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Ocean Clean Up Affirmative DKC-NAUDL 2014-15

OCEANS CLEAN UP AFFIRMATIVEOCEANS CLEAN UP AFFIRMATIVE....................................................................................................1

Summary........................................................................................................................................2Glossary.........................................................................................................................................3Affirmative Case 1/7................................................................................................................4-11

INHERENCYAnswers to: Ocean Clean Up Coming Now..................................................................................11Answers to: Ocean Clean Up Coming Now..................................................................................12

OCEAN OF PLASTIC ADVANTAGEOcean of Plastic Advantage - Extensions....................................................................................13Answers To: Clean Up Efforts Kill Sea Life..................................................................................14Answers To: Clean Up Efforts Kill Plankton..................................................................................15Answers to: Plastics Don’t Kill of Species.....................................................................................16Answers to: Food Chain is not protected by clean up..................................................................17

SOLVENCY Solvency- Funding key.................................................................................................................18Answers to: Clean Up Fails-Size of the ocean.............................................................................19Answers to: Clean Up Fails- Ocean Conditions............................................................................20Answers to: Clean Up Fails- Sea Life...........................................................................................21Answers to: Economic Viability.....................................................................................................22Answers to: Economic Viability.....................................................................................................23Answers to: Experts Agree...........................................................................................................24Answers to: Depth of the Ocean...................................................................................................25Answers to: Depth of Plastics / Sinking Plastic.............................................................................26

CONSUMPTION KRITIK ANSWERS Answer to: Consumption K – 2AC................................................................................................27Answer to: Consumption K – 2AC................................................................................................28Answer to: Consumption K – Perm Ext........................................................................................29Answer to: Consumption K – Link Turn........................................................................................30Answer to: Consumption K - Alternative Fails..............................................................................31

BAN PLASTIC BAG CP ANSWERS Answer to Plastic Bag Ban CP - No Solvency- Clean up needed................................................32Answer to Plastic Bag Ban CP - No Solvency- Other types of plastic..........................................33Answer to Plastic Bag Ban CP - Permutation : Double Solvency.................................................34

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Summary

There are giant piles of trash in the oceans that largely float just below the surface. They are filled with broken down plastic bags, bottles, fishing gear and anything else plastic that has made its way to the ocean. Sunlight breaks down the plastic into little pieces which are easy for sea life to eat. This trash universe kills animals who eat it, create transportation systems for invasive species and poison the food chain all the way to humans.

Here is a quick video on the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh6lkv1udb0

The affirmative would fund a system of passive collection buoys which would be strategically placed in the ocean with really long buoys to catch the plastic and funnel it to a central collection platform. Details on how it works below. The plan would just have the federal government steal the idea and expand the project greatly.

[___] Quick overview of the how passive collection worksMatthews, consultant, eco-entrepreneur, green investor, 2014(Richard, “Plastic Waste in Our Oceans: Problems and Solutions”, April 10, http://globalwarmingisreal.com/2014/04/10/ocean-garbage-problems-solutions/)

In 2012, Dutch Aerospace Engineering student Boyan Slat unveiled a concept for removing large amounts of marine debris. He subsequently formed an organization called The Ocean Cleanup. This approach is not only cost effective, it is potentially profitable. His idea involves an anchored network of booms that world work like a giant funnel. Propelled by the ocean’s surface currents, debris would drift into specially designed arms and collection platforms where it would be separated from plankton and recycled. Slat’s calculations suggest that using his methods, 7.25 million tons of plastic can be removed from garbage gyres in as little as five years.

And a video on how they plan to fix the problem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh6lkv1udb0

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http://globalwarmingisreal.com/2014/04/10/ocean-garbage-problems-solutions/


Glossary

biodegrade- a substance or object capable of being decomposed by bacteria or other living organisms.

biodiversity- the diversity, or variety, of plants and animals and other living things in a particular area or region. For instance, the species that inhabit Los Angeles are different from those in San Francisco, and desert plants and animals have different characteristics and needs than those in the mountains, even though some of the same species can be found in all of those areas.

cetaceans - marine mammals commonly known as whales, dolphins, and porpoises

ecosystems- a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.

endocrine system- the collection of glands of an organism that secrete hormones directly into the circulatory system

gyre- a circular pattern of currents in an ocean basin.“There are five massive garbage gyres, one is located in the Indian Ocean, two in the Pacific Ocean and another two in the Atlantic Ocean. Garbage gyres come together as the trash gets caught in circular ocean currents. This causes stray garbage to move until they collide and merge with one another.” Matthews, 2014

invasive species- an organism that is not native and has negative effects on the environment it is introduced to

logistical – the planning, implementation, and coordination of the details of a business or other operation.

photodegradation describes the effects of sunlight on the tons of plastic floating out at sea. Essentially, the sun's rays dry the plastic to the point that it shatters

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Affirmative Case 1/7

Contention 1 is the growing ocean of plastic.

Our obsession with plastic produces millions of tons of trash to dump into the oceans. These plastics break down but do not biodegrade. We are poisoning our oceans with a galaxy of trash islands that kill fish, coral and threaten the health of the oceans themselves.

Weishar, news and political reporter and founder of Quiet Mike, 2014“The Ocean Size Problem of Ocean Pollution”, Quiet Mike, http://quietmike.org/2014/04/07/ocean-size-problem-ocean-pollution/

Our oceans cover approximately 71% of the Earth’s surface and contains 97% of the Earth’s water. With those kind of numbers, you’d think it would be hard for us humans to pose a threat to it. Well, humans are capable of anything when we put our destructive minds to it.

While the media has under reported the threat of climate change, it has completely ignored the state of our oceans. From oil spills to plastic bags to random sea junk, our oceans may soon resemble some of our dead lakes. The situation is more desperate than you think.

Most people think oil spills do the most harm to our waters. It certainly does damage to be sure, however plastic is far worse than oil. There is currently seven million tonnes of plastic floating around in our oceans.

Your may have heard of the Pacific and Atlantic garbage patches. They are not large trash islands in the middle of the ocean as some believe. They are more like galaxies of garbage, populated by millions of smaller trash islands that may be hidden underwater or spread out over many miles. These garbage patches are made up of mostly plastic. Unfortunately, plastic breaks down into smaller particles (or micro-plastics) and is then consumed by marine life. This is what makes plastic so bad and difficult to clean up.

A lot of it can’t be seen, and therefore the size of these patches are almost impossible to estimate. I’ve heard they are as little as the size of Texas (if you can call that small) or as big as the continental United States. I imagine the truth lies somewhere in between.

Plastic uses up only 8% of the world’s oil supply, but we use it now more than ever. In fact, we’ve produced more plastic in the last ten years than the previous hundred years combined. Our addiction to plastic isn’t going away anytime soon and because plastic is not biodegradable, it is not going away either.

