Someone’s finally beginning to clean-up our oceans!  

So who’s finally taking the initiative to start cleaning up our oceans?

The United States?  I’ll let you in on a little secret here later.

Russia?

China?

England?

Japan?

Nope.

It’s a man from The Netherlands (also known as Holland).

The Netherlands?

I can’t imagine that The Netherlands is responsible for even .000001 percent of the pollution in our oceans…, but yet they are the ones (the only ones right now) attempting to clean-up them up.

The Netherlands only has 17 million people in the entire country.  It’s known for its very liberal policies, although it is not a very diverse country, as over 85% of the population are Dutch/European.

AFP (French Press Agency), recently reported from Rotterdam, in The Netherlands, that, “A special ship designed to clean the oceans has harvested its first plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch since setting sail from San Francisco last month, its Dutch inventor said Wednesday.”

Please refer to my prior blog, “What’s up with all of this garbage in the oceans?” from April 18, 2018, for more information relating to the “Great Pacific garbage patch.”

“The project by The Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch non-profit group, involves a supply ship towing a floating boom that corrals marine plastic with the aim of cleaning half of the infamous patch within five years.”

I applaud the intentions and the effort here, but shouldn’t we attempt to attack the problem at its sources as well?

If we don’t confront those doing the polluting, and attempt to limit additional “new pollution,” it’s like buying new fly swatters, but leaving all of the doors and windows wide open to continually let more flies in.  We’ll never be able to stay ahead of the game…, or make any real difference.

Please refer to my earlier blog, “We’re all veterans of the liberal environmental ‘blame game.’ But what’s the real deal regarding pollution on our planet?” from September 11, 2019, for a better understanding of who the real polluters are.

Here’s the secret I was talking about earlier…, President Trump actually deserves some credit as well for taking action regarding the pollution of our oceans.

According to David Emery of Snopes.com, “[President] Trump signed, in October of 2018, bipartisan legislation aimed at reducing the amount of garbage (mainly plastic debris) littering the world’s oceans and threatening sea life.  Called the Save Our Seas Act of 2018 (S.3508), the bill was described by the activist group Ocean Conservancy as ‘a small but significant piece of legislation’ showing ‘leadership in the global fight to tackle the marine debris crisis.’”

Way to go, President Trump!

Raise your hand if you were aware of this.

Don’t worry…, mine’s not up either.

“The act reauthorized the existing National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Marine Debris Program for another five years and called for more international cooperation in the effort to clean up the world’s oceans.”

Getting back to the efforts by The Netherlands, ‘“Today we announce that our cleaning system in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has been catching plastic for the first time,’ Boyan Slat, the 25-year-old Dutch CEO and founder of The Ocean Cleanup, told a press conference in Rotterdam.”

‘“It’s the first time actually anyone harvests plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.  So we think that we can actually clean the oceans.’”

“Slat came up with the idea seven years ago, and the system has been undergoing tests for the past year.”

“The ship finally sailed from San Francisco on September 9 for trials on cleaning the patch, a floating trash pile twice the size of France that swirls in the ocean halfway between California and Hawaii.”

“It [the ship] was towing a 2,000-foot-long boom device designed by Slat dubbed System 001, aimed at containing floating ocean plastic so it can be scooped up and recycled.”

Another article from AFP states, “Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says.”

“The study offers fresh evidence that the vast garbage patches floating in the middle of oceans, which have sparked much consumer hand-wringing in recent years, are less the product of people dumping single-use plastics in waterways or on land, than they are the result of merchant marine vessels tossing their waste overboard by the ton.”

“Three-quarters of the garbage appeared to originate from Asia, mostly China.”

“Everyone talks about saving the oceans by stopping using plastic bags, straws and single use packaging. That’s important, but when we head out on the ocean, that’s not necessarily what we find.”

There are thousands of cargo ships dumping garbage into our oceans on a daily basis.

There are 46 different cruise lines operating around the globe, which have 314 cruise ships.  It is estimated that 26 million people travel aboard these ships every year.

That’s a lot of people…, and a lot of garbage!

Our oceans are not liquid dumpsters!

All of these countries need to stop signing these BS climate accord agreements and simply keep their garbage to themselves.

That would be a good start.

 

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Thank you, MrEricksonRules.