangled in ship’s propellers – which I know from sad personal experience – they are also floating reefs and make wonderful habitat for innumerable sea creatures on the high seas.
Hoping you all have a prosperous, productive and healthy New Year.
Thanks for reading.
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Methinks the members of the “Committee on the United States Contributions to Global Ocean Plastic Waste” are offering up complete propaganda—some would call it BS—with their claim (as quoted in the above article) that:
“In the United States, ocean plastic waste has become a top public concern . . .”
Over the last several years, I have read quite a few listings of polls/surveys of the top ten, or even the top 20-25, concerns of “the public”. You know, those listings of “What are people most worried about today?”
I can confidently state that I have never seen a single instance that “plastic waste in the ocean(s)” has been on any such list of concerns of US citizens that I have read.
Silly you, It isn’t citizen opinions that are important. Like appointed bureaucrats, the really important “public” are the self declared activists.
I used to study flying fish on the bow. “To actually see something floating on the surface of the sea is so very rare that it invariably calls for closer inspection at least by binoculars or at other times by a brief divergence from one’s intended course to “go have a look”. Solution is to pass (or study) a bill you have to got experience the claim. “This report responds to a request in the bipartisan Save Our Seas 2.0 Act for a scientific synthesis of the role of the United States both in contributing to and responding to global ocean plastic waste.”
Anybody that has ever put out most any material for experimental purposes in the ocean, even in estuaries, has had problems with waves, currents, fouling, you name it. This paper has a number of references, including citations. We put out all sorts of “junk” for artificial reefs, even floating material, most work, rubber not so much. Problem with plastics is they mostly degrade too fast to be good habitat for goose-neck barnacles. A lot of our problems are increasing abilities to measure. Are they doing virus PCR tests on microplastics?
Chapman, M. G. and B. G. Clynick. 2006. Experiments testing the use of waste material in estuaries as habitat for subtidal organisms. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. 338(2) :164-178. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jembe.2006.06.018 Open Access
H.D. ==> Thanks for the link.
I can’t believe the ignorance displayed by this article – it is precisely because these micro plastics are small that they are a threat – they get ingested by many sea creatures, birds and further down the line even us humans…
A handy summary…
Microplastics in Seafood and the Implications for Human Health (nih.gov)
Micro organisms eat micro plastics because they are food to them
Same way micro organisms clean up oil spills.
Maybe you should do something useful with your time and oppose recycling programs in western countries that collect plastics then pay contractors in the third world to manage them which they do by just burning them on open ground but also by dumping them into the oceans.
If not for that there would be no ocean plastic patch at all
Geez Griff, you need to read your links before posting them. Nothing in your link has any specific harms called out for animals or humans and is completely devoid of any definitive conclusions. The whole thing amounts to “possibly, maybe, perhaps, and this needs more study, send us money.
Plastics are indigestible to humans and animals. They pass straight through the gut, just like those seeds from the nice healthy bread I eat.
You are a 🤡 griff.
Griff, thanks for the link. I have been wondering about this since sea turtles have been implicated as confusing plastics with jellyfish despite the success with increasing turtle numbers. One good example is numerous Ridley’s during the Texas freeze, big problem. I am sure there is a lot more to this but I have yet to run into an oyster paper with the problem, despite reading them by uncounted numbers.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Microplastics+in+fisheries+and+aquaculture:+status+of+knowledge+on+their+occurrence+and+implications+for+aquatic+organisms+and+food+safety.&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart
“In humans the risk of microplastic ingestion is reduced by the removal of the
gastrointestinal tract in most species of seafood consumed. However, most species
of bivalves and several species of small fish are consumed whole, which may lead
to microplastic exposure. A worst case estimate of exposure to microplastics after
consumption of a portion of mussels (225 g) would lead to ingestion of 7 micrograms
(µg) of plastic, which would have a negligible effect (less than 0.1 percent of total dietary
intake) on chemical exposure to certain PBTs and plastic additives.
”
And COVID shots are absolutely safe 🙂
Patrick Moore has a great chapter on this in his latest book
I remember when the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” story first hit the news. It was full of claims like “plastic littering the ocean as far as the eye could see”, and “beaches piled 5 feet high with garbage”, and “garbage collecting into islands”.
This article helps explain why I could never find photographs of any of these things.
Let’s talk about the real crisis—the accumulation of dihydrogen monoxide in all the ocean basins! And DHMO is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2.
And it’s a killer!
Hey, don’t fool around with that stuff! I heard they use it as coolant in nuclear reactors.
No, that’s oxygen dihydride.
They also use it in automotive cooling systems and it can cause terrible burns.
