yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

How We Can Keep Plastics Out of Our Ocean | National Geographic


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

8 million metric tons of plastic trash enters the sea from land every year; the equivalent of five plastic bags filled with trash for every foot of coastline in the world. Across our ocean, plastic trash blows into circulation, dispersed almost everywhere but concentrating in huge swaths in the midst of global currents. Breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces, it is ingested by species across the marine world and sinking to the bottom of the sea.

Anyone can make plastic anywhere in the world and sell it anywhere else in the world. There's no design paradigm; there's no barriers. In order to solve the plastic packaging problem, we need to effectively rethink the entire system. A system from one which is linear—“take, make, dispose”—to one where it can be recovered and fed back into the economy as a valuable plastic material, or one where it is biob benign and it can enter the environment.

The ultimate goal of the new plastics economy is to design an economy where plastic packaging never becomes waste. To do that, we need every single player in the chain to change the way that they do things. But marine pollution comes in many forms. Industrial, agricultural, and urban waste also sweep into the sea, fueling explosions of algae that rob marine ecosystems of the oxygen they need to survive.

With sustained pollution, these areas become dead zones, which already exist in more than 400 locations across the globe. But nutrient pollution can be managed through changes in major contributing systems like agriculture. If you eat, you're involved in agriculture, so it's a problem that all of us have to work together to solve.

Soil health is critical for water quality; it's the first thing we have to focus on here on the farm. Organic matter is the key thing that we try to improve. The more organic matter you have in the soil, the better the soil can hold on to nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen. Organic matter keeps it from leaching out of the soil; it grabs onto it, and that's good for the farmer, but it's also good for water quality in the bay.

For any farmer to change their system is tricky, and it takes a lot of work. I think all farmers want to; it's learning different processes and practices that allow you to do it effectively that becomes a key.

More Articles

View All
15 Things You Should Spend Money On
Let’s imagine for a moment that you just got your first paycheck. It’s pretty exciting, isn’t it? Now you’ve got enough money to do whatever you want. But hold on a minute, that’s a dangerous mentality to live by. In fact, it’s even more concerning if you…
Charlie Munger: Investing During the 2023 Recession
If you think we might have on and off waves of inflation like we did prior to when Volcker stepped in at the Fed, the 70s era, of course it will happen some in the future. Yes, I think we’ll have some of that in the future. I think more inflation over th…
Q&A With Grey: Meme Edition
Hello Internet. It’s Q&A time. First question: “Are memes the future of society?” I think you meant this as a joke, but the answer is yes. The internet, for memes, is the perfect petri dish, gladiatorial theater, and mutation chamber… growing, selecti…
The Biggest Investing Opportunity of Your Life
Over the past 10 to 15 years, it’s fair to say that when it comes to financial markets, we’ve had it fairly easy. In the past 10 years, the earnings of the S&P 500 have roughly doubled, and the price has tripled. The highest federal funds rate we’ve s…
Worked example: Using Le Chȃtelier’s principle to predict shifts in equilibrium | Khan Academy
Carbon monoxide will react with hydrogen gas to produce methanol. Let’s say that the reaction is at equilibrium, and our job is to figure out which direction the equilibrium will shift: to the left, to the right, or not at all. As we try to make changes t…
Dog BUTT Floss! And More: LÜT #21
A wallet that looks like a matchbook and edible spray paint. It’s episode 21 of LÜT. The mince that come in this spam tin actually taste like cinnamon, but this lip balm tastes like Lucky Charms. Question. What’s warmer than a sweater and a mug of hot ch…