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Comment by RcouF1uZ4gsC | Hacker News Reader

>But last week, her caregivers found her listless and bruised, reports the AP.

>In addition to Marium eating plastic, biologists believe she was pursued by an overly aggressive male during the mating season.

>"We assume she wandered off too far from her natural habitat and was chased and eventually attacked by another male dugong or dugongs," Jatuporn Buruspat, director-general of the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources, told the AP.

It seems that Marium died after being attacked by one or more males. Although the article mentions plastic in her intestines, nowhere does it say that the plastic was the cause of death. There is a good chance that a lot of the marine life invests plastic and we just notice it when we perform a necropsy after a death.

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I think that it's a case of sup-par AP reporting. The Thai-language autopsy report is more clear. They found a bunch of plastic bags wadded together in the colon.

Ah that sounds more serious than the "found numerous tiny plastic pieces in her intestines" which had me doubting that was the cause of death.

The more I hear about plastic pollution the more worried I am that it's working as a distraction for air pollution, global warming and problems of the global economy:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X1...

I sort of wonder this too. The logic seems simple. Companies are attacked for being bad for the environment. In ways such as fossil fuel consumption it is impossible for them to change. However, in ways such as making packaging slightly lighter or of different materials it is easy to change. Companies support existing environmental groups fixated on fringe issues as a way of appearing progressive while the main issue (which would be costly) goes on touch.

As a resident of California who has seen plastic straws be banned (which are highly visible but small) while millions of other types of waste are allowed I suspect it is the case.

That's more an issue of PR departments pushing out platitudes whilst not actually doing anything.

The solution to plastic pollution is not 'make the container thinner' because the amount of material used is not really relevant. Two thin plastic bags are likely worse than one 3x thickness bag a pollution perspective.

It would be equally silly for companies to talk about "hey we now use 3% less petrol" or whatever. They need to use 90%+ less.

It’s not about platitudes. It’s about raising awareness with a small gesture in hopes it will lead to a bigger change. It already is a pretty needless thing (especially as compostable straws exist) that accumulates in large numbers, and is purely single use. We already have had single use plastic bags banned for a long time in SF, and I cannot imagine going backwards. We need to continue moving onward... not bringing back straws but further reducing this single use plastic lifestyle.

I think you're misreading my comment. I agree with you.

I'm saying that making plastic containers a bit thinner is a platitude (greenwashing), not that reducing plastic use is a platitude.

The meaningful move would be to stop producing single-use plastics entirely. A jar of jam or something that lasts a few weeks is low priority at the moment. A microwave meal is lazy. A plastic fork is just a piss take.

It's all an issue simultaneously.

Theyre all horrible problems that we should be confronting just because companies use tackling plastic as a scapegoat doesn't mean its still not something we should take on. As long as we remember its not the only problem and theres much more to fix.

Whenever you're executing focus is far the biggest multiplier.

Global warming is an existential threat effecting billions of people in a few years, air pollution is killing millions of people every year, but plastic pollution is not proven to be toxic or endangering animal species even though its horrible.

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