The Map of Plastic Waste

In this video I give you 5 things you can do to reduce plastic waste. The #teamseas movement is great, but there is so much more we can do to reduce the estimated 10 million tonnes of plastic and trash dumped into our rivers and oceans every day.
-- Links to Conservation Organisations ---
The Ocean Conservancy oceanconservancy.org/
River Cleanup www.river-cleanup.org/en
Oceana oceana.org/
WWF www.worldwildlife.org/
-- References ---
[1] How much plastic released into the ocean each day, and how much gets recycled
plasticoceans.org/the-facts/
[2] Global fossil fuel subsidies www.brookings.edu/research/re...
[3] Average plastic use per capita per year
www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/0...
[4] Average UK and US plastic use per capita per year
www.forbes.com/sites/davidrve...
[5] 93% of bottled water contains microplastics
time.com/5581326/plastic-part...
[6] Exposure to microplastics is bad for women’s and men’s health
www.breastcancer.org/risk/fac...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
[7] Plastic Recycling is and Actual Scam
• Plastic Recycling is a...
[8] How many times can plastic be recycled
www.plasticexpert.co.uk/how-m...
[9] 90% of plastic from 10 rivers
www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/0...
[10] The Ocean Cleanup’s poor track record
gizmodo.com/the-dream-of-scoo...
www.theverge.com/2019/1/9/181...
www.breakfreefromplastic.org/...
[11] A lot of ocean plastic end up getting washed up on the shorelines
sci-hubtw.hkvisa.net/10.1016/...
[12] Reduce flow of ocean plastic by 80% by 2040
www.pewtrusts.org/en/research...\
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-- Chapters --
00:00 Setting the Scene
01:55 1: Regulation
02:48 2: Reduce Plastic Use
04:15 3: Recycling is Not The Answer
05:02 4: Educate Ourselves
05:56 5: Cleanup
06:24 Team Seas Funds and Other Conservation Groups

[@BackYardScience2000]

Is #5 on the identification of plastics chart polypropylene? If so, then I can tell you that it is indeed recyclable at least 3 times. But after the third melt, it tends to start becoming extremely brittle and looses a lot of tensile strength. I know because I used to work as an auditor and lab technician for one of the biggest recyclers of plastics and polymers in North America for 3 years. I would literally take samples of the plastic coming in off the rail cars before it ever went in to be recycled. Roughly 50% of the plastic that came in that wasn't virgin plastic was polypropylene. In the applications that it was being used for, it certainly worked and held up to rigorous testing. I ran tests on the plastic itself before it could ever be used as a lab technician, but before I did that job I tested the plastic products as an auditor to ensure that they stood up to the quality tests. I pretty much made sure that the actual quality checkers and press technicians we're doing their jobs. But I can say for a fact that they recycled probably 100,000lbs of polypropylene a day. Probably around the same for polyethylene. Especially HDPE as it isn't buoyant. Most of their products were underground pipes and water storage systems that are meant to last for 30+ years. So it has to be dense so that flooding won't cause it to try to float and come up out of the ground. But yeah, I don't know why it says that polypropylene can't be recycled, because we recycled tons of it every day at my old job. Never had to do anything special to it or anything like that. Just maybe add 1%-2% of a dye to make it turn black, and that was mostly carbon black.

[@domainofscience]

Hey this is great info, thanks!

[@ammyvl1]

@@domainofscience you should re-upload to correct :^)

[@domainofscience]

@@ammyvl1 argh! lol

[@ramchandravarshney4149]

@@domainofscience Can we have a series covering environmental problems like plastic, global warming and ozone depletion?

[@LaplaceSpinner]

Actually there are many over-simplifications leading to untruths. I am a plastics processing engineer. How come LDPE is not recycable, while HDPE is? The point is that e.g. LDPE films have several layers of strengthening, welding and barrier components through it thickness, which make it possible to preserve foods at all. Without this approach we would throw away much more food in the stores daily. The problem is that you cannot easily recycle these multilayer films. However, you can make plastic bags of it. In that case you need usually co-rotating twin screw extruders with melt pumps in order to use a die head. For many plastic film producers this is too expensive. Nevertheless, I agree that a lot of plastic packaging is not required and should be banned. When it comes to many other polymers addtitives like IrgaCycle of BASF can be used. These addtives enhance the strength propabilities for reycable plastice quite a lot, making many products several time recycable. When it come to PET you can never use it for food contact yet again. Except you use is as a scrap layer being surrounded by virgin material. That makes the point of recycable PET pretty dodgy. This topic is extremely complex and I disagree with the narrative of the sinister plastics industry. There are poblems in plastics packaging - true. But not with plastics in general. If you try to avoid plastics you would be sitting naked with no electonics at all. If you don't use cotton, you probably wear polymers on your body. All dielectric components in semiconductors are usually Polycarbonates and PEEK derivates. I could tell way way way more contradictions, but that evil plastics industry story is utter Dünnpfiff.