According to Captain Paul Watson, the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, if we don’t change our ways, all the world’s fisheries will collapse by 2048. He also believes that all our coral reefs may be gone by as early as 2025. Pretty scary.

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http://quietmike.org/2014/04/07/ocean-size-problem-ocean-pollution/

http://quietmike.org/2014/04/07/ocean-size-problem-ocean-pollution/



Plastics floating in the oceans provide a unique problem since they break down into tiny pieces but take hundreds of years to disappear.

Cho, staff blogger for the Earth Institute, 2011(Renee, “Our Oceans: A Plastic Soup”, Earth Institute, 1-26, http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2011/01/26/our-oceans-a-plastic-soup/)

The lightness and durability that make plastic such a useful and versatile material for manufacturers also make it a long-term problem for the environment. Trash Travels estimates that plastic bags can take 20 years to decompose, plastic bottles up to 450 years, and fishing line, 600 years; but in fact, no one really knows how long plastics will remain in the ocean. With exposure to UV rays and the ocean environment, plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller fragments. The majority of the plastic found in the ocean are tiny pieces less than 1 cm. in size, with the mass of 1/10 of a paper clip.

Despite the huge amount of trash involved, most pieces concentrate in gyres or giant circuits located in each of the earth’s oceans.

Surfrider Foundation & UCLA School of Law’s Environmental Law Clinic, 2013 (“Federal Actions to Address Plastic Marine Pollution, http://law.ucla.edu/~/media/Files/UCLA/Law/Pages/Publications/CEN_EMM_PUB%20Surfrider%20UCLA%20-%20Plastics%20Solutions.ashx)

Marine litter tends to accumulate in a limited number of sub-tropical convergence zones known as gyres or garbage patches. Currently, there are five gyres: North Pacific, South Pacific, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, and Indian Ocean. Studies have shown that marine litter deposited in coastal areas tends to accumulate in the gyres within two years of entering the ocean. The litter remains cycling within these gyres for many years, with more than 200,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometer in some areas. The sizes of the gyres are difficult to determine because they are constantly expanding and moving, but the gyres are estimated to contain 100 million tons of marine litter.

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http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2011/01/26/our-oceans-a-plastic-soup/



Contention 2 is the Danger of Ocean Plastics

Ocean debris effects marine life by trapping, choking or poisoning animals that it comes in contact with. Plastics kill millions of animals each year and could destroy entire species.

Slat et al, founder and lead designer The Ocean Cleanup Project, 2014(Boyan, “A Feasibility Study”, http://www.theoceancleanup.com/fileadmin/media-archive/theoceancleanup/press/downloads/TOC_Feasibility_study_lowres.pdf)

Every year we produce about 300 million tons of plastic, a portion of which enters and accumulates in the oceans. Due to large offshore currents, plastic concentrates in vast areas called gyres, of which the Great Pacific Garbage Patch between Hawaii and California is the best known example.

The damage to sea life is staggering: at least one million seabirds, and hundreds of thousands of marine mammals die each year due to the pollution. Even worse, the survival of many species, like the Hawaiian Monk Seal and Loggerhead Turtle, is directly jeopardized by plastic debris.

Marine species often become entangled in larger debris, leading to “injury, illness, suffocation, starvation, and even death” (NOAA, 2014). Smaller fragments can be mistaken for food and eaten, causing malnutrition, intestinal blockage and death. When marine animals eat plastic, harmful chemicals move up the food chain. Ingestion of and entanglement in marine debris by marine animals has increased by 40 percent in the last decade. Furthermore, plastics can transport invasive species and toxic substances over great distances.

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For animals not killed by the plastics survival becomes harder as invasive species ride trash islands to new ecosystems and destroying their balance and threatening all life in the oceans.

Newitz, editor in chief of io9 and PhD in English and American Studies from UC Berkeley, 2012(Annalee, “Lies You've Been Told About the Pacific Garbage Patch, 5-21, http://io9.com/5911969/lies-youve-been-told-about-the-pacific-garbage-patch)

The "plastisphere" is a term coined by marine biologist Erik Zettler to describe the creatures — like water skaters — who thrive in an environment with hard surfaces in the water. They are similar to creatures who cling to piers or the hulls of ships. Before human-made hard surfaces were everywhere, they would have lived on rocks or flotsam. The problem with the plastisphere is that it's radically changing the balance of a sea ecosystem that was once mostly just open ocean creatures.¶

"One thing that people worry about is that hard surfaces can transport invasive species," Goldstein said. "Some animals are good at hitching a ride and they can be destructive. By adding big chunks of plastic these species can move around better, and could be introduced to places like the Northwest Pacific Islands, where there are some of the best coral reefs in the world." In other words, the plastisphere isn't destroying the ocean ecosystem — the creatures who ride on the plastic are. We're witnessing an ecosystem that is slowly falling off balance. ¶

For now, the open ocean is still mostly inhabited by lantern fish. "There's one lantern fish for every cubic meter of ocean," Goldstein explained, noting that these fish are probably more common than the pieces of plastic her team has sampled. But if trends continue, we're going to see more plastic than fish. And with that plastic will come more invasive species, more water skaters, and more creatures to eat the water skaters' eggs. The danger is that this could alter the open ocean forever — and destroy all the native life there that has kept the oceans healthy for thousands of years.

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Affirmative Case 5/ 7

This is not just a problem for species living in the deep ocean. Plastic debris introduces cancerous chemicals into the food chain which affect every species including humans.


A recent study found that plastics take up and accumulate persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as carcinogenic and endocrine-disrupting polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and organochlorine pesticides such as DDD, a derivative of DDT. Over 50 percent of the plastic samples studied contained PCBs, and over 75 percent contained PAHs. According to Moore, plastic debris can attract and concentrate POPs up to a million times their levels in the surrounding seawater, and when consumed by marine animals, the POPs endanger both the creatures that ingest them and humans higher up on the food chain, especially infants. Moore has said, “No fish monger on Earth can sell you a certified organic wild-caught fish.”

In order to address the problem of trash in our ocean’s my partner and I offer the following plan:

The United States federal government should develop a system of passive ocean plastic clean up arrays as proposed by the Ocean Clean Up Project.

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Contention 3 explains how an ocean clean up would work.

The Ocean Cleanup Array would cost only 2 million dollars and prevent the build up of plastics in our oceans.

Business Week, 2014(Caroline Winter, “This 19-Year-Old Is Ready to Build an Ocean Cleanup Machine”, http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-10/this-19-year-old-is-ready-to-build-an-ocean-cleanup-machine

The world’s oceans contain millions of tons of trash, much of it collected into vast gyres of plastic and debris. Even if humanity stopped putting garbage in the water today, researchers project that these garbage patches would continue growing for hundreds of years. One such trash vortex, known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, already spans hundreds of miles.

