Oceans Clean Up Negative

Ocean Clean Up Negative
NAUDL 2014-15

Inherency Answers
Ocean Clean Up Coming Now......................................................................................................2-4
Plastic Oceans Advantage Answers
Clean Up Efforts Kill Sea Life...........................................................................................................5
Clean Up Efforts Kill Plankton..........................................................................................................6
Plastics Dont Kill off Species...........................................................................................................7
Food Chain not protected by clean up..........................................................................................8-9
............................................................................................................................................................
Solvency Answers
Clean Up Fails- Logistical Nightmare -- Location/Depth of plastics/Sea Life/ Ocean Conditions/
Economic viability...........................................................................................................................10
Clean Up Fails- Logistical Nightmare- General Extensions...........................................................11
Clean Up Fails- Logistical Nightmare- Sea Life Extension............................................................12
Clean Up Fails- Logistical Nightmare - Ocean Conditions Extensions..........................................13
Clean Up Fails- Size of the Ocean.................................................................................................14
Clean Up Fails- Depth of the Ocean..............................................................................................15
Clean up fails- Sinking plastic........................................................................................................16
Ocean Clean up fails- Experts Agree..........................................................................................17-8
Disadvantages
Plastic Transition Disadvantage 1NC ......................................................................................19-20
Link- Obligation to clean.................................................................................................................21
Link- Wasting Resources...............................................................................................................22
Impact- Transition from plastics needed........................................................................................23
Social Services Trade Off Link.......................................................................................................24
Answer To: Project will pay for itself............................................................................................25-6
Ban Plastic Bags Counterplan
Ban Plastic Bags Counterplan.......................................................................................................27
Solvency- Banning plastic bags reduces use................................................................................28
Solvency: stops plastic at the source.............................................................................................29
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Solvency: Reducing use of plastic.................................................................................................30
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Summmary
Inherency
Organizations and governments are working now to study and tackle the issue of plastic pollution in
the oceans. Encouraging a number of efforts helps ensure a healthy market of ideas and information
sharing to search for the best solution.
Sea Life Advantage
Efforts to clean plastic out of the ocean can have detrimental effects on sea life. These include killing
plankton caught up in the system and larger animals being fouled in the the 100 km booms proposed
to catch the plastics. Arguments also question the impact of plastic on death rates.
Solvency
Building a platform in the middle of the ocean to collect 50-80% of the plastic floating in the ocean is a
major logistical challenge. Issues that must be accounted for include ocean depth, strength of the
seas and storms, impact of sea life interacting with the machine, and how to pay for the set up. In
addition, the effectiveness of the system is questioned since plastics can sink, the oceans are big,
and experts dont believe a passive retention system can work.
Plastic transition disadvantage
Argues that technology silver bullets to fix our destruction of the planet are bad since they allow
humans to continue consuming items that hurt the planet like plastics and not transition away to
sustainable alternatives.
Plastic Bags Counterplan
This counterplan is designed to cut down on the flow of plastic into the ocean. Both the Plastic
Transition Disadvantage and the Social Services Disadvantage could be net benefits as well as any
argument about how the ocean clean up would hurt the environment.

Inherency Answers
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Inherency Answers
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Ocean Clean Up Coming Now

Non profit organizations are being set up in the status quo to create sustainable solutions to
ocean clean up using gathered plastic for fuel.
Sesini, Masters in Green Management, Energy, and Corporate Social Responsibility at Bocconi
University, 2011
(Marzia, THE GARBAGE PATCH IN THE OCEANS: THE PROBLEM AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
http://www.seas.columbia.edu/earth/wtert/sofos/sesini_thesis.pdf)
Best Practices - Private/Nonprofit Partnerships Moreover, in an effort to implement best practices
collaborative private/nonprofit partnerships have been created to help reduce and prevent
marine debris. Project Kaisei, a nonprofit organization that organizes plastic cleaning
expedition in the Pacific Ocean, and Covanta Energy, a Fairfield-based company that owns
waste-to-energy power generation plants, under the auspices of the Global Clinton Initiatives
(GCI) partner up to clean up the ocean debris starting with the plastic in the North Pacific
Gyre, with a yearly conversion target of 50 tons of marine debris into renewable energy.
Covanta Energy uses the debris collected by Project Kaisei to test its new waste-to- fuel
technology to convert the plastic into a diesel substitute using a catalytic process for
converting solid organic materials directly to mineral diesel fuel (Covanta Energy), and to
showcase how waste, and in particular plastic, can have added value if properly recycled. This
in the hope that a larger scale cleanup effort will take place, helping protect the ocean and the
marine wild life (Covanta Energy). 16

