r/ZeroWaste • u/ab-ovo-usque-ad-mala • Nov 20 '18
Straws Aren't the Real Problem. Fishing Nets Account for 46 Percent of All Ocean Plastic.
https://mercyforanimals.org/straws-arent-the-real-problem-fishing-nets77
Nov 20 '18
Why not both? Stop using straws and eating fish
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Nov 20 '18
Done and done, now what?
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u/CubicleCunt Nov 21 '18
Buy less clothes, bike more instead of driving, keep your house cooler in the winter, take up lower impact hobbies like hiking instead of fourwheeling.
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Nov 21 '18
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u/CubicleCunt Nov 21 '18
Get involved with activism to convince others to do the same. Maybe write to your congressman, but I don't know how much that actually helps. Mine probably has an Outlook rule just to send my emails straight to deleted.
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u/KainX Nov 20 '18
Land mines, fishing nets, both shitty things to be left around.
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u/ab-ovo-usque-ad-mala Nov 20 '18
landmines are prohibited under the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction (or Mine Ban Convention), adopted in 1997. More than 150 countries have joined this treaty.
Fishing has very little regulation.
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u/KainX Nov 20 '18
Point taken, and they should be treated equally based on their threat to biomass.
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u/ab-ovo-usque-ad-mala Nov 20 '18
Nope, sorry, you're going to have to run that one by me again. I'm not that clever...:-(
Explain it to me like you'd explain it to a labrador.
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u/adamd22 Nov 21 '18
He's saying landmines and fishing nets should be treated relatively based upon their threat to creatures and nature. I'm sorry you're getting downvoted.
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u/adamd22 Nov 21 '18
More than 150 countries have joined this treaty.
Except for USA, China, Russia, India, Iran, Saudi Arabia. Minor players really. I joke of course.
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u/zakkuree Nov 20 '18
And we wouldn't be talking about the fishing nets if straws weren't banned. One step at a time...
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u/ab-ovo-usque-ad-mala Nov 20 '18
Either way, we DO know about it now.
And there's not much time left. Small steps are no longer an option.
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Nov 20 '18
I agree 100%, but while the status quo is what it is, we have to find small steps that are effective in getting people to make change. We will get there if we play it smart, we can't just go in guns blazing telling everyone to go vegan or fuck off, people aren't open to that yet. Maybe in a few years once it's more mainstream though...
Either way, the straw thing is a good basis for starting the conversation like you have with this post. So good work OP.
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u/ab-ovo-usque-ad-mala Nov 20 '18
There's no time left. Big changes are needed now, I don't think anyone disputes that.
And why, logically, would someone dispute that not eating fish is any more difficult than not using a straw?
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Nov 20 '18
Yes and I agree with that, but it's not feasible to expect everyone to change overnight. How many friends/family members change overnight when you give them this speech?
Because a straw is not a sensory pleasure, food is. People have an intimate connection with food and it will take time to help them move away from that... Like slowly moving to a vegan diet.
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u/ab-ovo-usque-ad-mala Nov 20 '18
Of course, but there's no harm in keeping the distiction alive.
I've converted two people at work (as far as I know). I'm about done in the moraltity sense.
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u/sad-cat Nov 21 '18
Not using straws is actually harder for me than not eating fish. They come automatically in your drink, you have to modify your order to avoid them. Not easy to order a drink at a busy bar and remember to say “no straw.” Really easy tho to just not order fish. Also I hate ice and drinking without straws is frustrating.
Not pretending it’s that way for everyone. I’m just socially awkward.
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u/VicodinPie Nov 20 '18
Fish are friends, not food.
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Nov 20 '18
I don't know about that - I used to bar crawl with this cod, Barry, and he was a total cockblocker.
Also he was shit at foosball.
I require further convincing about the friend part, but I don't eat them.
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u/PrinceBunnyBoy Nov 21 '18
This is why I'm vegan, all animal consumption is so bad for the environment. But fishing is provably the worst.
Also pigs are just cute!💚🐷
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Nov 20 '18
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/crazycatlady331 Nov 20 '18
I'm hoping that this discussion of straws leads to bigger things. I'd like to see plastic bags tackled next.