How do we get all that garbage out? Boyan Slat, a 19-year-old Dutch aeronautical engineering student, is raising $2 million to build an ocean cleanup contraption he designed to passively funnel garbage to specific collection points. Working with a team of over 100 people, he recently released a 528-page feasibility study (PDF) detailing how the complex technology works and grappling with questions of legality, costs, environmental impact, and potential pitfalls.

Slat’s plan, expressed simply, is to deploy several V-shaped floating barriers that would be moored to the seabed and placed in the path of major ocean currents. The 30-mile-long arms of the V are designed to catch buoyant garbage and trash floating three meters below the surface while allowing sea life to pass underneath. “Because no nets would be used, a passive cleanup may well be harmless to the marine ecosystem,” he writes in the feasibly study.

Over time, the trash would flow deeper into the V , from which it would then be extracted. The report estimates that the plastic collection rate would total 65 cubic meters per day and that the trash would have to be picked up by ship every 45 days. Slat hopes to offset costs by recycling the collected plastic for other uses.

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http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-10/this-19-year-old-is-ready-to-build-an-ocean-cleanup-machine

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-10/this-19-year-old-is-ready-to-build-an-ocean-cleanup-machine



A passive collection system design would work, just needs to be implemented on a broader scale.

Slat et al, founder and lead designer The Ocean Cleanup Project, 2014(Boyan, “A Feasibility Study”, http://www.theoceancleanup.com/fileadmin/media-archive/theoceancleanup/press/downloads/TOC_Feasibility_study_lowres.pdf, p. 29)

Proof of conceptA first proof-of-concept test performed at the Azores Islands validated the capture and concentration potential of a floating barrier with a skirt depth of 3 m, in moderate environmental conditions. In addition, qualitative data suggested that the barrier does not catch zooplankton as the net behind the boom appeared to have caught an equal amount of zooplankton as the net next to the boom.

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http://www.theoceancleanup.com/fileadmin/media-archive/theoceancleanup/press/downloads/TOC_Feasibility_study_lowres.pdf


Ocean Clean Up Affirmative DKC-NAUDL 2014-15Inherency

Answers to: Ocean Clean Up Coming Now

[___]

[___] The world’s largest garbage dump is floating in the middle of the Pacific ocean. Millions of plastic pieces are being pushed by ocean currents into a trash pile the size of North America that threatens lives and livelihoods around the world.

Layton, staff writer for Discovery Communications, 2010(Julia, “Could we clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?” http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/clean-up-garbage-patch.html, January 7, 2010)

About a thousand miles off the coast of California floats one of mankind's dirtiest little secrets. Or at least it was a secret before the late '90s, when a seafaring scientist stumbled upon it in horror. It's a floating dump in the ocean, big enough to hold one or two Texases or maybe all of North America, depending on who you ask [sources: Stone, Silverman, SSF].¶

The discrepancy in size estimates may be due to the fact that since most of the trash is below the surface, the borders are almost impossible to see from above the water. Plus, the trash moves around with the currents, and there's more than one of these patches. At least one more lies in the Pacific, and they dot the entire globe. Most often, "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" refers to the one extending from Hawaii to San Francisco. That patch of trash is supposed to be the biggest, sporting an impressive 3.5 million tons (3.1 million metric tons) of watery garbage [source: SSF]. And at least 80 percent of it is plastic [source: Berton].¶

For decades, we've been told plastic doesn't degrade -- that it sits in landfills forever and ever and therefore it is very, very bad. (Unless you're going to Mexico and need to provide your own water so you don't get the runs -- then, it's also pretty handy. But still, very, very bad.) The truth is, plastic does degrade. It just doesn't biodegrade.¶

Plastic will photodegrade, a process by which it ultimately ends up breaking into countless tiny bits of the same substance. In a landfill, this may not make a huge difference. But when that plastic is seaborne, it makes all the difference in the world. And there's the rub: An ever-increasing amount of the world's ever-increasing amount of plastic refuse is ending up in the ocean.¶

In fact, the Pacific Ocean now hosts the largest trash dump on Earth. It's called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and it's not a pretty picture. Waste dumped both on land and at sea has made its way into a swirling vortex of oceanic trash that threatens sea life, aquatic ecosystems, fishing industries and the safety of the human seafood supply. In some coastal areas, a day at the beach is becoming a day at the sandy trash heap.¶

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http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/clean-up-garbage-patch.html

Ocean Clean Up Affirmative DKC-NAUDL 2014-15Inherency

Answers to: Ocean Clean Up Coming Now

[___]

[___] Plastic bags, soda bottles and other garbage have been dumped into our oceans for decades creating a global crisis of trash filled oceans with no end in sight. Ocean waters filled with plastic will have negative impacts on humans and marine animals alike.

California Coastal Commission, 2014(“Plastic in the Ocean is bad. The Problem With Marine Debris” http://www.coastal.ca.gov/publiced/marinedebris.htm)

Marine debris is defined as "any manufactured or processed solid waste material that enters the marine environment from any source." Debris is everywhere—found around every major body of water on the planet, and below water as well. Marine debris is a global pollution problem that impacts human health and safety, endangers wildlife and aquatic habitats, and costs local and national economies millions in wasted resources and lost revenues.¶ ¶

HOW DOES TRASH BECOME MARINE DEBRIS?¶ Many people assume that if trash exists in the ocean, it must be that the fishing and shipping industries are to blame. But in fact, only 20% of the items found in the ocean can be linked to ocean-based sources, like commercial fishing vessels, cargo ships (discharge of containers and garbage), or pleasure cruise ships.¶ ¶

The remainder (80%) is due to land-based sources, like litter (from pedestrians, motorists, beach visitors), industrial discharges (in the form of plastic pellets and powders), and garbage management (ill-fitting trash can lids, etc).¶ ¶

TRASHING CALIFORNIA'S BEACHES¶ California residents and tourists love our coast and ocean, making more than 150 million visits to California beaches each year. The effort to keep our shorelines clear of marine debris comes at a significant cost. A 2012 study determined that 90 west coast communities spend a total of more than $520,000,000 each year to combat litter.¶ ¶

In 1975, the National Academy of Sciences estimated that ocean-based sources, such as cargo ships and cruise liners, dumped 14 billion pounds of garbage into the ocean. In 1988, the U.S. signed onto MARPOL Annex V, joining 64 other countries that signed the international protocol that regulates ocean dumping and made it illegal to dump plastic into the ocean. Even so, plastic pollution is still a major problem. A 2001 study found an average of 334,271 pieces of plastic per square mile in the North Pacific Central Gyre, which serves as a natural eddy system to concentrate material. And debris in the marine environment means hazards for animals and humans. Plastic marine debris affects at least 267 species worldwide, including 86 percent of all sea turtle species, 44 percent of all sea bird species, and 43 percent of marine mammal species.