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Ocean Clean Up Coming Now - Extensions

[___]
[___] Public private partnerships provide a market for testing technology to find the best
solutions.
Sesini, Masters in Green Management, Energy, and Corporate Social Responsibility at Bocconi
University, 2011
(Marzia, THE GARBAGE PATCH IN THE OCEANS: THE PROBLEM AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
http://www.seas.columbia.edu/earth/wtert/sofos/sesini_thesis.pdf)
Finally, data on the amount, distribution, and especially environmental and economic impacts of such
pollution are key in dealing with the problem of plastic end-of-life use and implementing programs, as
well as science-based monitoring and consistent widespread sampling. Greater research and new
technology development effort are needed to assess next steps, address gaps, and prevent
plastic to enter the oceans.
As a show case of best practice that could lead the way to greater public awareness on the
issue of plastic disposal and recycling. For example a partnership between Project Kasei and
Covanta Energy set a goal of conversion of plastic to fuel of 50 tons per year.
The hope is that a larger scale cleanup effort, which will help protect the ocean and the marine
wild life, will take place as a result of this project. In addition, it is an excellent opportunity for
the private sector to test a new technology as a viable solution to address plastic dumping,
and to create secure, financial business opportunities and help identifying recycling costeffective solutions.

Plastic Oceans Advantage
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Clean Up Efforts Kill Sea Life

Plastic clean up would be devastating for sea life caught up in the filtration system and
sucked from the ocean. .
Kazo, President at Wildlife Research Team, 2013
(Donna, President/Director/co-founder at Wildlife Research Team, Inc,
http://wildliferesearchteam.wordpress.com/tag/boyan-slat/)
In closing, I quite liked this comment from Harry, who watches over a particular beach in Maine,
and discusses his findings in his blog, on Slats plan: This idea that if weve messed something
up, theres science/tech out there that can fix it. That keeps us from having to make the hard
choices about our lifestyle. In this case, there isnt. It is not possible to clean the oceans up of
their debris. Not without breaking the bank of every nation on earth and scooping out and
killing all the life in its first 100 feet of depth. Thats what we have done to our planet in just a
couple generations. Thats plastics legacy. We cannot actively go out and clean it up in any
meaningful way. What we can do is to change consumption behavior, change materials, improve
waste management; do the things that stop persistent plastic from getting in the ocean in the first
place.
It starts with me, and with you.

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Clean Up Efforts Kill Plankton

[___]
[___] Even passive clean up systems will kill plankton caught in the system.
Wilson, Associate Director at The 5 Gyres Institute, 2013
(Stiv,The Fallacy of Cleaning the Gyres of Plastic With a Floating "Ocean Cleanup Array"
, Inhabitat, July 17, http://inhabitat.com/the-fallacy-of-cleaning-the-gyres-of-plastic-with-a-floatingocean-cleanup-array/)
Another technicality is bycatch. Slat suggests that plankton wouldnt be collected along with the
plastic, though he admits more research is needed on this. The definition of plankton is an organism
that cant swim against a current; plankton have no control where they go and the assumption
that theyll somehow avoid the current that is taking the plastic into the processing thinga-majiggy is a bad one. After conducting 50+ surface samples myself, at least half of the material
we get from the surface is biomass. Zooplankton is really fragile, and trying to separate it from
plastic in most cases is going to damage these critters beyond survivability, especially on an
industrial scale. Plan B in Slats concept is to centrifuge the critters outthat would rip off their
antennae and feeding apparatus. Scientists, when collecting zooplankton, use live catch nets and
are very, very careful so as not to damage them. Plankton biologists, needless to say, are skeptical.
Though zooplankton certainly isnt the most charismatic fauna out there (and probably wouldnt draw
the ire of PETA if Slats device killed them), lets remember that all life in the ocean depends on
plankton at the base of the food chain. And if one endangered sea turtle was caught up? The fines
that Slat would face would bankrupt his project in a second.