[@derschone4234]

The best take on team seas so far! It's a really good project but kind of fails to address the scope of the problem entirely. When people hear millions of pounds of plastic they think it's a lot because it is a lot. But there is so much more you can't even imagine it

[@Invictus_Mithra]

I'm noticing a trend between companies and governments shifting the blame from themselves to us. You highlighted it here with the plastic companies and the same is true for oil companies promoting the idea of things such as a personal carbon footprint.

[@mediaaccount8390]

The first question I had when I heard about #TeamSeas was "How much of a dent is that?" Thank you for getting straight to the numbers.

[@plato1234plato]

Same problem as team trees. And worse, they're asking KZbin's demographic to pay money, which they badly need because they're young and need to invest in their future. And like DoS said, it's paying to partially fix a problem someone else caused, someone who makes 580 billion a year. It would only cost them 25 Bil or just half a percent of that money to clean up their own mess.

[@BreakingTaps]

Cheers for this video, I'm linking to it from a pinned comment on my video. While well intentioned, initiatives like TeamSeas can cynically be seen as a smokescreen to make the consumer feel they are responsible for all the blame (e.g. recycling 2.0). We take part obviously, but real change has to come from legislation and holding companies accountable, which beach cleanups will not do. I wanted to speak to this in my video but didn't feel like I had enough knowledge on the subject to really talk about it authoritatively. Thanks for addressing it, will be forwarding your video to folks! (Although I did include a hefty disclaimer about TOC... )

[@domainofscience]

Hey thanks so much! I watched you video this afternoon as it happens, and yes I really liked your disclaimer at the end of the video I think all the points you made are very fair. Fingers crossed things will go well with it all in the long run, but yeah, they've done themselves a lot of reputational damage over the years.

[@shipwreck9146]

It's my hope that the TeamSeas is more of an eye opening project. The more things like this that we do, the more people will realize that this is a problem. It's difficult to raise alarms with an army of tiny ants. But if those ants start making lots of noise, we'll start to get noticed. The environmental can't be repaired by movements like this, but they can repair our society's lack of knowledge about these issues. I think that's the main goal here.

[@smugmode]

I'm afraid they give false hope and nobody will do anything

[@Donmegamuffin]

A Fantastic, if not more critical, look at this campaign, and the problems it's trying to tackle. Great stuff!

[@KeyMan137]

This is the best #teamseas video I’ve seen. Practical actionable advice and proper context for how big the problems are.

[@TheMvlproductionsinc]

Its refreshing to see a science focused channel see these truths in the system many ignore or dont see.

[@grandunification]

Thank you so much for making this! I had no idea teamseas was happening until precisely now when every single youtuber I follow is posting a video about it. There are small things we can do, but this is ultimately plastic waste is a structural problem which needs structural solutions!!

[@gavindheilly3620]

Thank you for this message and this movement

[@Dr.RiccoMastermind]

So happy, you also joined the initiative. So many videos of my favorite channels popping up in my list 😎🤩 spent money right away!

[@dontmindme8709]

This is by far the best video in this campaign! So clear and helpful in understanding the problem and potential solutions. I'll be sure to pitch in with something

[@MoempfLP]

The 10 rivers and the countries next to the mouth are: Yangtze (China) Indus (Pakistan) Yellow (China) Hai He (China) Ganges (India) Pearl (China) Amur (China/Russia) Mekong (Vietnam) Nile (Egypt) Niger (Nigeria) These governments let millions of tons of plastic float into the ocean.

[@barbageddon2842]

Add also that China makes 1/3 of the world's plastics. If America did a complete 180°, it wouldn't even put a dent in plastic consumption, production, and plastic pollution. If the UK, Germany, France, North America (Canada and US), and all Scandinavian Countries did a complete 180° from plastics it still wouldn't put a dent in plastic consumption or pollution.

