One guy from the Netherlands is cleaning a lot of that shit up though. Look up Boyan Slat. It’s not only about stopping the pollution, but also about how to help cleaning it up.
5% is still 5%, gains are good and may get other countries working towards the same goals.
Just because we can’t do it all in one go doesn’t mean we shouldn’t even start.
All you’ve really demonstrated is that China and Japan are well represented in one very specific pollution phenomenon but not why that is. There are a number of reasons that those two could be overemphasized that aren’t “these guys are doing all the plastic pollution”. For example, ocean currents probably play a big role, in combination with the location of the patch itself.
You cannot extrapolate this out into a representative sample of the sources of all plastic pollution, it’s statistical gymnastics. Hell, the article you linked even offers an alternative explanation for why Japan is so high:
One of the reasons that Japan is thought to contribute so highly was that the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami washed large amounts of debris offshore.
It’s at the end of the article though so I can see how you might have overlooked it in your rush to place all the blame on foreigners.
It is a crisis. But nobody wants to talk about where it’s coming from.
If you look at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch:
33% - China
33% - Japan
15% - Korea
11% - Misc Countries (combined)
5% - United States
3% - Taiwan
Source: https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-great-pacific-garbage
So even if Biden could wave a wand and eliminate all plastic waste from the US… it’s 5% of the crisis.
One guy from the Netherlands is cleaning a lot of that shit up though. Look up Boyan Slat. It’s not only about stopping the pollution, but also about how to help cleaning it up.
The Ocean Cleanup!
https://theoceancleanup.com/about/
15,000,000 kg of trash removed from oceans and rivers worldwide so far!
5% is still 5%, gains are good and may get other countries working towards the same goals.
Just because we can’t do it all in one go doesn’t mean we shouldn’t even start.
does that 5% include all the garbage the US exports that then ultimately ends up in the ocean?
plus a third of all of that is unidentifiable
All you’ve really demonstrated is that China and Japan are well represented in one very specific pollution phenomenon but not why that is. There are a number of reasons that those two could be overemphasized that aren’t “these guys are doing all the plastic pollution”. For example, ocean currents probably play a big role, in combination with the location of the patch itself.
You cannot extrapolate this out into a representative sample of the sources of all plastic pollution, it’s statistical gymnastics. Hell, the article you linked even offers an alternative explanation for why Japan is so high:
It’s at the end of the article though so I can see how you might have overlooked it in your rush to place all the blame on foreigners.