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AngsterMusic t1_ix9ry8s wrote

This is the only way ocean pollution will ever have a dent put into it, if someone can find a way to make a profit off of it.

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FlatulentWallaby t1_ix9t82n wrote

Climate change in general. Once EVs are more profitable than gas cars you'll see every fossil fuel company in the world switch to "green" and pretend they always were about the environment.

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AngsterMusic t1_ix9udfc wrote

I hate that this is so true.

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LunarBiker t1_ixc5m1l wrote

Or perhaps it’s a good thing; at least it’s not some ideological difference we’re having, which would’ve been a much harder problem to solve.

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systemofaderp t1_ixdffwe wrote

Yeah, like for example the ideological difference of putting monetary profits of a few wealthy individuals over the survival of life on the planet as we know it. Totally fine

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LunarBiker t1_ixdfrh4 wrote

Except it isn’t exactly a few wealthy billionaires is it, it’s almost everyone in the global north including most likely both of us, and our comfortable western lifestyles.

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p_nut268 t1_ix9xl2p wrote

They do that now. The fucking Canadian oil sands companies are making a huge promotional push about how they are on the verge of being carbon neutral. Which is straight up fucking bullshit. Yet here we are.

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DadOfFan t1_ixa4nog wrote

greenwashing is so common, there is a push in Australia to make it an offence to claim to be green without providing science based proof of the claims.

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AdvertisingFree4150 t1_ixddjc1 wrote

thats awesome. its seems like most companies planting a couple tree then saying theyre carbon neutral.

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Flash635 t1_ixaewp5 wrote

Carbon neutral is just planting trees to offset how much carbon your business is responsible for. It doesn't actually reduce carbon output.

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PhiloPhys t1_ix9wzte wrote

Having a company which finds a profit in the cleanup is actually an incentive to continue the same system of plastic production. More business means more growth which is “good” under our current model.

The only way the ocean pollution will actually be cleaned is by a concerted effort to stop the system of pollution and a government or community project to clean the ocean as thoroughly as we can.

Our current system will provide no real solutions and we shouldn’t expect it to. It got us into this mess and it’s principles are not geared to get us out.

To hell with the for profit model. To hell with capitalism. Our eco-future is anti capitalist.

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DadOfFan t1_ixa5ddw wrote

while I agree with your sentiment, practicalities mean it wont happen anytime soon.

There is a great company doing river cleanups to prevent the plastic from even reaching the ocean.

https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers/

Their model does rely on a steady "stream" of rubbish coming down the river however I think pragmatically that will happen for many years to come until all people either learn to conserve or to be blunt die.

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pannous t1_ixhegk9 wrote

Yeah imagine this company becoming so profitable and powerful that they will lobby against any legislation protecting the ocean from garbage injection.

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eldenrim t1_ixtgyqy wrote

It would be more efficient for this company to get plastic from smaller, more local sources than just scouring the ocean, right? So in theory they should be lobbying for access to people's recycling bin to get plastic easily.

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fatbunyip t1_ix9wp1n wrote

If the externalities were included in the cost of most polluting activities (even partially) this would be a lot easier.

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CalabreseAlsatian t1_ixa3j89 wrote

I love it when people use the term “externalities”. Such a good economic term to cover an insanely large range of “extras”.

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STYL3D t1_ixa3vj2 wrote

Unfortunately, capitalism's global dominance means 100s of millions need to starve because everyone having food isn't profitable, and the earth should be left to die unless we make it profitable to save it. Almost every modern issue could be solved, but it all requires money, and oil tycoons need that money to buy big houses, and governments need to fund militaries. Imagine how much time wasted on this technology so that it would be profitable

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arcytech77 t1_ixacgjn wrote

Green technology certainly needed time to mature into a level of efficiency that at least pays back the carbon tax of producing the piece of hardware comprising the renewable energy source, e.g. a solar panel. And as it happens, tech that's more efficient tends to be more profitable.
But to your point, what would have been better is if big oil and other legacy stakeholders did not actively try to fight the transition to green-tech in the form of market-adoption disinformation campaigns and stifling investments into green R&D from as early on as the 1980s. And more recently by lobbying politicians to allow them into more ecologically protected areas.

They have literally paid money to politicians to keep things the same instead of just letting technology evolve the way it would naturally with regard to supply and demand. The problem hasn't really been the capitalist model, imo, it's the people who are morally willing to cut corners to make an extra buck with less effort.

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dataminer-x t1_ix9zyof wrote

It's interesting, but whatever works.

They're trying something similar in the Florida Keys for the lionfish invasion. Restaurants will buy them from you (usually from divers) and put them on the menu. Free to take any time, even (especially) in protected waters.

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IsildursBane20 t1_ixchdsn wrote

It takes money to run a business like this, it’s fine if it’s profitable

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kaminaowner2 t1_ixfx47y wrote

We already put a huge dent in it last year, we dragged like 10% or some crazy amount out. Also there’s less than what was previously believed leading some to believe something might be consuming it. (Something we’ve seen in genetically made creatures but never in nature) the oceans are currently more at risk from climate change than plastic (small comfort)

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Biobot775 t1_ixgwru0 wrote

In a related vein, I've been saying for a long time that out landfills will be out future mines. All the metal and organics we want are already in there!