[@plato1234plato]

People in China can't even see this video

[@arberithaqi]

"put pressure on the government" If you put one of these government under pressure, you'll get to jail! Authoritarian regimes like China won't let people hear their voice...

[@SmokingSexyStyle]

It's always China lol

[@lp4969]

Amazon river too

[@barbageddon2842]

The 10 rivers that carry 93 percent of that trash are the Yangtze, Yellow, Hai, Pearl, Amur, Mekong, Indus and Ganges Delta in Asia, and the Niger and Nile in Africa. The Yangtze alone dumps up to an estimated 1.5 million metric tons of plastic waste into the Yellow Sea. It's a bit difficult when 8 of the Rivers causing the most pollution is in China. Yangtze alone produces 1/3 of the ocean plastics. You can put as much taxes on those who make plastic here in the US or other western societies. But China is one of the LARGEST producers of plastics and holding still the record of 1/3 of all plastics produced in the world or 6.8 million tons of plastic every year. Voting in the US will do almost nothing at stopping plastics nor will taxing the western companies that make plastics stop the a large portion of plastics. Until China starts taking the environment seriously we're doomed to have pollution at a high rate And no politician is going up against China. So the best thing we can do is stop consuming products with plastics as much as possible, donate to clean ups and replace environmental REACTIVISTS like Greta Thornneburg with scientists or people that have solutions on how to clean up the plastic pollution like Boyan Slat and others. Do what you can but ultimately between the group DoS states and Slat's ocean clean up the ocean will still become cleaner than if we did nothing. Plant a tree, plant a garden, consume less products with plastics, recycle and upcycle plastics. And admit western societies are doing a pretty good job at trying to turn the tide on pollution of all types. But China needs to do this too. But pollution is a lucrative business for China so you won't be seeing a reduction from them.

[@comradeofthebalance3147]

Bruh China is literally being serious but they are a superpower with other concerns. And climate change is a higher problem that plastic pollution.

[@ramchandravarshney4149]

@@comradeofthebalance3147it's only for you, for marine life nothing is as disastrous as plastic pollution+it makes it difficult for us to explore the oceans

[@comradeofthebalance3147]

@@ramchandravarshney4149 I am not saying Plastic pollution isn’t a priority. But it wouldn’t matter if we aren’t in the condition to do work. We are already working so slow on both of these, and the former will kill everyone including marine life faster than pollution. So we need to increase both but climate change is top

[@Friek555]

60 million dollars a day is about 20 billion dollars a year. That seems like a really cheap price to pay for plastic-free oceans. The world's GDP is about 85000 billion dollars a year, so those 20 billion are like 0.025% of that.

[@Kokurorokuko]

Thank you for acknowledging that plastic pollution is pretty much companies' fault not normal people's. Until we put pressure on these corporations (many of which are in China) our efforts to clean to ocean will be useless.

[@andromeda121]

Best video on plastics! Really opens eye why recycling doesn't really work. Keep it up!

[@anironboot]

Read the National Geographic article on the cycle of plastics and how they end up in water ways. They have a hot map. Asia is actually the the "hotspot" for released plastics.

[@one_under_all]

This is great🏅🤩👏. You should do more of this.

[@kantanlabs3859]

Highly informative and realist. Hope people all over the world will put in practice all the proposed recommendations. In the best scenario, not sure this is even possible without a profound economic crisis in the countries that are the most involved. More generally for carbon emissions, poverty, economic migrations, as well as for instinctive reproduction, selfishness, and other biases we inherited from our primate cousins; our benevolent actions are more a matter of salving our consciences than a real desire to treat the issues whatever the costs.

[@CosasCotidianas]

Thanks for the message. It made me think of what can I do with the (few) plastic residues I'm producing. Maybe plastic bricks would be an option?

[@Simon_Jakle__almost_real_name]

In the last few years there "appeared" quite a lot tricks or hints how to handycraft with used plastic stuff like bottles, i see so many purposes for that stuff, that would be way better then shredding that stuff to "re-assemble". Some ocean cleaners couldn't just take plastic waste from a oceanic garbage patch, because they saw small cratures like jellyfish and snails adapting to the "new plastic environment", so what would be done? With the removal of plastic waste there would be a heap of simple work where people could get some employment confirmation when not allowed or "not qualified" to do other work. Plastic recylcing seems to be even nastier then metal recycling, every heat(ing) decreases the abilities of the material, we should have been mor aware of this before.