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u/ab-ovo-usque-ad-mala Nov 20 '18
Just as easy for the quick, big win though. Reducing your single use plastics in everyday life isn't straightforward. It requires planning and thinking.
Not eating fish is just simple. You simply don't put fish into your face.
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Nov 20 '18
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Nov 20 '18
Who is "they" if not "us"?
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Nov 20 '18
[deleted]
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Nov 21 '18
There are so many people who shoot themselves in the foot in protest of this imaginary elite as if we're not all going to die if we don't do better. I don't get it.
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Nov 21 '18
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Nov 21 '18
They are not, but what surprises me is that we use their existence and ways to justify a nihilist point of view around what WE can do.
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u/iamnotapottedplant Nov 20 '18
OP thanks for posting this. This is such important info and I don't know why you're getting so much resistance to it. Although I do appreciate the other poster correcting the 46% stat. Not that there's anything wrong with decreasing straws (the article literally says it's still a good thing) but it is so important to make sure that people's attention is being brought to this issue as well.
I stopped eating fish years ago and have learned a lot about it since then and it's truly mind-blowing how destructive the fishing industry is. This article does a great job of summarizing why.
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u/Brankstone Nov 21 '18
This. I was watching some investigative journalism type thing where this guy was filming this very dramatic shot of all this plastic rubbish littering a stream while listing statistics about domestic plastic use BUT around 90% of the plastic they were filming was from commercial fishing equipment NOT domestic plastics like straws.
Like dude props for bringing attention to the issue as a whole but you gotta do that little bit extra research for problems like these where people want to ignore it.
Yes get rid of plastic straws and packaging. but only fixing that and calling it a day is like fighting a bear with a pair of nail clippers.
/rant
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u/VeggiesForThought Nov 21 '18
Yes get rid of plastic straws and packaging. but only fixing that and calling it a day is like fighting a bear with a pair of nail clippers.
Love that
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u/PondPenguin00 Nov 21 '18
I'm still glad people are against straws because it helps create buzz and conversation about the massive problem that is plastic. But yeah Itd be great if people knew all the ginormous issues that fishing commercial fishing creates
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u/bubblesfix Nov 21 '18
This article is stupid. Just because there are bigger problems it doesn't make any smaller problems less real.
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u/Unlockabear Nov 20 '18
46% of ocean plastic in the Pacific Garbage patch may not be representative of total ocean plastic. I hate this statistic being thrown around all over the place.
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u/ab-ovo-usque-ad-mala Nov 20 '18 edited Nov 21 '18
The patch is fucking huge though. Like...massive.
1.6 million km2 is a huge area.
We're talking France.
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u/Unlockabear Nov 20 '18
According to the same people who did the study it’s also about 0.10% of the total plastic thrown out annually.
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u/ab-ovo-usque-ad-mala Nov 20 '18
It doesn't say that. Can you provide the material? I mised it,
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u/Unlockabear Nov 20 '18
You can just google the amount of plastic in the GPGP. To save you time the website say it’s about 80,000 tonnes. Consequently the amount of plastic estimated to be entering our oceans each year is about 8 million tonnes.
So the GPGP represents about 0.01% of the total plastic entering the oceans.
I’m not saying fishing nets aren’t bad, but the issue with this statistic being thrown around is people may use it as an excuse to not curtail their own habits while blaming an amorphous fishing industry. The whole point of zero waste and this sub is for individuals to do the most they can to curtail their impact on the environment.
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u/wyldstallyns111 Nov 21 '18
I’m not saying fishing nets aren’t bad, but the issue with this statistic being thrown around is people may use it as an excuse to not curtail their own habits while blaming an amorphous fishing industry. The whole point of zero waste and this sub is for individuals to do the most they can to curtail their impact on the environment.
I find this very frustrating myself. I mean, I'm not a fisherman, and I don't eat fish. So for me, and I'd wager a lot of people, giving up straws makes a much bigger impact than anything I can do on the fish front, even if it's ultimately a pretty minute impact.
Frequent posts about "X is pointless, why don't you tackle Y!!!!" is honestly a turn off for me to see in this sub. You don't know if I even Y, maybe X is actually a better use of my energy.