Some have tried to market it with that deceptive trade name. We have also found some shills of the DHMO industry calling it hydrogen hydoxide, which is chemically accurate, but obviously the goal is to make it sound less chemical-y and benign, as if it were nothing more than water.
Do they? Help, we’re all going to DIE!
And is it true that it’s present in most if not all tumours?
Indeed it has been found in every tumor that has been tested. It’s so prevalent that they rarely if ever bother to test for it these days. It’s no wonder really because it’s now literally in all of our food. When you wash fruits and vegetables it doesn’t come off. They’re still full of it.
It causes excessive sweating and urination, sometimes diarrhea, which is bad enough, but as HotScot pointed out, it’s no trivial matter or mere inconvenience. Every year thousands DIE from acute inhalation of DHMO. Often it’s the children, so tragic.
I hope that you’ll join with me in protesting this dangerous chemical. Even griff must recognize that it should be a priority over CO2 emissions.
Alarmist ‘scientists’ ought to be banned from ever approaching a computer.
Anything mentioning “Our Computer model says…..” should be consigned to TV game shows.
Reminds me of the Deep Water Horizon oil well leak.
The impression given when it happened was that the Gulf of Mexico was ruined forever.
A massive cleanup effort was put in place. A lot was cleaned up.
But they were surprised to discover that a lot (most?) of the oil was broken down (cleaned up) by microbes.
Like the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989.
Indeed Gunga, I read that in the untreated areas the environment recovered more quickly than in the chemically treated areas !
Thanks Kip, I agree that this is currently not at the level of a major crisis in the oceans but is a serious problem. We are still putting in far more plastics than the rate of breakdown. Just because we can’t see all of it floating at the surface is not evidence that its breaking down faster than the measured rates by science…….though 450 years for plastic bottles is probably too high. There are likely massive amounts below the surface.
I agree that if we properly disposed of all of our trash/liter, it would go a long way towards managing much of the oceanic plastics problem. Tell that to 198 countries in the world (-:
At what level would you consider it a major problem Kip?
Speaking of breaking down. If the rates of breaking down are FASTER, like you insist, then the dangers to humans from all the toxic substances ADDED TO the plastics are even greater.
What’s your opinion on this Kip?
A Detailed Review Study on Potential Effects of Microplastics and Additives of Concern on Human Health
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7068600/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A Review of Human Exposure to Microplastics and Insights Into Microplastics as Obesogens
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2021.724989/full
Mike ==> I do recommend reading those and other studies — it leads one to realize that they have found no harm actually happening to any single human being from ingestion or exposure to plastics or resulting from the additives to plastics with the exposures actually experienced in the real world. There are some exceptions to the breathing in of burning plastic in industrial fires.
It is almost absolutely true that one can find peer-reviewed studies that find harm from any chemical, element, compound, natural or man-made product.
All the could, mights, mays etc rend these studies simply speculative outpourings of angst.
Thanks Kip!
Happy New Year to you!
Appreciate you taking the time to respond to everybody’s comments, including my previous one.
Here is one of those studies.
Overview of known plastic packaging-associated chemicals and their hazards
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969718338828
I find it impossible to believe that with hundreds of additives, dozens that are known to be hazardous to human health that this is not introducing a measurable health risk to those chronically exposed to substantial amounts in some realms.
With the massive knowledge gaps in the research and this field of study still just in its infancy, we don’t yet have the data to conclusively show what seems very likely.
There are numerous ways for these toxic substances to cause harm to humans. It’s really just a matter of determining the scale of the harm based on the exposure, which we don’t know yet.
It probably isn’t as great as the pessimists/alarmists claim. But we don’t know.
However, even though we still don’t know alot, we can use critical thinking/common sense to speculate based on what we do know with high confidence about all these hazardous chemicals.
I’m taking the open minded position which maximizes the amount of objective science that can be learned and there’s tons of it in this field, studying the affects of microplastics and the ADDITIIVES in them on human health.
Mike ==> Many of the “additives” are included in modern plastics used to cover and store our food.
Thanks Kip, I see that. There is much about this topic for me to learn about and obviously for expert scientists in this field to learn MORE about.
Scientists Thought It Took Thousands of Years for Plastic to Decompose – It May Only Be Decades
https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-thought-it-took-thousands-of-years-for-plastic-to-decompose-it-may-only-be-decades/
Interesting that two of WUWT’s wise contributors, Kip Hansen and Willis Eichenbach (Hope I got the spelling right Willis) both come from a nautical background. Perhaps their years spent on the oceans of the world have given them a perspective that is less common in more landlubberly researchers. Seven tenths of the worlds surface are oceans and seas. For most their world ends at the seashore. The vastness of the world is more apparent with a maritime background and this may have contributed to their perspicacity.