[@JOSHItheShitalker]

One problem is the people's attention. In most developing countries (like mine), people don't have time to care about plastic pollutions even they are educated and warned about the consequences. I mean, how could you care about water pollution when you don't even have water to drink? That's because they have to work have to fulfill their needs and restaurants still use plastic forks and spoons to maximize their profits (They are cheaper) So when it comes to money people wouldn't care about anything else. BTW, you are doing great efforts.

[@columba1234]

THIS

[@Stue-e]

i had an inkling teamseas was like trying to capture greenhouse gasses with a mason jar. not that its a bad idea, its honestly a bit scary to think we are where we are right now die to a lack of interest or investment

[@odebroqueville]

Hi Dominic, a great big THANK YOU for all your very interesting videos and posters. You are truly gifted. I wish I had your brain so that I could also better understand quantum physics and quantum computing. Concerning plastics, I wonder if we couldn't make them react with a cheap metal so that the metal would be part of the plastic object we create. That way, it may be easier to extract these objects from the environment using magnets. Needless say, I'm hopeless in chemistry! There's something I'm not quite sure about in your poster: do TeamSeas funds currently amount to $30 million a day or per year? If it's yearly, then we have a serious problem and the oil industry should definitely be put to contribution.

[@KalebPeters99]

TeamSeas aims to raise 30mil over the course of the whole campaign. Hopefully people will continue to donate afterwards but I dont know if there are plans to make it yearly. In all likelyhood Rober and Mr Beast will pick another cause to fundraise for next year, as that seems to be the trend.

[@nayankumar.d.k637]

#teamseas Its a good step to reduce plastic waste and protect our ecosystem from getting harmed Very informative video ,spreading knowledge and creating awareness abt future Cheers 🎉👍

[@Matihood1]

You know how you can do even better? By using metric system!

[@dead_2468]

This is the best video explaining the problem and solution to plastic waste . . . its a shame that it has so little views.

[@ArtVideos-og9dv]

We need to formulate a barcode / QRcode for plastics using the 100 most common chemical elements, so that all the plastics can be marked for origin, date and chemistry. Govt needs to oblige it in the UK.

[@fuzzy_grizzly_bear]

So glad you joined the team seas group

[@b8l8a8d8e8]

This video should have way more views!

[@_..---]

so many things get packaged in plastic, if you get rid of this problem then you don't have to worry about changing the behaviour of people

[@shipwreck9146]

Exactly, the whole idea of a "personal carbon footprint" was popularized by BP in the early 2000s. Literally, the only thing that will make change, is if governments work with mega-corps to make changes that will actually matter.

[@jester8802]

Do not re-use stuff because leaching or so-called migrations might occur and this can lead to health problems. Products are tested for safety only for their intended use. I suppose both, for contact - a.k.a. what the material (e. g. yogurt container) should be in contact with (e. g. yogurt) - and how many times it is intended to be used. Anything outside of that can be hazardous for health. Just use glass bottles, metal cutlery, etc. instead.

[@madhusudanrao600]

You could explore the use of plastic-eating worms - see University of Edinburgh's discovery of such worms/ caterpillars.

[@bknesheim]

Using simple average values make it basically meaningless. What is needed is the range of use in the same way that welt is often described. If the numbers are connected to groups and how much they are using the information can be used to decide where you can get the most out of the resources that are spent.

[@PS3benimeni]

Well explained! Thank you very much !!!

[@sjain8111]

I take canvas bags to grocery store - they are strong & reliable & good for environment

[@astroch]

The money should go to R&D and science. Technology is the key to remove plastics from oceans or avoid the whole situation. Paying people to remove manually is stupid

[@TheFixIsIn-fe1jy]

I just gave them $5 and I pick up trash when I see it laying around, we all should pick up trash when we see it, even if you didn't trow it.

[@rezaazengland]

Wow you the first person that made me understand the whole thing about it. I hate these people that make me feel to recycle while they get rich. Thanks 🙏

[@LittleBigVillains]

Uhh I know Im kind of late to this, but on the topic of reusing single use plastic: Polystyrene materials (styrofoam, clear plastic cutlery, etc.) can be very sensitive to soap and high temperatures. Placing polystyrene utensils in your dishwasher is a recipe for chain scission and potentially exposing yourself to harmful chemicals produced by a reaction initiated by the heat and soap.

