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.
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u/darren01610 Aug 12 '21
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.