Plastic needs to be accurately sorted and very clean in order to be recyclable. Cleaning and sorting plastic that has been scooped out of the ocean is incredibly time consuming and nowhere near making economic sense.
There are companies that are advertising some of their products as being made with recycled ocean plastic, but in reality they are capturing plastic from land sources that is headed toward the ocean, before it has gotten as messy from sea life growing on it. This is a positive thing and it is keeping some plastic out of the ocean, but it won't be able to make a dent in the massive problem of discarded fishing gear floating around.
I kind of feel like, if the safety concerns could be worked out, that could be a way to use the time of prisoners in the coastal states. (Only semi joking). They could give everybody rubber gloves, some kind of scraping tool, bins and have at it. It would be working towards the greater good, not too physically exhausting (you could even do it in a temperature controlled warehouse of some sort). Certain privileges could be granted to those volunteering. But besides the obvious ethical concerns of the labor, it may be too hard to distinguish different types if the labels are worn away/unclear due to the plastic being just filthy. Just wiping it down may not be enough cleaning.
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u/lnfinity Aug 12 '21
Plastic needs to be accurately sorted and very clean in order to be recyclable. Cleaning and sorting plastic that has been scooped out of the ocean is incredibly time consuming and nowhere near making economic sense.
There are companies that are advertising some of their products as being made with recycled ocean plastic, but in reality they are capturing plastic from land sources that is headed toward the ocean, before it has gotten as messy from sea life growing on it. This is a positive thing and it is keeping some plastic out of the ocean, but it won't be able to make a dent in the massive problem of discarded fishing gear floating around.