[@danielpirone8028]

Rethink, reduce, reuse - then recycle!

[@leoschautvideos]

& put pressure on politics ❤️

[@Dr.RiccoMastermind]

Are you sure with the types of plastic you marked as practically non-recycable? Including PP? This indeed would negatively surprise me 🤔

[@Catch_up_chronicles]

Thank you for this message ♥️

[@the_dev_hooper]

Do a map of business administration!!!! Would be great for entrepreneurs.

[@gtsu1972]

I totally support this idea, since it is mostly people in business administration trying to slow down innovation to address the most urgent problems of our future for personal gain ($€¥£) or simply lazyness.

[@DLCS-2]

Thank you !

[@romanscerbak5167]

Some parts sounded too much like "bad capitalists are ruining the planet" for me. A good video overall, but after all there is the demand for plastic and market only changes according to that, so the action should be done on our part as well and we are just as to blame for that

[@camillecharbonneau8686]

Hi there @domainofscience! Thanks so much for your video. I have a question about The Ocean Cleanup- what are your sources in regards to their track records? Why are they so bad? I'm genuinely curious, and would need this info for research purposes. Thanks a million!

[@giacomogatti3077]

sorry, but what software do you use to make the videos?

[@antoniosilveira6392]

Is this poster available? I have searched in the online store but didn't found it

[@theheretic65]

Combined humanity has all the power to fix every one of their own problems. Fragmented humanity has all the individual power to ruin something bigger then itself.

[@fuseteam]

I was wondering about exactly this From planting 1 trillion trees to removing 60 millions pounds of plastic per day

[@all_so_frivolous]

Honest question, why should we stop using single use plastics? As far as I can tell, in places like Europe or the US, waste management is pretty much fine, and single use plastic doesn’t contribute much to the pollution problem. Even if more plastic is used per capita, almost none of it gets to the sea and the emissions are not that great compared to those emitted by other aspects of modern life (such as driving or eating meat). Totally agreed with everything else.

[@KalebPeters99]

I've kind of wondered this before too, plastic is said to not break down for a long time but neither will concrete or steel, right? I have heard before about plastic leaching bad chemicals into the environment, and that seems more pertinent to me, but afaik that is only some types of plastic, right? Obviously a bigger issue is waste management and preventing seabirds being strangled but as you say, if we're (hypothetically) storing it all compactly and correctly what is the big problem?

[@notnullnotvoid]

@@KalebPeters99 Well, one problem - even if plastic waste can be managed perfectly, which will realistically never be the case - is that the *production* of plastic still has a significant environmental impact. It is an oil product after all, and beyond just oil extraction, obviously all the other steps in the production process have all the usual energy and emissions impacts that come with heavy industry.

[@philophos]

Best #teamseas vid I’ve seen.

[@osmia]

Like your list of things to do

[@dracenmarx]

I am not sure if taxes will help. If a plastic company has to pay e.g. 10 cent taxes for a product, then they will simply increase the price by 10 cent. Or, even worse, if they rise the price by 15 cent, then they even make profit and people will think the price increased by 15 cent because of some law. (This might even cause that people get angry at the government because of that law instead being angry at the plastic factory) What can we do about this?

[@Darth_Pro_x]

Companies who don't use as much plastic will be able to sell cheaper and be more competitive, so all companies will try to reduce plastic use to beat the competition, leading to prices going back down and less plastic being produced.

[@Tharkon]

Regarding plastic use I think the math skipped over something. The 95lbs per year used does not equal 95lbs ending up in the sea. While the 10$/10lbs does represent plastic in the seas.

[@procactus9109]

Awareness is the best thing that can come from this TeamScam.. The problem is too many people will think this teamsters thing is significant. Just like they did with team trees.

[@procactus9109]

-teamsters *team seas

[@EJavierPaniaguaLaconich]

There's just one thing that we can actually do: Direct action to pressure our government representatives, which is different than voting. We need to protest and make them uncomfortable right now, and we need to be ready to keep going as far as needed so as to leave them with no other option than to do what's necessary or face costly, direct consequences to themselves otherwise. Voting is not going to change things before we are all dead.