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Plastics Dont Kill off Species

Plastics are not killing off entire species or ecosytsems. Science is not conclusive on the
impacts of plastic.
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/liesyouve-been-told-about-the-pacific-garbage-patch)
Nobody who studies ocean ecosystems would ever argue that this plastic isn't harmful. But
many documentaries and articles about the garbage patch make it seem as if the main
problem is that the garbage is killing animals. Birds and fish mistake the plastic for food, eat it,
and then slowly starve to death. Goldstein points out that there is clear evidence that both birds
and fish are eating the plastic, but it's very hard to draw conclusions about whether eating it is
killing them. Generally, scientists are only able to examine the stomachs of animals who are
already dead. "Some studies of albatrosses show plastic correlating with poor nutrition and you
do see a lot of dead chicks with their stomachs absolutely stuffed with plastic," Goldstein explained.
The problem is that we don't know whether there are also birds who eat the plastic and survive.
"We're not going to go around killing baby albatrosses to examine their stomach contents," she
added.
This is an even more difficult issue when it comes to fish, since she and many other researchers have
found living fish with plastic in their stomachs. It's not clear whether these fish are suffering
malnutrition, or are unharmed by eating plastic because they can just pass it out in their
excrement. Fish digestive systems are a lot different from those of birds, so it's possible that
what's harmful to the albatrosses isn't affecting the fish as much.
Ocean plastics aid biodiversity by increasing habitat for small insects and other surface
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/liesyouve-been-told-about-the-pacific-garbage-patch)
And finally, there is a class of creatures who are actually thriving as a result of the plastic
influx. These are water skater insects, small crabs, barnacles, and invertebrates called
bryozoans, who live on hard surfaces in the water. Some of them, like the barnacles and
bryozoans, can do a lot of damage to ship hulls and have caused harm in other ecosystems they've
invaded. Usually, these creatures lead a hardscrabble life, barely making it in the deep ocean where
hard surfaces are limited to, as Goldstein put it, "the odd floating tree trunk, rare shells, feathers, or
pieces of pumice." But now, with all the plastic floating around, these once-rare creatures are
enjoying a boom time.
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Food Chain not protected by clean up

A passive collection system will fail to filter microplastics. These tiny bits are the the most
dangerous to sea life and a healthy food chain.
Newsweek, weekly news magazine, 2010
(Daniel, Can the Pacific Garbage Patch Be Cleaned Up?, Newsweek, 3-13
http://www.newsweek.com/can-pacific-garbage-patch-be-cleaned-75657)
The project goal for the mission, named Project Kaisei (meaning "ocean planet" in Japanese), was
not to measure the size with precision, but to test several methods of extracting the plastic and finding
ways to dispose of it properly, ideally through recycling. Testing methods of getting the larger items
plastic chairs, large toysturned out to be easy. But that still left the much bigger amount
of smaller items, like partially broken down toothbrushes, combs, and bottle capsall of which
can't be as easily harvested. "The smaller pieces are the ones that are concerning," says Mary
Crowley, Kaisei's project leader and a lifelong ocean explorer. "That's what fish and birds may be
eating, and it's terrifying how widely they're being distributed."
There's no perfect way to fish it all out of the ocean, especially not without harming ocean
creatures in the process. But the crew tested several possible methods. Some were active,
involving the dragging of nets to trap and concentrate the trash to be collected. Others were
passive, consisting of large floating receptacles placed near highly concentrated areas and then
picked up later to dispose of its contents back on land. The latter, Crowley found, is an applicable
and plausible way to collect at least the big items.
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Food Chain not protected by clean up- Extensions

[___]
[___] The tiny plastic particles that make up most of the garbage patch are nearly impossible
to clean from the ocean, combined with the great distance from any port make a cleanup effort
a logistical nightmare.
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)
But these are small points. The fact is, many (if not most) experts believe the notion of any
active cleanup of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is bordering on preposterous.
The difficulty comes down to at least three main factors: cost, distance and the effects of
photodegradation.
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. The result is countless
miniscule bits of plastic, most of which are floating below the surface, reaching down perhaps
300 feet (91 meters) [source: Berton]. There is simply no good way to pull those tiny beads out
of the water. It would be kind of like trying to catch sand in a Jacuzzi tub.
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Solvency
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Solvency
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Clean Up Fails- Logistical Nightmare -- Location/Depth of plastics/Sea Life/ Ocean Conditions/

