In this post we will take a look at where this plastic is coming from. Rivers are one of the main pathways that carry litter into our oceans. The rivers that carry the most litter into our oceans are located in Asia and Africa.
The following 10 rivers carry 93% of all waste into our oceans:
Yangtze
Indus
Yellow
Hai
Nile
Meghna, Brahmaputra, Ganges
Pearl
Amur
Niger
Mekong
According to Scientific American writer Prachi Patel “The Yangtze alone pours up to an estimated 1.5 million metric tons into the Yellow Sea”. This is a staggering amount of litter that is dumped into our oceans every year from one river alone. The Yangtze is also China's longest river and one third of its population depend on it for food, transportation, and drinking water. More people living near a river coupled with poor management practices of the waste generated is a perfect storm to allow these huge quantities of litter to enter our oceans.
China was also importing other countries waste and recycling it for their use. However, they have now stopped taking other countries garbage and are focusing on cleaning up their own cities. By 2020 all cities in China must meet a 35% recycling goal. The Indus and Gages Rivers flow through India. Unfortunately India has not progressed as far as China with respect to their efforts to stem the flow of pollution into these rivers.
Closer to home, the Hudson River, travels through New York City. A volunteer organization, RIVERKEEPER.org, has a river clean up every year. In 2018 they collected 38 tons of litter. The majority of this debris was single use plastic containers and packaging. They have been organizing the cleanup for 7 years and have picked up 227 tons of litter. The disheartening point they made this year though is that there seems to be no end in sight. They are seeing no improvement in the problem.
Unless we develop better methods and make better purchasing decisions this problem is going to continue to escalate. Moving away from single use plastics and choosing to purchase from responsible manufacturers who are producing in responsible countries is the only way we are going to stem the tide. As consumers we have a choice and we need to speak with our wallets to get results.
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