[@DarkSmugLoser]

I don't know if plastic companies are to blame as much as waste and recycling companies. At the end of the day, they are being paid to take trash/recyclables and safety store them. Seems like they are really the ones not fulfilling their end.

[@v.prestorpnrcrtlcrt2096]

So tired of triple wrapped products from Asia. The Ocean Clean-up is the only one I see making a difference. You Bad!

[@ikocheratcr]

Current situation we are in is basically the trash the plastic produces is nobodies problem, and that bucket needs to stop. The fact that Mr Beast and Mark Rover are doing this tells you how sad the situation is: a small group of people with some funds are trying to create a movement and raise money via donations to resolve a problem that is 4 or 5 orders of magnitude bigger. The solution needs to be to tax the plastic, properly make the producer pay for the trash their product will generate. The tax is for paying the trash collection, separation, recycling, and any other process plastic trash requires. A glass bottle manufacturer charges the cost of recycling the glass, I drink manufacturer charges the cost of cleaning the bottles. But companies the go plastic, they do not need to pay for the trash the plastic creates, and charge the same for the same product one buys, not that we as consumers get a cheaper option. Same goes with metal cans. What if at the grocery store, if you buy in plastic container, you are charged $2~$5 extra because you did not bring the old container? People will happy either bring the used one so recollection and separation will be way easier and cheaper, or go with a no plastic option.

[@xxloopermanxx9699]

"Etucate ourselves"

[@The_Confusing_Humanbeing]

Hey bro can u make a mind map of electromagnetism pls

[@ErifilyNikola]

Thank you.

[@_ch1pset]

Wish more youtubers would criticize this campaign. It's not going to solve anything, and practically do nothing. The only real solution to plastic waste is to reduce plastic use and manufacturing, and maybe recycling can improve over time to work on what is already out there.

[@EeekItsSnek]

Well it's not going to do nothing. But it's certainly not going to have the insane impact that we hope for. What it will and has done is raise awareness and encourage people who otherwise would do nothing to act. Properly educating the public at large about the REAL facts of a real problem is the most effective way to solve any problem. And that's not nothing. Edited for typos

[@miguellins8870]

Hi! I'm brazilian and I like your channel. May you put closed caption in Portuguese and others languages?

[@nicolascabald1135]

hej hvorfor siger du at det kun er PET og PE-HD der kan blive genbrugt. jeg er bare nysgarig😊

[@levih.2158]

30 mil. might be better spent bribing politicians or hiring lobbyists

[@TheTastyPancake]

"...this relies on governments..." There's the problem, we're fucked

[@SamSaxtonArt]

Especially since its down to the Chinese government more than any other. Good luck with that, voters.

[@sebastiand152]

Besides of all the measures: Wouldn't it be more effective to catch the plastics from the 10 mentioned rivers, than from the sea itself? Sounds like more plastic per donated money could be removed.

[@enduringbird]

Half of the money is being donated for that and the other half is going to clean up. Go watch mark rober's video if you want to see where the money is going.

[@sebastiand152]

@@enduringbird Thanks for the hint.

[@SwordQuake2]

Yeah, sure. If you believe the plastic-producing companies are going to pay anything you're incredibly naive. Any cost they incur will be pushed down to the consumer.

[@YathishShamaraj]

2:28 that increased fees on plastic production will ultimately be on the consumer, and we are literally surrounded with plastic in all out items. This will cause inflation...

[@SianaGearz]

