False, the fishing industry is trying to push it onto land base sources. Paper straws will not do shit!! It is more 50/50, ranges from 46-49% fishing gear.
What I wrote in the first comment was still correct, less than half are fishing nets and only in some places. This is the quote from above: "These percentages vary by region, however. A 2018 study found that synthetic fishing nets made up nearly half the mass of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, due largely to ocean current dynamics and increased fishing activity in the Pacific Ocean." The majority is still microplastics.
Although both of our sources come from the same place, mine was last updated July 2019, and your article is from 2018. Things may have changed since then is all I'm saying. Your's only mentions 46% I don't know where you're getting the 49 from, and again, only in certain spots.
I was able to find these and you were right. I think the 80-20 number is not fair as it makes it seem like if we stop everything we are doing the oceans will be good again. But it is hard to determine because of the different types (sinking, floating, micro) and all that good shit. I mean 1 net can be huge and would take a lot of bottles to fill the same amount of space? What type of trash degrades to microplarics quicker? Welp, since I am now officially bummed and confused about the massive task clean up is. At the end of the day one side is gonna try to push it on the other. 50/50 technically makes us and them equally responsible
This whole thing is making me depressed. Whether it's fishing nets or plastics or whatever, this is a mess. I'm grateful for people's efforts to clean this up. I wish there were more efforts globally to prevent this from even happening. I saw a documentary once about all of the old used computer monitors from Southeast Asia that they just literally dump into the ocean. Its saddening. There needs to be more regulations and policing of it, however with all of the corruption in the world those people would probably be paid off to turn a blind eye. We are freaking doomed as a world, where do I get off of it?
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u/MrMeeseeks013 Aug 12 '21 edited Aug 12 '21
False, the fishing industry is trying to push it onto land base sources. Paper straws will not do shit!! It is more 50/50, ranges from 46-49% fishing gear.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/great-pacific-garbage-patch-plastics-environment