Economic viability
A passive collection system would face a litany of deployment issues that would make it
impossible to be effectives.
Briefly, here are the basic challenges Slats system will face, according to MarineDebris.info and 5
Gyres Stiv Wilson:
1. the size and depth of the ocean gyres within which floating marine plastics tend to gather;
Slat may have to moor his platforms at 4,000 meters, twice as deep as BPs Atlantis dual oil
and gas production facility, 190 miles south of New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico which at
2,000 meters, is the deepest mooring in the world.
2. depth and concentration of microplastics; Slats system uses long, flexible surface booms,
but debris can drift down the water column, to 150 meters or more.
3. capturing tiny particles of plastics while not harming microscopic marine organisms such
as plankton mingled with the plastics.
4. potential for entanglement of larger marine life in the systems. Wilson: If one endangered
sea turtle was caught up? The fines that Slat would face would bankrupt his project in a
second.
5. strength and stability in extreme sea conditions; Slats array would not survive weeks of
thirty-foot waves. It would become marine debris itself, a hazard to maritime navigation.
6. maintenance and fouling; Wilson: Outer space is less corrosive to machines than the
ocean is and sea life grows rapidly on any surface.
7. the physical properties of ocean-weathered plastic; Slat claims that plastics retrieved from
the five gyres for recycling would be financially profitable. He does admit it would not be of
top quality; other sources state it would be worthless due to degradation. Recycled materials
must be clean to be utilized, and this material would be fouled by sea life such as barnacles.
8. legal issues; a bewildering multitude of laws regulate the deployment of structures at sea.
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Solvency
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Clean Up Fails- Logistical Nightmare- General Extensions

[___]
[___] Multiple barriers to successful system of clean up

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/)
Despite all these environmental and potential human health impacts, most scientists agree
that it is not feasible to clean up the plastic soup in our oceans. The areas are huge, and the
debris is unevenly distributed and always shifting. A cleanup would entail filtering enormous
amounts of water, and the by-catch of plankton and other marine organisms would be harmful
to ocean ecosystems. Moreover, the fact that the trash gyres are in the open ocean, in
international waters, makes it difficult to get governments to invest in research or cleanup
efforts.
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Solvency
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Clean Up Fails- Logistical Nightmare- Sea Life Extension

[___]
[___] Sea life will colonize the clean up project jamming equipment shortly after deployment.
Little sea life attracts big sea life. Big sea life means entanglement issues. And unfortunately,
sea life big or small is notorious for not doing what designers assume it will do. Slats design
depicts massive booms sticking out of the sides in a V pattern thus corralling the floating plastic into
some mysterious filter that will separate plankton and plastic. First up, life would colonize the
booms, weight it down, and create their own current and eddies around it which would affect the
flow of how the thing is supposed to work. Fish, attracted by the littler life and the protection
from larger predators tend to be voracious munchers and thus, really destructive. Oh and
storms? You cant imagine the ferocity were talking about until youve sailed in full gale. The wind
itself becomes audible.
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Clean Up Fails- Logistical Nightmare - Ocean Conditions Extensions

[___]
[___] The rough conditions of the oceans will destroy any clean up system.
But beyond the size of the ocean, the sea is one giant corrosive force. Even on just a monthlong sail across The South Atlantic, we tore our sails twice, broke some rigging, and utterly destroyed
a wind-powered generatorall due to the force of nature. Any blue water sailor will tell you about
how destructive the sea is to anything with moving parts. Thats why sailors say, a boat is a hole
you fill with money. Heck, outer space is less corrosive to machines than the ocean is.
But lets look at a practical example. My home state of Oregon has been trying to create North
Americas 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 wasnt just an idea on an Ipad. That was the result of an incredible amount of engineering
and venture capital. The company, Finavera Renewables, has since abandoned their wave
energy ambitions. Is it because Finavera lacked vision? No. Whether you like it or not, Finavera, like
all for-profit schemes, is governed by profit and loss. Whats interesting is that Finavera actually had a
product (energy) that was worth money, and still it didnt pencil out. Eventually, because energy IS so
valuable and wave farms are near shore, the technology will become more viable. Which leads me to
my next point.
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Solvency
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Clean Up Fails- Size of the Ocean