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http://www.coastal.ca.gov/publiced/marinedebris.htm

Ocean Clean Up Affirmative DKC-NAUDL 2014-15Ocean of Plastic Advantage

Ocean of Plastic Advantage - Extensions

[___]

[___] Plastics alone kill hundreds of thousands of animals in the earth’s oceans.


Common items like fishing line, strapping bands and six-pack rings can hamper the mobility of marine animals and cause injury. Once entangled, animals have trouble eating, breathing or swimming, all of which can have fatal results. Plastics do not biodegrade and may continue to trap and kill animals year after year. Marine debris entanglements have been documented for 135 species of animals. An estimated 300,000 cetaceans die each year from entanglement in fishing gear. (Read summaries of some recent whale entanglements in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.)

¶ ¶ Ingestion¶ ¶ Birds, fish and mammals can mistake plastic for food. Debris may cause choking and injuries, and with plastic filling their stomachs, animals may have a false feeling of being full and may die of starvation. Sea turtles mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, one of their favorite foods. Even gray whales have been found dead with plastic bags and sheeting in their stomachs. A recent study of harbor seals in the Netherlands found that more than 12% had plastic in their digestive system. 95% of Northern Fulmars studied in the North Sea between 2007 and 2011 were found to contain plastic, on an average 0.38 grams. This could equal as much as 8.4% of the bird's body weight.¶ ¶

[___] Plastics kill sea life large and small and the pollution rate is increasing.


But we know the plastic debris on the surface of the ocean is taking its toll on marine life. Animals get strangled in fishing lines, nets, and plastic litter. Fish and seabirds ingest bits of plastic they mistake for food that can block their intestinal tracts and kill them, or make them feel full so that they do not eat real food. One of Moore’s expeditions collected hundreds of samples of fish, and conducted necropsies on them: over 1/3 had ingested polluted plastic fragments, including one 2.5 inch fish that had 84 pieces of plastic in its tiny gut. In 1999, Moore’s research in the Central Pacific found six times more plastic than zooplankton in the water. In 2002, off the coast of Southern California, he discovered the ratio of plastic to plankton was 2.5. Preliminary results on samples Algalita took in 2008 already show that there is a significant increase in the ratio of plastic to plankton in the water.

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Answers To: Clean Up Efforts Kill Sea Life [___]

[___] Bycatch will be minimal. Plankton can float under our system and larger animals will be deterred by sound systems. Slat et al, founder and lead designer The Ocean Cleanup Project, 2014(Boyan, “A Feasibility Study”, http://www.theoceancleanup.com/fileadmin/media-archive/theoceancleanup/press/downloads/TOC_Feasibility_study_lowres.pdf, p. 29)

Because they are effectively neutrally buoyant, both phytoplankton and zooplankton are likely to pass underneath the barriers along with the current. But even assuming the worst - The Ocean Cleanup Array would harvest all the plankton it encounters - this would constitute a maximum loss of 10 million kg of planktonic biomass annually. Given the immense primary production of the world oceans, it would take less than 7 seconds to reproduce this amount of biomass.

With regard to vertebrates, harm caused by the barriers seems unlikely because non-permeable barriers are used, although some bycatch may occur in the near vicinity of the platform’s extraction equipment. To prevent the possible impact on vertebrates, active deterrent techniques could be implemented near the extraction equipment.

[___] The Ocean Cleanup Array floats and does not use nets so sea life can swim around it while plastics and debris stay in it.

Ian Somerhalder Foundation, 2012(“The Ocean Cleanup Array: An Amazing Environmental Invention”,http://www.isfoundation.com/news/ocean-cleanup-array-amazing-environmental-invention)

The Ocean Cleanup Array would be located at the sites of the five largest trash islands—also known as gyres—which include the Indian Ocean, the North and South Atlantic, and the North and South Pacific. Slat believes that the ocean current is the biggest advantage to help solving the garbage problem. As such, "an anchored network of floating booms and processing platforms will span the radius" of each gyre with the "booms acting as giant funnels" to push the debris in the processing platforms. When the plastic and other debris enters the processing platform, it would then be filtered from the water and stored in containers until it is picked up to be recycled on land.¶ ¶

Another very positive aspect of the Ocean Cleanup Array is that absolutely no nets will be used, so there is no chance of marine life getting harmed. In addition, the booms will only move along with the ocean current and not any faster, so marine life can also escape the plastic

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being pushed towards the processing platforms. To substantiate these claims, Slat is currently testing his methods as part of the project’s feasibility studies.¶ ¶

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Answers To: Clean Up Efforts Kill Plankton

[___]

[___] Downward current of skirt system will minimize bycatch of plankton.Slat et al, founder and lead designer The Ocean Cleanup Project, 2014(Boyan, “A Feasibility Study”, http://www.theoceancleanup.com/fileadmin/media-archive/theoceancleanup/press/downloads/TOC_Feasibility_study_lowres.pdf, p. 316)

Because the boom skirts are designed to generate a downward current, most phytoplankton is expected to escape capture by the booms. The fraction of phytoplankton captured in front of the booms might also be consumed by zooplankton, leading to a (partial) recycling of nutrients within the ecosystem. However, the phytoplankton that is drawn directly into the platform by the slurry pump is assumed to be removed from the ecosystem entirely.

[___] Plankton won’t get caught in the system.Slat, founder and lead designer The Ocean Cleanup Project, 2014(Boyan, “Responding to Critics”, The Ocean Cleanup, http://www.theoceancleanup.com/blog/show/item/responding-to-critics.html)

“The definition of plankton is an organism that can’t swim against a current; plankton have no control where they go and the assumption that they’ll somehow avoid the current that is taking the plastic into the processing thinga-ma-jiggy is a bad one.”Boyan: Plankton indeed comes from the Greek word Planktos, meaning ‘wanderer’ or ‘drifter’. This is exactly why they won’t get caught. The ocean current passes underneath the floating barriers, taking all neutrally buoyant sea life (including both phytoplankton and zooplankton) with it, while positively buoyant plastics remain in front of it. Down to a certain particle size of course, where the force downward (the current) equals out the force upwards (the buoyancy force of the plastic). In collaboration with the Freiburg Institute of Advanced Studies, we simulated this hypothesis using Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations (CFD software and code used were LEMMA ANANAS, Comsol Multiphysics, and ANSYS CFX, if you’re interested), which confirmed our expectations; plastic gets caught, neutrally buoyant organisms do not. (feasibility study, chapters 3.3 and 3.4). So there is no centrifuging needed; plankton does not accumulate, while plastic does. But in the hypothetical case that all plankton that passes underneath these barriers would be damaged, the time it would take to restore that biomass is less than 7 seconds in a year. And that’s the worst-case scenario. (feasibility study, chapter 6)

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Answers to: Plastics Don’t Kill of Species

[___]

[___] Floating plastic islands can introduce invasive species that wreck the local ecosystem and destroy biodiversity.