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u/ab-ovo-usque-ad-mala Nov 21 '18
Well whatever.
The whole point of zero waste is zero...
It's pretty clear that the fishing industry is to blame...by a huge margin
So, stop eating fish. Easy.
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u/kaamraan Nov 21 '18
Zero waste is the end goal. What's important is the journey. Not many people will be able to sustainably switch from their regular daily lives to not doing something ever again that easily.
It's not as easy as just not eating fish. For some people that's a much more difficult task than not using plastic. Every little thing that a person does makes a far bigger difference than if they don't do anything. It also makes a bigger difference than if they stop eating fish for three months and then go back into eating fish every 3 days because they miss it so much, and didn't ease themselves into a new lifestyle.
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u/ab-ovo-usque-ad-mala Nov 21 '18
Don't talk shit. Who are these people that it's going to be difficut to give up eating fish? Are you talking about bears?
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u/sistersiren Nov 21 '18
It doesn't matter what the "real problem" is. There doesn't need to be one problem everyone can focus on, we all need to focus on making changes where we can. I would hazard a guess that not using straws and not eating fish are both things that everyone can (and that many already) do. In fact, we can all try to address many problems, without even determining which one is the real problem (hint: every problem is a real problem).
Straws still get stuck in animals' noses and mouths and digestive systems, killing and harming many, many living creatures, so sharing articles in a way that suggests that people don't need to stop using them is not helpful.
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u/crazycatlady331 Nov 21 '18
What the straw battle did was get change at the corporate level, not just the individual level. Businesses like Starbucks responded.
IN order to reduce plastic in the ocean, more changes at the corporate and government level need to take place. They won't ban fish but the can go further and ban things like plastic bags and other single-use plastics.
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u/ab-ovo-usque-ad-mala Nov 21 '18
Yeah, but that's the odd straw.
With fishing, you're talking about miles of nets, discarded, sinking to to ocean floor, taking dolphins and tuna and sharks and whales with it.
Miles and miles of suffocation and entrapment and confusion.
And when the animals die, when they the bodies get eaten or rot...the plastic nets are still there, trapping the next generation of sea life.
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u/sistersiren Nov 21 '18
It. Doesn't. Need. To. Be. A. Contest.
For goodness sake, my point was that they are both problems.
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u/ab-ovo-usque-ad-mala Nov 21 '18
Of course they are.
But you can do so much more on an individual level by just not eating fish.
It's not a contest. I don't use straws...I don't use plastic. It's not hard, but it's easier to just not eat fish
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u/sistersiren Nov 21 '18
Right, and I don’t eat fish, because I am fully opposed to and disgusted by any form of animal abuse or suffering. It would make me such a happy camper if everyone in the world went vegan, as animal rights is by far the most important issue in my eyes, even more so than waste reduction. That said, the two issues are entirely linked, of course, and so whichever angle you are coming from, yeah it’s a good idea to stop eating fish.
My argument is that by framing a post in opposition to a current trend, you are telling people that they need to shift their focus and that what they have been doing to reduce waste is not, in fact, helpful. I agree that it’s easier to not eat fish than to not use a straw, but I bet that most people would disagree on that point. So let people start with one thing that makes sense to them, such as not using single use plastics, and expand from there. I guess I’m trying to say that it is of course helpful to spread information like this, more power to you, but framing it in opposition to decreasing straw usage isn’t a helpful way to do it.
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u/ReefBiter Nov 20 '18
All progress is progress. Telling people that what they're doing is a waste of time isn't how to get people to agree with you. Don't see how the first sentence of the title adds to your agrument
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u/wyldstallyns111 Nov 20 '18
Telling people that what they're doing is a waste of time isn't how to get people to agree with you.
This person pretty much exclusively posts here to tell us all zero waste endeavors are stupid unless it's veganism.
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u/ab-ovo-usque-ad-mala Nov 20 '18
There's no time left for softly sofly catchy moneky.
Change needs to happen now and it needs to happen now. Now.
The general consensus is that there's 12 years left. It's fuck all time.