The oceans are too big to be cleaned by the Ocean Cleanup Project. The stations will miss
most of the trash.
The ocean surface is 315 million square kilometers; 70% of the earths surface. Plastic isnt
just contained within the borders of the gyres, its everywhere in the ocean. Half of it, like
Coke bottles and PVC pipe, sinks. What does a garbage patch look like? Imagine the night sky
on a cloudless, moonless night. Now replace the ocean surface with space, and the stars with
plastic; its dispersed and it goes on infinitely. Yes, humans have managed to create a problem
on a degree of scale thats nearly incomprehensible and so overwhelming were predisposed
to like ideas like Slats because it has the appearance of near divine simplicity. Every time a
gyre cleanup proponent has shown me a design for addressing the problem, the first thing I
ask is, do you have the money to make 20 million of those doo-hickies? They look at me with
a puzzled look, and I just mutter, The ocean is really, really, really, big.
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Solvency
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Clean Up Fails- Depth of the Ocean

Ocean is too deep in most places to anchor the system, it will blow away in the first storm.
Slat claims that 24 of his devices are all that is needed to cleanup each gyre in 5 years. How
massively long are the booms, and how do they stay in a V shape that Slat assumes is
needed to gather the plastic? Where on earth does the 24 number come from? Slat mentions that
these would be anchored to the seabed. Thats great, but its not currently possible to anchor
anything in 4,000 meters of water (the average depth of the open ocean). The deepest known
mooring is 2,000 meters. Even if you could anchor it, one big storm and his device is going to
be ripped from its mooring. Ask NOAA about how many data buoys they lose to storms, even
in shallow water.
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Clean up fails- Sinking plastic

Most plastic sinks to the bottom and kills the ocean from the sea floor up.
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/)
Despite these creative approaches to removing debris from the worlds oceans, they will not
be able to reach the majority of plastic which have accumulated on the ocean floor.
Of the more than 200 billion pounds of plastic the world produces each year, about 10 percent ends
up in the ocean. Much of which (approximately 70 percent) sinks to the bottom and harms life
on the ocean floor.
In the North Sea alone, Dutch scientists have counted around 110 pieces of litter for every
square kilometre of the seabed. This amounts to a staggering 600,000 tonnes in the North Sea
alone. This garbage can smother the sea bottom and kill the marine life.
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Solvency
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Clean up fails- Experts Agree

[___] Ocean plastic cleanup projects like the affirmative will fail, go with the scientific
consensus not a 19 year old.
(Stiv, http://inhabitat.com/the-fallacy-of-cleaning-the-gyres-of-plastic-with-a-floating-ocean-cleanuparray/)
As the policy director of the ocean conservation nonprofit 5Gyres.org, I can tell you that the problem
of ocean plastic pollution is massive. In case you didnt know, an ocean gyre is a rotating current that
circulates within one of the worlds oceans and recent research has found that these massive
systems are filled with plastic waste. There are no great estimates (at least scientific) on how much
plastic is in the ocean, but I can say from firsthand knowledge (after sailing to four of the worlds five
gyres) that its so pervasive it confounds the senses. Gyre cleanup has often been floated as a
solution in the past, and recently Boyan Slats proposed Ocean Cleanup Array went viral in a big
way. The nineteen-year-old claims that the system can clean a gyre in 5 years with
unprecedented efficiency and then recycle the trash collected. The problem is that the
barriers to gyre cleanup are so massive that the vast majority of the scientific and advocacy
community believe its a fools errand the ocean is big, the plastic harvested is near
worthless, and sea life would be harmed. The solutions starts on land
If an outlier subset of the movement to end oceanic plastic pollution exists, it would be the
proponents of gyre cleanup. These guys pop up now and again (make no mistake, Slats idea and
drawings are not new), but for some reason his idea got big media attention. No serious
scientist or policy advocate believes that microplastic gyre cleanup is a real strategy for
ridding micro-plastics from the oceansnot even The National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA). Industry often backs gyre cleanup concepts because they give the
impression that we can continue to consume more and more and good old human ingenuity will
figure out how to solve all the environmental problems. The public, for their part, loves the thought
of a quick fix and wants to believe that a boy genius can come along and solve a problem that all
the old crusty PHDs cant.
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Clean up fails- Experts Agree Extensions

[___]
[___] No scienctists support the passive collection method.

http://wildliferesearchteam.wordpress.com/tag/boyan-slat/
Experienced marine debris researchers, on www.MarineDebris.info compiled guidelines for
cleanup of debris, especially plastics, from the open sea. Slat did attempt to address these
issues but I have yet to find an actual scientist who supports his plan (doesnt mean they
dont exist, just that the community of researchers who have been battling marine debris for
years do not agree with him).
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Plastic Transition Disadvantage 1NC 1/2