Floating marine debris can provide a new and increased method of transport for species across vast ocean distances, which may cause trouble for biodiversity if the introduced species prove to be invasive. A 2002 study of 30 remote islands throughout the world showed that marine debris more than doubled the "rafting" opportunities for species. In 2005 and 2006, surveys of marine debris in the Seychelles Islands showed that on some beaches more than 60% of debris items carried non-native species.¶

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Answers to: Food Chain is not protected by clean up

[___]

[___] Our technology would remove microplastics. Passive collection booms will extend 3 meters down to catch most particles and microplastics make up a very small amount of the pollution.

Slat, founder and lead designer The Ocean Cleanup Project, 2014(Boyan, “Responding to Critics”, The Ocean Cleanup, http://www.theoceancleanup.com/blog/show/item/responding-to-critics.html)

“Perhaps one of the worst assumptions evident in this design is that the plastic will be on the sea surface. Researchers have shown that plastic suspends in the water column at 100-150 meters due to wave action and sea state.”Boyan: This is misleading. It is true that the mixed layer can stretch to these depths during winter months, and it’s true that very small amounts of plastic can be found throughout the water column, but as our past 3 expeditions to the gyres have shown, the vast majority of plastics can be found in the top 1-3 m (depending on wind and sea state). This explains why researchers (as well as 5Gyres themselves) sample the surface layer of the oceans to measure plastic pollution. When we conservatively look at the data taken in winter months only, the surface layer contained 10x more microplastics than the layer at 4.5 m of depth. Hence our barriers stretch down to 3 meters, to capture the most of plastic. And in fact, here I am only addressing the small particles. The large plastics (that make up over 80% of the plastic in the gyres) are all at the sea surface. (feasibility study, chapter 2.2, 2.3)

[___] Harmful chemicals enter the food chain and can disrupt the endocrine systems of humans.Matthews, consultant, eco-entrepreneur, green investor, 2014(Richard, “Plastic Waste in Our Oceans: Problems and Solutions”, April 10, http://globalwarmingisreal.com/2014/04/10/ocean-garbage-problems-solutions/)

According to UNEP, at least 267 species worldwide are impacted by plastic debris in the oceans. As the plastic disintegrates, it ultimately becomes small enough to be ingested by a wide range of life forms. Plastics are deadly to a number of species including marine birds and sea turtles. Various investigations including research by Charles Moore found that in some places the overall concentration of plastics was seven times greater than the concentration of zooplankton. Plastics enter the food chain when ingested by aquatic organisms and the impacts go all the way up the chain to humans.

Researchers have discovered that floating debris can also absorb organic pollutants from seawater, including PCBs, DDT, and PAHs. When consumed, plastic has both toxic effects and disruptive impacts on the endocrine system.

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http://globalwarmingisreal.com/2014/04/10/ocean-garbage-problems-solutions/

Ocean Clean Up Affirmative DKC-NAUDL 2014-15Solvency

Solvency- Funding key

[___]

[___] The technology and communication capability to find and pick up the ocean debris exists. Additional funding is necessary to tackle the problem.

Maritime Reporter, 2012(“Project to Clean Up North Pacific Garbage Patch,” Tuesday, February 21, 2012 http://www.marinelink.com/news/project-pacific-garbage342616.aspx)

¶ ¶ Future support ¶ During the past three years, Ocean Voyages Institute’s Project Kaisei, has been successful in studying and documenting what is going on in the Gyre from a scientific perspective. By reviewing ocean current distribution it has accomplished an encompassing survey of clean-up possibilities. In addition, the organisation has built a world renowned group of naval architects, marine engineers and ocean experts that are act as a 'think tank' for designing marine debris collection equipment. The project is currently working on four types of equipment which it believes will enable the four major categories of debris to be addressed.¶ “In 2011 our emphasis is surveying coastal areas and coastal Gyres created by rivers, bays and our other watersheds which are also accumulating debris. There is a great deal of interest in seeing how much of the debris can be found closer to shore,” Crowley said. ¶

While becoming the center for information regarding marine debris collection equipment and heralding the need for global clean-up efforts, Project Kaisei has also been approached by various governments for assistance with designing marine debris collection vessels. “We have been approached by various maritime companies who have told us they have the equipment to accomplish marine debris collections and are working on ways of obtaining corporate and government investment to conduct the clean-up expeditions on a larger scale to test the equipment. ¶

“Ultimately, the assistance of additional funding will enable us to fulfil the potential of providing accurate information on the best and most efficient ways of clean-up. Our future expeditions will be concentrating on continuing science, documentation of the problem, education and research for major clean-up efforts. Obviously, the ability to communicate remains fundamental to our success,” Crowley said.

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Answers to: Clean Up Fails-Size of the ocean

[___]

[___] Passive technology is scalable. Allows for ocean clean up in all 5 oceans for a limited cost.


The main advantage of passive cleanup is that it is scalable. Using conventional ship-and-net methods, it has been estimated that it would take about 79,000 years to remediate the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (Moore and Philips 2011). And that estimate assumes that vessels cover the entire oceanic area, and that the plastic pollution is spatially static. While the former assumption isperhaps naive or unrealistic, the latter is false. Ship-and net methods are less efficient as the high variability in current directions caused by eddies makes them either repeat their run on the same patch of the sea or to miss some of the plastics.

In contrast, our concept uses the natural movement of the water to its advantage. In combination with the circulation period of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, the cleanup duration could be drastically reduced (a minimum of 5 years).

Due to the passive collection approach, operational expenses can potentially be very low, making the cleanup more cost-effective. Furthermore, converting the extracted plastic into energy, oil or new materials could cover (a large part of) the costs of the execution.

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Answers to: Clean Up Fails- Ocean Conditions

[___]

[___] Design elements have been tested and will survive in ocean conditions.Slat, founder and lead designer The Ocean Cleanup Project, 2014(Boyan, “Responding to Critics”, The Ocean Cleanup, http://www.theoceancleanup.com/blog/show/item/responding-to-critics.html)

“The problem is that the barriers to gyre cleanup are so massive that the vast majority of the scientific and advocacy community believe it’s a fool’s errand”Boyan: We have now engineered a new floating barrier, that can span the 100 km that is needed to collect almost half the plastic within 10 years. To be sure it stays in one piece, we used a safety factor of 2.5x to 3x, which is much higher than the offshore standard of 1.82x, to be able to accommodate the weakening of the materials due to fatigue. (feasibility study, chapter 3.6). The new design furthermore enables the buoyancy element to move with the waves, which prevents plastic from splashing over or underneath the boom. This has been confirmed with scale model tests. These scale models also showed that this new design can potentially reduce the loads on the tension-carrying element of the barrier by 60%, making our dimensioning even more conservative.

[___] The collection platform is based off of technology that is already employed worldwide to withstand ocean conditions.