This would not be an ongoing inflation, but a one-time increase in cost. BUT it will also cause a rethinking and transition to more sustainable materials. Most of the plastic that you buy is single-use; essentially packaging. For some things, wood and paper products would work - cardboard, waxed paper, for some things, glass would work, for some things, plastic bags would work where you have a reusable plastic container at home that you refill from a bag whenever you need more of the product, and the plastic in this case while still being used, can be reduced by a factor of several times in amount. Or maybe you buy the product in a reusable metal container that you can return for a deposit. It's possible to implement this without increasing the cost of living. Furthermore the plastic tax can be implemented as a deposit overall itself, that is refunded to the business when it's recycled. I mean the one big reason we have plastic waste is that it's not economically recyclable - we know the chemistry, we fundamentally have the solutions, but producing more virgin plastic is simply cheaper for now and in the foreseeable future. You can adjust the economic screws to make recycling economical. Short term, that's a cost; long term, it's a benefit since you end up conserving a limited resource, natural oil. As oil is eventually depleted, its price is guaranteed to rise, but then it's likely too late to do much about it. Think about it, think about your trash; think about all the permanent items that contain plastic in your household, your electronic devices, your kettle, etc. Think about how much plastic is long term use, and how often or how rarely you buy these items, most of these last for years; consider how much - or how little - plastic contributes to the actual cost of these products, that $20 plastic kettle has at most $0.50 worth of plastic in it - so what if it was $1.00 instead, would you notice, would you care? Most of the cost is the cost of maintaining a business, marketing, manufacturing, the cost of getting it into your hands. Or alternatively in high-tech items it's the cost of high end semiconductor processes and engineering. Not the plastic, plastic is cheap and it will still be cheap even if taxed. Maybe if we tax plastic, we end up with more durable items that need to be replaced less frequently. Maybe worst case the toilet brush, being made entirely from plastic, becomes a $2 expense instead of a $1 one. Maybe it gets replaced by a $20 metal item where just the bristle part gets replaced, and that's $1 again. Seriously it's not a problem.

[@YathishShamaraj]

@@SianaGearz an alternative suggestion would be to research on recycling or completely dismantle the structure of plastic and turn it back into crude oil, re use it. The biggest problem to this is the energy required. For example, we can have a couple of nuclear Power plants who's energy is used to recycle/modify/disintegration of plastic. And a very organized system of plastic recovery from the environment. Nuclear Power makes this process carbon neutral. We can't live without plastic that is a fact we have to consider, and to tax people to avoid using plastic is bad governence. The plastic manufacturers need to change some processes to reduce toxic chemicals in the product... We just have to make plastic safer to use and manage.

[@SianaGearz]

@@YathishShamaraj There's a lot of processes which cause molecular chains to break down. They break down due to interaction with ozone, UV (sunlight) etc. A very promising direction is enzymatic breakdown. We can formulate enzymes which would disassemble plastic into the constituent monomers, and engineer yeasts or bacteria which can perform the process in situ and with minimal energy; then the resulting gaseous monomers can be collected, and reused directly in the plastic manufacturing process. Odds are, this will take a while to get deployment-ready. In the interim, i think burning plastics comprised of only oxygen, hydrogen and carbon - no bromine, no halogens, no nitrogen - food grade styrene, all polyethylene, polypropylene, PET, once they are too degraded for reuse - is perfectly adequate and low-tech. The resulting combustion products are CO2 and H2O, and the burning process can be used to harvest energy on demand to fill in for renewables, which are obviously not always available and the buffer storage isn't quite figured out yet. Germany and Netherlands and a few other bits and pieces of Europe use higher-tech reactor ovens which apparently can safely burn just about anything without producing avoidable harmful emissions (CO2 is unavoidable for example), resulting in a fully inert waste product, which is then safely landfilled or can be used a filler in construction. You still regain the majority of the energy equivalent to that mass of fossil fuel, so it's not worse than burning oil to begin with, which a lot of power grid still depends on, and you got some use out of the material for added value. I think the measures need to work in tandem, you can't only say "more research needed", all resources that currently can be economically allocated to research, by all reason are. Need economic leverage to make this research more worthwhile, to accelerate research and deployment. Part of the problem now is that there is a massive oversupply of virgin plastic, as it's essentially a byproduct of the oil and natural gas industries. Consumption of fossil fuels needs to be reduced, that whole industry cluster needs to be scaled down by quite a lot. Arguably global warming and CO2 production is a bigger problem as all fuel uses contribute to it, and by achieving the goals in that regard plastic can become somewhat less viable as well.

[@gtsu1972]

@Yathish s: Not really a good argument to continue polluting our planet. The innovation required to solve the problem has as well the potential to create numerous new jobs, thus contributing in a sustainable way to economic growth.

[@noice1031]

#TEAMSEAS!

[@Dr.RiccoMastermind]

Plase dont forget the potential The Ocean Cleanup Team! Its merely starting to work after development

[@barbageddon2842]

Yes! And they welcome people to join their team. I fear most commenting is about all they do, comment. Few ever get involved. But thank you for mentioning the ocean cleanup. Maybe people will go check them out and join up.

[@mediaaccount8390]

there are different ways to incinerate trash. capturing the off-gasses is a big improvement. Still better to avoid, but let's not straw-man the alternatives.