A) Uniqueness- Consumer demand is forcing a transition from plastics to biodegradable
packaging now.
Markets and Markets, Market research company and consulting firm, 2013
(Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) Market, By Application (Packaging, Food Services, Bio-medical,
Agriculture) & Raw Material Global Trends & Forecasts to 2018 April,
http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_Buying.asp?id=395)
The increasing demand for renewable and bio-based materials and shift in consumer
preference for eco-friendly products is driving the global market of PHA (Polyhydroxyalkanoate)
polymer. PHA has been commercialized and used across packaging, food services, biomedical, and agriculture industries. Packaging is the largest consumer of PHA followed by food
services. Bio-medical applications offer the highest growth during the next five years. PHA would
continue to be used as biodegradable controlled antibiotic release system, making it ideal for biomedical applications such as manufacturing implants, sutures, and other medical equipment.
B) Link- quick technology fixes to environmental problems,.
Its a great story, but its just a story. I find debating with gyre cleanup advocates akin to trying to
reason with someone who will argue with a signpost and take the wrong way home. Gyre cleanup is
a false prophet hailing from La-La land that wont work and its dangerous and counter
productive to a movement trying in earnest stop the flow of plastic into the oceans. Gyre
cleanup plays into the hand of industry, but worse, it diverts attention and resources from
viable, but unsexy, multi-pronged and critically vetted solutions.
Slats project as it stands is in the fairy tale phase, which is where all the other gyre cleanup
schemes out there are, too. So far Slats is not a design schematic nor is it engineered nor is
there a business plan attached to ita fact that Slat all of the sudden underscores in an update to the
website, saying hes just conducting a feasibility study, and that his intention was never to
suggest that it was presently viable. But that certainly is not what his website suggested before the
media attentionand this is precisely why it got so much media attention. From the website: Extract
7,250,000,000KG of plastic from the oceans in just 5 years per gyre, Contribute Now!
Well, if Slats intention is to funnel the money into a feasibility study, maybe I can save him
some money. Lets look at gyre cleanup schemes from a vantage governed not by dreams,
passion and media preciousness, but from something a little more effective and a lot more
boringreason. The sea is cruel and its really really really big
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Plastic Transition Disadvantage 1NC 2/2
C) Impact- Clean up wont matter unless we stop dumping new plastics into the oceans, a
transition in how we consume is needed.
If a full-scale, active cleanup is an unlikely end to the ocean dump, there are still other ways to at
least begin to change to status quo. Job one is to stop the rapid growth of the patch, which
means using less plastic and recycling more of the plastic we do use. Ultimately, though, the
planet will have to make a deeper change in order to stem the flow of bottles, toothbrushes
and bath beads out to sea. We'll have to move away from petroleum-based plastics and
toward biodegradable substitutes in a much bigger way than we are now. Eco-plastic coffee
cups aren't going to make a dent in the floating trash heap.
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Link- Obligation to clean

Must resist impulse to act just because we can. If the solution wastes resources we should
focus efforts to more productive ends.
meaningful way. What we can do is to change consumption behavior, change materials,
improve waste management; do the things that stop persistent plastic from getting in the
ocean in the first place. It starts with me, and with you.
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Link- Wasting Resources

[___] Silver bullet ideas to clean up the ocean distract from the hard work of eliminating the
plastic we dump into the ocean.
Heres something that will blow your mindto clean the ocean of floating plastic, you dont need to go
out and get it, it will come to you. Yep, thats right. Oceanographer Curtis Ebbsmeyer, author of,
Flotsametrics describes a rarely talked about phenomena that occurs naturally in the ocean called
Gyre Memory. Gyre Memory demonstrates that upon each orbit of a gyre, the gyre will spit out about
half its contents. These contents will then either enter another current or gyre or wash up on land. As
this repeats, it means that eventually, all the plastic in the ocean will be spit out which is why you
find plastic fragments on every beach in the world. Beach cleanup is gyre cleanup.
The solution to this problem isnt elegant, and there exists no silver bullet. The first step in
solving the problem is to personally lower your plastic consumption. The next steps are to get
involved in cleanups, get involved in campaigns to eliminate problem products, and demand
that companies take responsibility for their products post consumer. There is a lot to be
hopeful about, even if the real solutions dont appear real sexy. But with engagement, en masse,
there is light at the end of the sewer pipe. Unfortunately with Slats idea, I see only wasted
resources and more ocean garbage in the making.
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Impact- Transition from plastics needed