Peter ==> I venture that you are quite right — though Willis and I share very few viewpoints, we both have the tendency to stick to hard bites-ya-on-the-toe reality.
Running off to sea does that. It also builds a terrific sense of personal responsibility.
Fishing tackle needs to be biodegradable – organic twines and hemps. I hate finding monofilament in and around the sea and terrestrial waterways.
Phil ==> Monofilament fishing line is a bane — hate the stuff until I need it. When I’m the Captain, no one disposes of mono in the sea — they are required to roll it into tiny little well-secured hanks and put in the “to be disposed of ashore” trash bag.
But having worked with both hemp hawsers and poly hawsers, the poly takes the prize.
Any thoughts on the impact of Russian factory ships off Georges bank and elsewhere. I always thought they were dumping quite a bit of trash as they stayed at sea for months on end.
Happy New Year to you…the adventure continues!
Walter ==> It is illegal to dump PLASTIC in the sea for all vessels. (Or trash that contains plastic). It is not illegal to dump ships trash and garbage in the sea in international waters. Every US vessel is required to have a placard that expressly states this.
https://www.landfallnavigation.com/plaque-discharge-dump.html
Well I bet that stops those wascally wushians.
All this fuss about microplastics and people are still buying polyester fleece.
Fran ==> And a very high percentage of what is being labeled “microplastics” are the tiny broken off end of those fleece fibers in your washing machine and dryer.
I hate fleece except my little warm-cozy lap-rug blanket . . . .
Great post, Kip. In the first 20 years of my career, I specialized in the treatment of oil and chemicals released into the environment, either through inadvertent spill events or intentionally, utilizing natural systems to immobilize and degrade industrial and municipal wastes. I co-authored a book for EPA on the subject, helped write the original RCRA regulations on the topic, trained state and federal permit writers, and assisted numerous petroleum, chemical, industrial and municipal clients with treating or remediating millions of tons of organic and inorganic wastes and spilled products.
Consider the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout. 4.9 Mbbl (210 million US gal; 780,000 m3) of oil (equivalent to 2 ultra-large crude carriers (ULCCs) leaked into the Gulf over a period of months, diluted into massive amounts of seawater. Most was never accounted for because it either evaporated or degraded or was sequestered. Yes, it made a mess and killed some wildlife, though the actual numbers (not percentage increases) were relatively small and transient. The resulting BP funded research created a scientific “feeding frenzy” as every U.S. coastal university and community college tried to get their gulp of the swill. Of course they reported effects, most commonly where massed, phase-separated oil came ashore. Ten years later, even as little as three years later, evidence of the spill (visual, chemical or wildlife populations) was practically nonexistent. This event is listed as “possibly” the largest marine oil spill in history, if you don’t count sunken WWII shipping or dubious estimates by Pemex of the 1979 Ixtoc spill. The largest known inland oil spill in history occurred near Bakersfield, California during the early years of the oil & gas industry, and today there is little to no evidence that it ever occurred. (Of course, the Russians probably had more and far larger spills, but they would have never been reported.) Lest we forget, the world’s worst eco-criminal was Saddam Hussein when he torched the Kuwait oil fields.
These events are not to be minimized and cause real damages, but they are exceedingly rare and, more to my point, they testify to the ability of ocean and terrestrial ecosystems to recover quickly and naturally, sometimes aided by human intervention. Micro plastics in the ocean are far less toxic and likewise are eventually physically, chemically and/or biologically degraded. As reasonable efforts reduce the rate of plastics discharges to rivers and oceans, these gyres of micro plastics will diminish. This is not an emergency, nor are our oceans doomed from plastics. Early research should include better estimates of the source term (flux) to enable us to focus on practical controls.
gordon ==> Thanks for your input as a professional.
Excellent article. Nothing at all that I can disagree with.
I often like to tell the plastic-botherers, “What do you think has happened to all that vulcanized rubber from car tyres we have been dumping into the watercourses and the oceans for over a century, in ever increasing quantities? Where is the disaster?”
Best article of the year.
I know the year just started
but I’m confident it will be
in the top ten for 2020
It’s one of those
“why doesn’t anyone else write about
this subject accurately” articles.
After 25 years of reading climate articles and studies,
I rarely come across something new like this.
My only complaint:
That figshare.com group of eight small photographs.
What are we supposed to be seeing?
A magnifying glass did not help.
I thought I saw a few sharks and a submarine.
ha ha
Richard ==> Valid complaint….I should have at least referenced and linked to my earlier essay explaining it. It is a micro-photo of biota eating the surface of itty bits of floating plastic from the sea.
