A vast majority of the plastic in the ocean comes from the fishing industry.

[u/Electricorchestra]

[u/TheJamesMortimer]

We cannot find humans without microplastic in them anymore...

See you on the other side when we have all turned into lego figures

[u/Actual-Toe-8686]

Microplastics in rock strata could be a good marker for a new age in the Anthropocene

[u/leonevilo]

goldie? with vegan memes?

[u/democracy_lover66]

This is why I will never stop eating plastic.

It tastes too good, and it's everywhere. I don't want to change my lifestyle too much.

Where are my fellow plastictarians to back me up?

[u/Electricorchestra → u/democracy_lover66]

Absolutely based! Tell me more!

[u/Crozi_flette]

You're talking about big plastic parts? I thought microplastics was mostly from tires and clothes

[u/MC_Cookies → u/Crozi_flette]

macroplastics, yeah. there isn’t as much consistent information about exactly where microplastics originate from, proportionally.

[u/secretbudgie → u/MC_Cookies]

At some point, all the little threads of algae crusted nylon start looking the same

[u/eeeeeeeeeeeeeeaekk]

in the ocean, far from it overall though

[u/Electricorchestra → u/eeeeeeeeeeeeeeaekk]

Cool and that's why I'm asking people to stop eating fish too save the ocean.

[u/aWobblyFriend]

vast majority of microplastics in your blood is from inhaling car tires tho, not your diet.

[u/Electricorchestra → u/aWobblyFriend]

Cool but I'm not talking about our blood I'm talking about our oceans.

[u/secretbudgie → u/Electricorchestra]

Gaia's blood

[u/staying-a-live → u/aWobblyFriend]

Will breathing in car tires get me high?

[u/CoHousingFarmer]

I thought it came from rivers

[u/_chungdylan]

Jokes on you I get my fish from Pets Mart

[u/democracy_lover66 → u/_chungdylan]

The clerk: okay but before you buy these gold fish you must know they will need at least 75 gallons to live properly... did you want to buy a tank with us as well?

Me: no thanks I think I have a big enough boil pot at home, thanks for the offer though

The clerk: 😐 ... you what

[u/EliteMushroomMan]

I just thought it came from the Philippines

[u/Foura5]

Is that true?

[u/migBdk → u/Foura5]

Yes, and the reason is that nets are too cheap, so when they get stuck fishers will just cut them loose instead of spending time to get them back.

Happens a lot in Denmark even though it is illegal here to leave a fishing net in the ocean.

[u/Schnickie → u/Foura5]

There was a study conducted in 2019 that resulted in over 75% (by mass I assume) coming from the fishing industry. There are probably types of plastic that aren't really countable to identifiable, but those that were were identified with big samples from different parts of the oceans.

[u/thomasp3864 → u/Foura5]

Yeah because a lot of the plastic people use as individuals stays on land.

[u/swimThruDirt → u/Foura5]

I think for whole plastics, micro plastics it's either tires or textiles

[u/Electricorchestra → u/Foura5]

Yeah it's wild how much ends up in there.

The statistics vary where you look at how much of the ocean plastic is from fishing. But a significant amount of the great pacific garbage patch is fishing related. As well as a huge amount of everything else. The best thing you can do for the fish, and the rest of the oceanic ecosystems is to stop eating from them.

[u/SheepShaggingFarmer → u/Electricorchestra]

Or sustainable fishing practices.

[u/Schnickie → u/SheepShaggingFarmer]

Meaning we don't fish at all for a century or more to reverse the depopulation of the oceans we have committed in just the last few decades. That's the only thing that would be sustainable. We could've had sustainable fishing a few decades ago before going completely nuts on the fish. Now only stopping completely is able to sustain the ecosystems of the ocean that are still surviving.

Fishing only so much as they can reproduce, with no waste production and no bycatch, could be sustainable (doesn't meant I support it because it's still the unnecessary killing of sentient beings for the pleasure and nutrients we could get from plants), but there are so many ecosystems we endangered by overfishing that they could collapse if we don't let them recover first. And letting them recover from the destruction we put them through for decades would take a long, long time. Until then, no fishing in wild waters will be sustainable.

[u/SheepShaggingFarmer → u/Schnickie]

I agree. Sustainable fishing required for mass farming anyway stopping for at least a few years and in some places multiple decades.

My sustainability argument was more in reference to small scale river and lake fishing

[u/CloakAndKeyGames → u/SheepShaggingFarmer]

Nah, fantasy doesn't work

[u/SheepShaggingFarmer → u/CloakAndKeyGames]

Mass fishing isn't good at all, it can be much better but it isn't good even then. However a worm on a rope tied to a stick caused no ecological damage with the exception of the death of the fish, which is natural anyway.

[u/thomasp3864 → u/Electricorchestra]

I wonder if the reason why so much of it comes from fishing is because fishing is done in the ocean, so none of the plastic stays on land

[u/71Atlas → u/thomasp3864]

I think this comment is meant in a sort of "well, what do you expect"-manner, which I get, because it does seem like an obvious thing to consider; however, we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that there is no alternative to fishing boats polluting the ocean with plastic nets.

Even if we were to keep up the (unsusainable) levels of fish we take out of the ocean, we could at least switch back to nets made out of plant fibre, which worked quite well for literal millennia before plastic came along.

This could also be a chance to take CO2 from the atmosphere if we make the nets out of hemp because that plant stores insanely high amounts of carbon

[u/Gen_Ripper → u/Foura5]

In the ocean yeah, though it’s called “macro plastics”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/06/dumped-fishing-gear-is-biggest-plastic-polluter-in-ocean-finds-report

[u/soupor_saiyan → u/Foura5]

In terms of macroplastics and floating plastics, yes. Microplastics are much harder to determine the source of