My home state of Oregon has been trying to create North America’s first offshore wave energy farm. The first test buoy that was launched, just about 2.5 miles offshore, sank after just a few months. That buoy had a ‘100 year survivability’ rating, and wasn’t just an idea on an Ipad.”Boyan: According to the spokesperson of the wave energy test, the object in question was actually designed to survive only a couple of months. He mentions to Renewable Energy World: “So when people say - Oh there's this device and it sank. How do you expect it to last 20 years or even five years in a real commercial development? It wasn't designed for that,". In The Ocean Cleanup concept, there is also a need for a platform. As some may have noticed, the design of this processing platform has changed from the concept design. We chose for a spar design, which is proven technology, having been used through decades of ocean engineering. Its specific design has been made in collaboration with a Belgian engineering company. (feasibility study, chapter 4.3) The working principles of the system did not change since I presented the concept 1.5 years ago, must be noted.

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Answers to: Clean Up Fails- Sea Life

Bycatch will be minimal. Plankton can float under our system and larger animals will be deterred by sound systems. Slat et al, founder and lead designer The Ocean Cleanup Project, 2014(Boyan, “A Feasibility Study”, http://www.theoceancleanup.com/fileadmin/media-archive/theoceancleanup/press/downloads/TOC_Feasibility_study_lowres.pdf, p. 29)

Because they are effectively neutrally buoyant, both phytoplankton and zooplankton are likely to pass underneath the barriers along with the current. But even assuming the worst - The Ocean Cleanup Array would harvest all the plankton it encounters - this would constitute a maximum loss of 10 million kg of planktonic biomass annually. Given the immense primary production of the world oceans, it would take less than 7 seconds to reproduce this amount of biomass.

With regard to vertebrates, harm caused by the barriers seems unlikely because non-permeable barriers are used, although some bycatch may occur in the near vicinity of the platform’s extraction equipment. To prevent the possible impact on vertebrates, active deterrent techniques could be implemented near the extraction equipment.

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Answers to: Economic Viability

[___]

[___] Multiple options for recycling ocean plastic that do not require sorting by plastic type. Means ocean clean up can still cover its own costs.


“Plastic can only be recycled if it’s clean ocean (…) plastics are about the worst possible feedstock for recycling imaginable”Boyan: Partly true. Of course plastics degrade (oxidise) when exposed to the marine environment for years to decades. But when we (in collaboration with Universidade de Caxias do Sul) quantified the oxidation rate of ocean plastic using infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, the quality turned out to be much higher than expected (feasibility study, chapter 9.1). Because many people wonder what to do with the plastic once extracted, we included the post-processing into the scope of the report. First we proved ocean plastic can be turned into oil, and is just as suitable as normal waste plastic. There is a large market for oil, but the net value is modest. Hence we then also tried mechanical recycling (both heat pressing and injection moulding), which showed the plastic can actually be turned into new materials. The only pre-processing was washing; the plastic didn’t even have to be sorted into different polymer types. (feasibility study, chapter 9.2) And even if most damage occurs near the coasts, with an estimated 1.27 B USD of annual damages in the APEC region, removing almost half the plastic within the North Pacific Gyre for just 31.7 M euro per year seems like a pretty good deal, even leaving the value of the plastics aside.

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Answers to: Economic Viability

[____]

[____] Passive collections is the only cost effective option and annual operating costs can be covered by selling plastic recycled from the project.

Slat et al, founder and lead designer The Ocean Cleanup Project, 2014(Boyan, “A Feasibility Study”, http://www.theoceancleanup.com/fileadmin/media-archive/theoceancleanup/press/downloads/TOC_Feasibility_study_lowres.pdf, p. 30)

The Ocean Cleanup Array is estimated to be 33 times cheaper than conventional cleanup proposals per extracted mass of plastics. In order to extract 70 million kg (or 42 percent) of garbage from the North Pacific Gyre over 10 years, we calculated a total cost of 317 million euro.

In the calculations, a limited lifetime of 10 years is applied instead of a general economic lifetime (for most equipment 20 years). This is because projections indicate the mean amount of plastic mass will decrease with time. Thus, the average mass of plastic that will be collected per year will likely be lower than what has been calculated using the 10-year deployment time. As expected with the passive cleanup concept, capital expenditures outweigh the operating expenditures. The total annual estimated operating expenditures is estimated at five million euro.

A break-even cost of €4.53 per kg of plastic collected must be realized in order for The Ocean Cleanup Array to be profitable. This amount falls in the range of beach cleanup costs, estimated to be €0.07 – €18.0 per kg. This is also less expensive than the plastic-caused damage to the maritime industry in the APEC region.

****Cost estimates in the piece of evidence are stated in Euros (€) the type of money used in most of Europe. While the value of currencies fluctuate as a general rule 1 Euro is equal to about $1.33. So operating costs of 5 million € a year would be about 6.65 million $ per year.

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Ocean Clean Up Affirmative DKC-NAUDL 2014-15Plastic Transition Disadvantage Answers

Answers to: Experts Agree

[___]

[___] Passive collection method has been tested and supported by experts.


It’s a great story, but it’s just a story. (…) Gyre cleanup is a false prophet hailing from La-La land that won’t work (…) Slat’s project as it stands is in the fairy tale phase…”Boyan: We have just published a 530-page report, concluding that The Ocean Cleanup Array is a feasible and viable method for large-scale gyre cleanup, marking the successful end of the preliminary engineering phase. Because of its length and diverse nature, a journal won’t publish it. Hence we have asked external experts to do an informal peer review, which the report passed. Furthermore, part of the report (the plastic processing, the vertical distribution and computational fluid dynamics) will be separately published in a journal. We are currently increasing the size of the vertical distribution dataset through new expeditions, in collaboration with the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research.

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Answers to: Depth of the Ocean

[___]

[___] Technology exists to moor the ocean clean up system in 4,000 meters of water.


Boyan: In fact, many small moorings have been placed in over 5000 m of depth by oceanographic institutions like NIOZ and NOAA. The deepest moored oil rig is the Shell Perdido Spar at 2500 m of depth. The Ocean Cleanup will be placed at 3900 m. So we collaborated with the market leader in offshore anchoring systems, who came to the conclusion that “The tools and methods that are available to offshore engineering world can readily be applied for the realization of this project. It is Vryhof Anchors’ professional opinion that with the current knowledge and technology, the mooring of the objects at the given water depths is feasible. The mooring configuration and deployment procedures are similar to proven solutions at 2500 m water depth.” (Senol Ozmutlu, PhD). (feasibility study, chapter 3.7)

[___] Outside experts agree the mooring system for the platform would be less complex than many oil and gas drilling operations.