Here in Australia we have this new phenomena, “Sea Bins”, a propaganda exercise for “cleaning” up plastic from waterways with what is essentially a little floating PLASTIC weir with a PLASTIC net floating beneath. The cr8p that they espouse in the simplistic TV advertising is mind numbing … and the garbage coming out of their “sea bins” is almost entirely natural biodegradables like leaves and, of course, the single nice clean, deliberately flattened out plastic water bottle which “take 400 years to degrade” !
Great article Kip. You briefly mentioned replying to Rick about picking up the roadside trash and the degradation of the foam plastic food containers, due to UV light (sunlight). As one who has 25+ years working with polyurethane foam plastics in construction applications, the sunlight is the most serious thing that degraded the material. All plastics are degraded by UV light, but not much else. Placed underground or covered (shielded from) from UV, these plastic will last the life of the building structure. Exposed to the sunlight and degradation can be observed in 48 hours. Studies have shown that the typical plastic grocery bag floating on top of the water will begin to break down in 2 weeks. As you noted in the trash pickup, a few days exposure degrades the polystyrene cups and food containers to where they crumble when you attempt to pick them up. In some ways, burying plastic in a landfill ensures they will survive the 400 years some have stated a plastic water bottle will last. Put that same bottle in your window with daily sunlight and that survival will be quite different.
Yup. Mountaineers and rock climbers will also confirm that plastic ropes and slings degrade in the natural environment through UV and oxygen. When you are offered the option of trusting your life to something you find in-situ, you decline.
Deacon ==> Thanks for the professional viewpoint.
I am not sure why they worry about how long a plastic bottle can survive when buried in a landfill. Can you see any logical reason to have that as a worry?
Streetcred ==> If the bottle floats, the Sun will quickly break it down into small pieces, which will then collect enough bit of life that it will sink, as it does so, the lifeforms will eat it.
That said, the bottle should have been returned for recycling or burning in a Wste-to_Energy plant.
Obfuscation, misdirection, and fear mongering are all propaganda tools of the Marxists. Control of the MSM gives you the platform to deliver it. Useful idiots are recruited to support it.
Perhaps this concerned group should determine where the plastics come from and why. Per the video showing the trash collection trucks dumping the waste into a river, this is an entirely manmade problem called “no modern sanitation”. Societies with access to inexpensive power can afford to have regular garbage service (twice a week in my subdivision) and proper landfills. Most plastic in the US is buried, not sent down a river. The era of garbage barges from NYC and NJ is over. For most of the world, there is no garbage service and everything washes into the river during the next heavy rain. they can’t afford to do a lot better. Make their energy cost more, and they won’t ever be able to properly dispose of their trash or sewage. Maybe these scientists could work on preventing the issue instead of looking for expensive ways to remediate it.
Accumulating….
We visited Niue a few months before the Chinese virus struck and for a week did not see one bit of plastic in the water. We did not expect that because on our Pacific travels we normally do see some plastic.
It is a real problem for all the shouters and screamers when reality refuses to comply with their feelings.
I don’t know how you’ll get on with the rest of the song but Tom MacDonald covers the topic of plastic straws nicely in his song People So Stupid at 1.45
He covers a lot of topics which many don’t want aired with lines like “If you lie to the government they put you in prison, but when they lie to all of us it’s called being a politician”
James Bull
Mr.Hansen, like you I am a sailor. I have sailed from Barclay Sound in Canada down to Puerto Vallarta in Mexico. The only country where I saw plastic or any garbage in the ocean was Mexico. In Mexico all the beaches have plastic unless they actually clean them up. I anchored in many isolated bays in the Sea of Cortez and saw plastic on the beaches. I talked to sailors who had sailed from Hawaii to California and they saw no plastic or garbage. But it IS THERE, and there is at least one group working to clean it up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrpCk-ZfsrI I consider this a worthwhile endeavor as long as the taxpayer of Canada or the US doesn’t have to pay for it. I haven’t watched all the videos of this, I don’t know how much it is costing them, but it is a good idea. Here is a recent video: nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLcnJEMnlTs&t=374s
I hate that they call it a garbage patch, since it is nothing of the kind. But there is garbage out there and however misguided at least somebody is doing something.
Michael ==> Like many good ideas and worthwhile projects, Boyan Slat’s project is vastly expensive and if you watch the video through, you will see that after whatever period they spend at sea, they collected very little plastic. Not none, but you could spend a couple of days beachcombing anywhere where the beaches are not cleaned weekly by tractors and collect more.
It might be far better to spend that vast sum of money drilling clean drinking water wells in areas that go without.
Or, if plastics is your thing, helping the Third World build infrastructure to collect and landfill or burn municipal tarsh or fund anti-litter campaigns in the slums of the world.
Cost — Benefit.