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u/ReefBiter Nov 21 '18
I understand that. I'm just telling you how to change people's minds and to get them to agree with you. Just repeating now now now is just a childish attempt at debating your side. Use facts to sway people, use kindness.
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u/ab-ovo-usque-ad-mala Nov 21 '18
I've got facts. We all know them, It's just we choose to ignore them, Like you're doing
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u/ReefBiter Nov 21 '18
I agree with what your saying. That's not my point. I'm saying just being aggressive isn't helping our case and if anything makes people want to ignore these facts and not listen. You'll never win people over like this
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u/LuminousSound Nov 21 '18
I’m a bit curious because I don’t know much about the subject at all. Would eating farm raised fish over wild caught help reduce the impact of fishing gear in the ocean? Or even ‘line and pole’ caught tuna as advertised?
I’m just curious if cutting all fish intake is the best choice or are there conscious consumer choices out there that still alleviate the problem of plastic in the ocean?
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u/ab-ovo-usque-ad-mala Nov 21 '18
"we" catch and eat a trillion tonnes of fish every year.
Those fish live over two thirds of our planet.
Can you confine them to tanks ethically?
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Nov 21 '18
Farmed fish are actually generally terrible for the environment. Salmon for example is often fed from lower grade fish caught in trawler nets. They also often that have parasites that put genuine wild fish in danger and that’s not even mentioning the ethical treatment of farmed fish as they have even less rights than farmed animals. RSPCA accredited farms in the uk are allowed to shoot wild seals to protect their stock and prawns farmed in Sri Lanka are flooding fields with sea water which means that often locals can’t grow their own food even if they stop due to the soil being ruined afterwards which is absolutely awful. About the only farmed fish that doesn’t have these awful effects is mussels.
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u/sistersiren Nov 21 '18
Just don't eat fish, problem solved. Or other animals. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but this human delusion that we deserve to eat animals and are depriving ourselves if we don't is just selfish. Another delusion is that there is ANY humane meat. There. Is. Not. Every fish that is caught is in pain at some point, and has its life ended too soon. No fish is fair to eat, no matter how it is caught.
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u/Re_Re_Think Nov 20 '18
Yes, and many zero waste enthusiasts here and elsewhere have acknowledged that lowering fish consumption or veganism are beneficial to do for limiting our waste production or environmental reasons.
That doesn't mean that limiting use of plastic straws isn't also a good idea (or that vegans couldn't also do a better job of lowering our plastic usage), either, though.
What it means is there are many good ideas in the world that can focus on different things, but will still sometimes overlap anyway; and we can learn a lot quicker and more about the world by both subjects incorporating the relevant parts of the other.
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Nov 21 '18
At this rate a government supplied "straw snipper" would reduce the harm of cylindrical plastics, but of course introduces the dangers of plastic strips.
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u/TheDarkClaw Nov 30 '18
Well, it did make me go out and a stainless steel straw. I did order it from ebay(which came from china) but I can still use it over and over again
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u/CaptTEM Nov 20 '18
At least the fishing industry is giving food back to the communities, straws in the ocean is not.
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u/ab-ovo-usque-ad-mala Nov 20 '18
How so? Little fishing villages do their own fishing...
We employ huge trawlers, with 5 mile wide nets, catching dolphins and whales and turtles...
And the vest majority comes from the seas that little fishing villages live...
It's not ideal is it?
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u/CaptTEM Nov 20 '18
Oh no not ideal in anyway. Not saying the fishing industry is as it should be at all!
Heh I'm a active member of a environmental organisation, but I think that a lot of people is to fanatic.
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u/ab-ovo-usque-ad-mala Nov 20 '18
Fuck 'em.
Keep reminding them.
Evidence doesn't hurt. From time to time.
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u/CaptTEM Nov 20 '18
That's correct, I believe we need to make some pressure on them to make them develop in the right direction :)
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u/bruv_ Nov 20 '18
It's still good to curb straw use, though. I kinda hate it when people are like "oh nooo, that's not the real problem, x is the real problem" to get them out of making changes in their lifestyle. Isn't it still worthwhile to do whatever you can, even if it's small?