Keeping the array in position at all times will place substantial demands on a passive mooring system. At the given water depths, a fiber rope mooring system is the only option to use. To ensure integrity of the system, chain and wire rope is used at the bottom and top ends.A Stevmanta Vertical Load Anchor (surface area 14 m²) is sufficient to withstand the design loads including the safety factor.

“Although it is a new type of floating concept, the size and weight of the object as well as the potential risks (environmental as well as commercial) are less severe than the majority of offshore structures in oil and gas. The tools and methods that are available to offshore engineering world can readily be applied for the realization of this project. It is Vryhof’s professional opinion that with the current knowledge and technology, the mooring of the objects at the given water depths is feasible. The mooring configuration and deployment procedures are similar to proven solutions at 2500 m water depth. The concept is executable regarding anchor and mooring line installation and load transfer from the tension member to the seafloor.”

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Senol Ozmutlu, PhD, Projects Director, Vryhof Anchors

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Answers to: Depth of Plastics / Sinking Plastic [___]

[___] Most plastics are found near the surface especially the large plastics which make up 80% of the trash in the gyres.


“Perhaps one of the worst assumptions evident in this design is that the plastic will be on the sea surface. Researchers have shown that plastic suspends in the water column at 100-150 meters due to wave action and sea state.”Boyan: This is misleading. It is true that the mixed layer can stretch to these depths during winter months, and it’s true that very small amounts of plastic can be found throughout the water column, but as our past 3 expeditions to the gyres have shown, the vast majority of plastics can be found in the top 1-3 m (depending on wind and sea state). This explains why researchers (as well as 5Gyres themselves) sample the surface layer of the oceans to measure plastic pollution. When we conservatively look at the data taken in winter months only, the surface layer contained 10x more microplastics than the layer at 4.5 m of depth. Hence our barriers stretch down to 3 meters, to capture the most of plastic. And in fact, here I am only addressing the small particles. The large plastics (that make up over 80% of the plastic in the gyres) are all at the sea surface. (feasibility study, chapter 2.2, 2.3)

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Answer to: Consumption K – 2AC

- Perm do the plan and the alternative. Extend all the reasons the case is good idea – to clean up awful plastic in our oceans. At the same time go ahead and question your consumption habits.

- No link. The plan was conceived in the spirit of the criticism. Our goal is to reduce the harm of human consumption of plastics in the ocean.

- Effective governmental policy and individual action are fundamental to transforming our society. The permutation is the most effective option.

David Roberts Social Scientist Grist 2007 The power of voluntary actions Social scientists respond to Mike Tidwell http://gristmih.grist.org/print/2007/9/11/13338/9554?show_comments=no

The history of racial policy and WWII demonstrate the importance of both policy and voluntary actions. Much public debate and many small individual actions transpired to make racial discrimination less and less socially acceptable in the century and a half before LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act. Try telling descendants of those rescued by the underground railroad that it didn't matter. Even in the more urgent crisis of WWII, in addition to the mandatory policies, mass persuasion campaigns encouraged voluntary actions. Politicians realized they needed public support for the war effort, and for legislation. Remember the "We can do it!" poster encouraging women to join the labor force? The victory gardens? Voluntary actions provided direct physical support, strengthened the norm of supporting the war effort, and boosted morale. Both voluntary action and policy changes were crucial to winning the war . Finally, if articles such as Tidwell's teh people their actions don't matter, they may undermine any action to fight global warming at ah, including political action. Immediate, small steps toward sustainability are surely better than no steps at ah. And hypocrisy also gives ammunition to opponents of environmental legislation -- many may ask, why should I support a law asking me to sacrifice when those hypocritical environmentalists aren't even walking the walk? De-emphasizing personal actions may make us feel better -- "fixing the problem is the politicians' job, not ours" -- but it is delusion. To fight global warming in a democracy, we must do everything we can as individuals, including changing our lifestyles to reduce their impact on the environment and working for better policies. Policy is but one tool for producing the behavior change needed to halt global warming. Given the magnitude of the problem, ah tools are needed.

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http://www.allposters.com/-sp/We-Can-Do-It-Rosie-the-Riveter-Posters_i1099872_.htm


Answer to: Consumption K – 2AC

- Turn - Cleanup efforts raise attention to mobilize groups to reduce plastic usage.

Slat et al, founder and lead designer The Ocean Cleanup Project, 2014(Boyan, “A Feasibility Study”, http://www.theoceancleanup.com/fileadmin/media-archive/theoceancleanup/press/downloads/TOC_Feasibility_study_lowres.pdf, p 39)

Firstly, cleanup concepts have demonstrated the potential to attract attention, including the concept that is the subject of this feasibility study as introduced in Chapter 1.7 (Slat, 2012). If used wisely, this attention could not only emphasize the scale and urgency of the plastic pollution problem, but can also be used to help preventive measures, by stressing the importance of closing the tap first. And since the cost of preventing and cleaning plastic pollution on land is likely to be lower than offshore, this could also quantify the financial incentive for improved pollution control on land.

- Reducing consumption is inherently difficult.

Albert C. Lin Professor of Law, University of California at Davis. Brigham Young University Law Review 2008

Tackling the problems posed by consumption quickly entangles one in questions of lifestyle choices and equity. For all humans - indeed, for all living things - consumption is necessary for life. Distinguishing between basic needs and less urgent wants requires a consideration of values and norms that is unlikely to produce general agreement. n70 And even if such distinctions could readily be made, few would be willing to agree that consumption to satisfy wants, as opposed to needs, necessarily amounts to overconsumption. Even the concept of sustainability, which claims to provide an objective [*62] framework for evaluating consumption decisions, provides no easy answers. n71 As Jim Salzman has observed, "sustainable consumption's ultimate objective remains indistinct, blurred by disagreement over appropriate measures, issues of international and intergenerational equity, and most important, implications on individual lifestyles." n72

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Answer to: Consumption K – Perm Ext

Personal choices spill over and create big changes in government legislation policy. This proves the perm works best because individual and policy action work hand in hand.

David Roberts Social Scientist Grist 2007 The power of voluntary actions Social scientists respond to Mike Tidwell http://gristmih.grist.org/print/2007/9/11/13338/9554?show_comments=no

Dismissing the importance of small personal behavior choices in favor of a sole focus on policy changes is a big mistake. Small behaviors are important not only for the direct environmental impact they have, but because they often lead to more and more pro-environmental behaviors over time. Research shows that personal action and political action to protect the environment go hand in hand, rather than undermining each other . When people do something like buy a more expensive and perhaps less aesthetically pleasing compact fluorescent lightbulb, they justify it to themselves and others. This tends to result in changes in their self-perceptions (I am a person who cares about fighting global warming), their beliefs (global warming is a really important problem), and how others see them (they really care about the environment). The more people voluntarily engage in pro-environmental behaviors and justify it themselves and others, the more it creates social pressure to do good things for the environment. Numerous psychological studies have shown that people are more likely to agree to take a big action if they've previously agreed to smaller, similar actions . Thus, changing a light bulb may lead to higher impact behaviors like giving up plastic water bottles, insulating one's house, living closer to work, reducing meat consumption, and actively supporting legislation that will likely require personal sacrifice. When ExxonMobil hears about people changing lightbulbs and buying Priuses, they should expect public policy changes to follow.

