'Apocalyptic' floating island of waste in the Maldives

[MHz]

I have a solution for the Maldives, if they're going to burn the trash, follow some European nations and burn the trash to make energy. The local conservationist was right, just dumping it on an island is no solution. Sweden only sends 4% of their household waste to landfills.

As for which environmental problems get more attention, one that's global in nature will always receive more attention than local ones. And as far as media is concerned, it fits their model better if they can present the story with two contrary opinions. Most people would agree that this dump site on the Maldives is horrendous and a problem that should be solved.

If they were able to solve it through various methods that sort the components that could be used/recycled/sold who would finance the startup cost which would be huge when starting from scratch. Then to have it being more efficient than any modernized country would have their citizens scrambling for the same sort of facilities.

Other than some exotic toxins that is how anyplace handled it in the past with the exception that the 'poor and homeless' would pick through the garbage so very little ended up there permanently. Now scavenging is outlawed so the dumps are bigger for the same population. All the old cities of the world are still operating, some may have a slightly lower/higher incident of a specific disease or length of life is shorter.
What are you going to do, kill a city of people to save a bird sanctuary?

Even those floating piles of plastic in the ocean should be able to be skimmed onto a ship and the material taken for reprocessing. Hopefully the birds and such will learn over time to stay away from certain things.

 

[Tonington]

Thought Bear that you might like this image if you haven't seen it before:

A large fraction of that freshwater is inaccessible too.

 

[damngrumpy]

Why is it never permissible to clean something up because its too expensive
only to be confronted with a problem so big we can find ten times the money
once its an emergency? Anyone know how the Sydney Tar Ponds are coming
along? That little hole in the ground is estimated by some to have a final total
of ten billion. It was ignored, whispered about. protested, ignored, complained
about, it had action promised, and ignored and whispered about and finally
some actual work done. The hole has been there for over a hundred years.
Finally with people getting sick and property values affected, some action was
begun. How long will this take, I hope less than a hundred years.

 

[TenPenny]

Anyone know how the Sydney Tar Ponds are coming
along?

I think they're finished. They poured concrete over it, covered it with topsoil, and planted grass.

You didn't think they were actually going to do something about it, did you?

Here's the funny part - the sludge is all hydrocarbons, and could be burned for energy, but nobody wants to do that.

 

[Tonington]

You can see live webcams from some of the locations at the Sydney Tar Ponds here:
STPA (Sydney Tar Ponds Agency)