Pretty much. Even this pic is doctored to fit their agenda. 80% of plastics in the ocean are from land, yet they stood on a pile of fishing net and made a claim that fits their goals.
46% of the plastic is from fishing nets. Other types of fishing gear account for a substantial portion of the remainder:
A comprehensive new study by Slat’s team of scientists, published in Scientific Reports Thursday, concluded that the 79,000 tons was four to 16 times larger than has been previously estimated for the patch. The study also found that fishing nets account for 46 percent of the trash, with the majority of the rest composed of other fishing industry gear, including ropes, oyster spacers, eel traps, crates, and baskets.
The pacific rubbish patch represents a very small amount of the plastic in the worlds oceans. Most of the plastic is in the form of microplastics and non-buoyant plastics. Greenpeace did a study in 2019 that placed discarded fishing gear (not just nets) at 10% of the errant plastic in the ocean. I will grant you that the pacific rubbish patch is largely discarded fishing gear but it is much less of a problem compared to other forms of plastic.
I think it gets a lot of attention because it is the area of most obvious danger to large marine life (despite the fact that microplastics in the food chain are just as dangerous to whales/dolphins etc.) and it also provides people with a scapegoat (i.e. fishermen & women) that makes them feel better about themselves so they can pretend that they aren't just as big of a contributor the global problem.
I watched that documentary on Netflix, I think it was (forgot the name) and I thought the same thing. All that "info" is only good for people to say "welp, that makes me blameless!". And I even had a moment after where I was like "fuck fisherman" but then it hit me. We still need to do our part.
It gets attention because it makes for good PR when they can release pictures like this. Its the same reason they release pictures of baby seals when they protest the seal hunt in Canada even though baby seals aren't whats being culled.
These folks, like peta, like the conveniently misrepresent the facts for their own fundraising efforts.
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u/Positronix Aug 12 '21
Ah, so the PETA of the sea then