Don’t reject the plan. Ocean law can have benefits that benefit the environment.

John Charles Kunich, Associate Professor of Law, Roger Williams University School of Law Columbia Journal of Environmental Law 2005 Losing Nemo: The Mass Extinction Now Threatening the World's Ocean Hotspots

This is not to say that there is no value in the current legal regime. In some regions, an individual nation's laws have helped to slow the destruction of important marine hotspots, such as Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Likewise, on occasion a group of nations has come together to coordinate efforts and effectuate local improvements, as with the Mediterranean Action Plan. n465 Because many of the most notable known marine hotspots consist of coral reefs within the EEZ of sovereign nations, there is the potential for very substantial success, if more nations were to follow the lead of Australia and New Zealand in aggressively safeguarding these proximal buried/submerged treasures. The WHC has the potential to be of significant value in these near-shore hotspots as well, if only the host nations were inclined to inscribe them.

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Answer to: Consumption K – Link Turn

[___] Visualization— ocean clean-up efforts allow people to easily see the extent of pollution.


Secondly, a cleanup would be able to make the problem more visible. Although the numbers (by both mass and particle count) are large, it is hard to visualize, because the debris is dispersed over a vast area, with concentrations ranging from 0.01 to 10 parts per m³ (Goldstein et al., 2013). However, by concentrating and/or extracting a significant percentage of plastic from the oceans, coverage of this collection process could help in raising awareness about the problem as well.

[___] Scientific research resulting from building the clean up system would provide better evidence to convince skeptics about the scope of the issue.


Finally, a cleanup project contributes to the scientific understanding of the oceanic plastic pollution problem. Both the research in the R&D phases before a cleanup as well as a large-scale cleanup itself would provide much better insights into the amount and composition of plastics in the oceans. Most recently for example, it has been recommended reducing the uncertainties of debris mass estimates “by developing large-scale, cost-effective techniques to monitor subtropical gyre accumulation zones that are millions of square kilometers in size” (Law et al., 2014).

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Ocean Clean Up Affirmative DKC-NAUDL 2014-15Ban Plastic Bags Counterplan Answers

Answer to: Consumption K - Alternative Fails

Reducing consumption is politically problematic.


Initiatives to address consumption at the level of the individual consumer have been far more sporadic than measures aimed at manufacturers. n162 The notion of consumer sovereignty has become deeply entrenched in American culture, making any proposal that might impinge upon it politically problematic. n163 Such measures challenge lifestyles, norms, and popular conceptions of liberalism and individual freedom. n164 Thus, it is unlikely that sumptuary laws - laws that directly prohibit consumption of luxury goods - will enjoy a [*76] resurgence. n165 Similarly, rationing and other measures that directly limit consumer choice will not receive serious consideration in the absence of a public sense of crisis. n166

Social movements will fail to reduce consumption.


To reduce overall consumption levels, campaigns could encourage consumers to buy fewer goods. n196 Adherents of the voluntary simplicity movement, for example, seek to reduce material consumption in favor of a simpler lifestyle and more time with family, community, and nature. n197 "Freegans" live off of consumer waste to minimize their ecological impact and to reduce their support of the corporate economy. n198 Such movements, however, have experienced little success in the past, and would require significant shifts in social norms and values. n199 Promoting changes in values through the law is unlikely to be any easier than through voluntary movements. n200

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Answer to Plastic Bag Ban CP - No Solvency- Clean up needed

[___]

[___] Despite efforts like the counterplan to ban plastics, worldwide plastic use will continue to grow.


The long-term solution for this environmental issue involves decreasing plastic waste and creating better disposal practices on land and at sea, at an international level. MARPOL 73/78 is the international convention for the prevention of marine pollution, and prohibits the disposal of plastic from ships anywhere in the world’s oceans. However, its enforcement varies globally, and clearly this regulation effects, at most, only 20% of all plastics entering the seas. Other measures to reduce thedetritus of plastics in the environment are ordinances banning plastic single use items such as plastic bags and polystyrene3.Despite these efforts, the use of plastic worldwide continues to grow.

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Answer to Plastic Bag Ban CP - No Solvency- Other types of plastic

[___]

[___] Many types of plastic in the ocean, the counterplan only prevents a small amount from making it there. The passive collection system could gather them all.

Maritime Reporter, 2012(“Project to Clean Up North Pacific Garbage Patch,” Tuesday, February 21, 2012 http://www.marinelink.com/news/project-pacific-garbage342616.aspx)

Debris Collection ¶ Set-up by Ocean Voyages Institute of California in 2008, a California 501(c)3 non-profit organization, Project Kaisei is the ‘Ocean Clean-up initiative’ of the Institute, focused on increasing awareness of the scale of marine debris, its impact on the environment and the solutions for both prevention and clean-up. The project aims to prevent further accumulation of marine debris in the ocean and apply new technologies to begin removing this waste. ¶

Project Kaisei’s research findings have identified that debris falls into four major categories. ¶ • One: Ghost nets/derelict fishing gear, ¶ •Two: Floating consumer debris, ranging from car fenders to large plastic storage bins, plastic bottles and containers of all shapes and sizes,¶• Three: Smaller plastic debris, ranging from tooth brushes to children's toys to broken down pieces of plastic, and ¶ • Four: Micro plastics.

¶ According to the project team, the four debris categories each present different challenges for clean-up that require technologies to be created and modified to find the best devices for extracting these different categories of debris. Having the availability of the satellite communications link is fundamental to the continued development of this global initiative and gives clean-up operations the ability to communicate and modify clean-up technologies being tested while at sea.¶

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Answer to Plastic Bag Ban CP - Permutation : Double Solvency

[___]

[___] The Counterplan presents a false choice. We should not need to decide between cleaning up or using less but need to do both to save the oceans.


Many initiatives have been set up with the aim of trying to combat plastic pollution (especially in the past 10-15 years), ranging from prevention to extraction. Although not completely understood, the currently known sinks of the North Pacific gyre are likely to be small, and a large and continuous increase in plastic pollution has been measured over time (see Chapter 2). Given the implications for ecology, economics and human health as explained in Chapter 1.3, a cleanup would reduce these negative impacts. Based on the counterarguments outlined in 1.4.3 above, the statement that the solution to the plastic pollution problem should be either prevention or cleanup is not valid. A cleanup could also benefit preventive efforts as well. Hence, the effect of a combination of both prevention and cleanup will be greater than either of them alone, and this combination is the only solutionthat could reduce the amount of plastic pollution in the oceans within our lifetimes.

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