[@dustinfocus]

next step reduce. next next step make .hemp containers.

[@jgf9577]

I had subscribed for your channel, but watching this video, I realized I made a mistake

[@lucidmoses]

Ah the image of some Plastic Mafia showing up at your local store forcing people to buy there fair share of plastic. "Hummm... That's a cute little boy you have there. Would be a shame if anything would happen to him. Maybe you should buy some more plastic to keep him safe."

[@ramchandravarshney4149]

I think most part is done by beverage companies like Coca cola etc.

[@kosmique]

fishing industry does the most plastic pollution. those nets are kiling the oceans

[@ramchandravarshney4149]

Aren't those taken out after fishing?

[@jonyon54]

very important video

[@joelrichardson624]

dank

[@matiasramirezn520]

Yeeees, yeeees, yeeeees, share this fu***ing video you all

[@jarjarblinks5470]

#TeamSeas🌊

[@bjarnes.4423]

Burning plastic trash is the only way to actually get rid of it

[@sethapex9670]

Isn't single use plastic necessary for things like food packaging? How can we ban that?

[@TurkishLoserInc]

Mycelium and waxed cardboard can also be used.

[@sethapex9670]

@@TurkishLoserInc how can mycelium keep my chicken sealed from pathogens?

[@DMWayne-ke7fl]

Really? Burning hydro carbons is "obviously bad for the environment"? In comparison to negative effects of micro plastics?

[@sleepykitten2168]

#TeamSeas

[@shaman9]

can't donate in my country, so comment for the algorithm

[@kugaththeplaguefather6332]

EVERY FUCKING DAY? WHAT'S WRONG WITH US?

[@Diaming787]

More money needs to charged on single use plastics and use that money to R/D and mass produce Biodegrable plastic.

[@k.alipardhan6957]

3:20 is a false equivalence. 1:10 where does it end? do we hold alcohol, tobacco, firearms, car manufacturers all accountable for the evil they enable

[@SianaGearz]

You do need to keep the surrounding industries accountable, yes. It doesn't have to be on the manufacturing end, it can be on the distribution end, it practically doesn't matter where it's applied, it works up and down the whole chain one way or another. This is how more socialist-leaning countries handle things. So say alcohol tax funds addiction programs and medical costs, tobacco tax funds MRI scanners and lung screenings and other medical costs, mandatory car insurance funds the damage caused by vehicles, fuel tax funds medical and societal cost of long-term health damage by vehicle emissions and damage to roads, and firearms are limited and can't be sold to the public, which effectively constrains the manufacturers, plus there are again mandatory insurances. It doesn't have to end anywhere, either the total damage cost is carried by the general public, or by the specific industry that causes it, and it's just a question of practicality whether any given industry makes sense to regulate in this way. Whether it's substantial enough to make special rules for it. And plastic is definitely substantial enough! What if you did this at the source, and held the manufacturer directly accountable for the damage instead? It might be a good solution in that say car manufacturers would be more inclined to make safer and less polluting cars, as this would give them a competitive advantage by allowing them to keep more of the money they make. But in a globalised economy, where manufacturer is in France and the consumer is in Egypt, it also isn't possible for one jurisdiction to do this, it would need to be done globally, and the global politics makes it impossible. So ultimately the accountability gets applied at the consumption end. But manufacturers pass on all costs onto the consumer anyway, so if you taxed them, it would be, in fiscal sense, equivalent.

[@bauerDOWNFALL]

in my area you cant even recycle

[@GerHanssen]

Lbs?????

[@Feefa99]

I donated 30 USD already I CHALLENGE YOU....YES YOU... TO DONATE MORE

[@youneschebini5280]

the best thing you can do is to vote…lol hahahahahahahahahahaah

[@forrest1979g]

If the "plastic company's" pay for the removal, then you pay for the removal. You're throwing it away. You should pay. I'm 1:08 seconds in and I can already tell you have no Idea how economics work. But I have a feeling you're going to tell us how to live. Lets see if I'm wrong.

[@forrest1979g]

Nope I wasn't. Let me lay out a plan. 1. Offer a huge tax break for housing, building or business's built out of tires or sea trash. 2. There is no two. What the heck!! One easy solution.

[@DavidEngelen]

Comment 4 algo

[@nalat1suket4nk0]

Or just don't use plastic