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Darryl_Lict t1_ixaw0hh wrote

I'm really suspicious of these claims. The products look really nice. Ocean harvested plastics are highly deteriorated from sun and salt exposure and contaminated with all types of crap including organic matter. They are a jumble of all types of plastics. Most products claiming recycled use are made from manufacturing scraps that are clean and composed of a single type of plastic.

There may be some process down the road which can reduce mixed plastics to elementary chemical compounds that can be refined and reused. We aren't there yet, but people are working on it.

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SnowyNW t1_ixb5era wrote

Wow didn’t even think that the samples they would be polymerizing to up-cycle are already so degraded that they can’t be used or must be reimpregnated with stabilizers such as BP(x)

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pannous t1_ixheohx wrote

Yeah how come recycling of landfill plastic is mostly highly unprofitable and suddenly going to the ocean makes a dent?

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thehourglasses t1_ixa4ivi wrote

Oh sick, more microplastics.

Here’s an idea:

#ban plastic for everything that isn’t medical or non-single serving food related

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whichonespink04 t1_ixdb11t wrote

Wait, how does this INCREASE microplastic abundance? Wouldn't it at the very worst keep abundance the same? I presume that ocean plastic is a big source of microplastics because they're created as the plastics in the water are slowly degraded; if so, removing it from the water should decrease microplastic abundance at least for now, producing a depot for it at the worst case scenario. By supplying needs with recycled plastic, it would reduce new plastic creation. Am I missing something here?

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RedditModsAreAPlague OP t1_ix9rqnc wrote

Seed Post Comment Thing: A startup called Solgaard makes suitcases, backpacks, and other cool things made from upcycled ocean plastic. They have a few different patented types of materials but cool porducts made from ocean plastic. The model is actually profitable as well so as they scale it seems to be doing well. Still a smaller startup but kind of cool to see a startup with a sustainable model that actually is profitable and also taking ocean plastic out of the ocean.

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SnowyNW t1_ixb57lp wrote

Upcycling plastic is not sustainable. Removing it from the cycle completely is the only answer

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oiseauvert989 t1_ixc4luh wrote

Especially when so much of the plastic we get is completely unnecessary. After decades of pointless polystyrene we are now starting to get things packed in rolled up recycled paper.

There are so many other use cases where the plastic isnt just unnecessary, it's easy to replace and should simply be banned.

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ChristianSgt t1_ixa36gp wrote

Ah yes, the solution to capitalism’s most destructive side-effect must be another Highly Profitable Business

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cheeztoshobo t1_ixc0y7k wrote

Amazing. Highly profitable being the key word, of course. This hypercapitalistic, dystopian society can't even clean their backyards right unless doing so means that their bank account numbers go up. What a world we live in.

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ioncloud9 t1_ixd0nim wrote

How is this helping? Ok so you are taking plastic out of the oceans- great- but then putting it back into the plastic economy where it can end up back in the oceans again? The same amount of plastic is still in the environment. You arent really removing plastic from the environment. It eventually will break down into microplastics.

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RedditModsAreAPlague OP t1_ixd4l0e wrote

Congrats. You just described recycling.

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ioncloud9 t1_ixegv16 wrote

Yep and recycling is a scam. It was setup to push the blame of plastic waste onto consumers and to allow plastic producers to keep making ridiculous amounts of the stuff because they promoted recycling. We should be aiming to reduce or eliminate the use of plastics as much as possible.

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eldenrim t1_ixthcwe wrote

Which they've done by selling products made from recycled plastic, taking market share away from similar products made from unrecycled plastic.

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FuturologyBot t1_ix9vb7o wrote

The following submission statement was provided by /u/RedditModsAreAPlague:

Seed Post Comment Thing: A startup called Solgaard makes suitcases, backpacks, and other cool things made from upcycled ocean plastic. They have a few different patented types of materials but cool porducts made from ocean plastic. The model is actually profitable as well so as they scale it seems to be doing well. Still a smaller startup but kind of cool to see a startup with a sustainable model that actually is profitable and also taking ocean plastic out of the ocean.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/z19izx/this_startup_turned_1_million_pounds_of_ocean/ix9rqnc/

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WrongSubFools t1_ixahb04 wrote

So, this is definitely a press release that someone dashed off into an article.

Does anyone have a real source on this? If upcycling ocean plastic is profitable, that would be great, but I'm very skeptical.

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Killuillua t1_ixbv8q5 wrote

Idk I feel like they shouldn’t have patented it if they were in it to clean up the ocean

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springlord t1_ixc5lpd wrote

Might be profitable, but definitely not green nor sustainable. It only works because so far there are enough first world hipsters to buy that crap at an outrageous price to allow for a profit margin. Meanwhile the whole process uses way more raw oil than making the same items out of new plastics or even burning this shit and making new items out of purely organic materials. On the other side, it doesn't even clean up shit because of the insignificant volumes and the used newly recycled items will end back in the sea or ground water anyway, since the recycling chain is far from getting fixed.

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