[___] The huge amount of plastic waste produced means the only hope for our oceans is
changing our consumption.
Plastic waste comes from almost every country in the world which makes ocean garbage an
international problem requiring international solutions. While we can dispose of our waste
more responsibly, the problem extends far beyond waste management. With Around 100 million
tonnes of plastic products being produced each year, we need to find solutions at the source.
We need to find alternatives to conventional plastics that are biodegradable and do not
contain harmful chemicals.
28

Social Service Tradeoff Disadvantage
NAUDL 2014-15
29

NAUDL 2014-15
Social Services Trade Off Link

[___] Ocean clean up is a massive undertaking that could bankrupt nations.
meaningful way. What we can do is to change consumption behavior, change materials, improve
waste management; do the things that stop persistent plastic from getting in the ocean in the first
place. It starts with me, and with you.
[___] Costs of a cleanup project will be huge. Location and size of the problem will only force
costs higher.
An even weightier task if that Jacuzzi tub were out in the middle of the ocean where it took a week to
even reach it in the first place. The garbage patch is really out there - that's why it remained a
secret so long. Getting to it is a hike. It's not close to any port or any source of supplies. That
makes a massive cleanup effort an extraordinarily time-consuming, fuel-consuming, resourceconsuming undertaking.
In other words, it would be prohibitively expensive. Add in the $7-million-per-pyrolysis setup
involved in Project Kaisei's approach, and you've got yourself a bankruptcy in the makin g.
30

NAUDL 2014-15
Answer To: Project will pay for itself

[___]
[___] Ocean cleanup project cant pay for itself- the plastics recovered have little value on
recycling market and transportation costs are huge.
The two most common types of plastic in the ocean are polyethylene (PE- plastic bags,
dispensing bottles) and polypropylene (PP- bottle caps, fishing gear). So, it stands to reason
that these types of plastic would be what Slats machine would harvest to sell to recyclers. Well, if
the economic viability of Slats ocean cleaning device rests on his assumption that it will
produce a product that will be sold in the market, he needs to better understand the market
landscape for his product.
Plastics, chemically speaking, are polymer chains of monomer hydrocarbon molecules. Ultraviolet
light weakens the polymer chains until they break, which is why you have the confetti-like microplastics found in the ocean. The number one barrier to a closed loop, cradle-to-cradle scenario
for plastic is that recycling weakens the polymer chains and thus, the structural integrity of
what you can recycle them into. Ocean-borne plastics are so brittle you can break them apart
with your fingers, and theyre also saturated with toxic chemicals present in seawater. Another
issue is bio-fouling. Life adheres to plastic, and for the most part, plastic can only be recycled
if its clean or cleaned. Another issue is that plastics have to be separated by type, i.e. PP, PE,
etc. In an ocean plastic scenario where all these bits are crazy small, this requires
spectroscopic analysis that identifies plastic by the frequency of light it reflects. This is very
expensive, even in an automated scenario. Another issue is transportationplastic bags are
hardly ever recycled because in most places, its more expensive to transport them to a
recycler then the recycler will pay for them. So, from the market analysis standpoint in a gyre
cleanup business plan, ocean plastics are about the worst possible feedstock for recycling
imaginable, putting the product at a severe competitive disadvantage. Put it this way: Hiring
people to climb trees in New York City to gather all the plastic bags in their branches would be more
efficient and cheaper than ocean harvesting. Wait, do I sound crazy? Or visionary?
31

NAUDL 2014-15
32

NAUDL 2014-15
Answer To: Project will pay for itself

[___]
[___] Ocean plastic recycling is not viable. The supply of plastics will always be too great to
make the process cost effective.
The problem is that the economics of most recycling are terrible, especially in the case of
Polyethylene and Polypropylene. A growing single-use input for a market that has a sustained-use
durable goods output means the input is always going to be greater than the output that is the
supply will always exceed demand. Most plastics are very difficult to recycle not because we
lack infrastructure, but because theyre not worth enough in a commodities market to incentivize
venture capitalists to invest in more infrastructure to process them. Lets remember that
recycling isnt the work of little green altruistic elves and fairies, its a business.
33

NAUDL 2014-15

Counter plan: The United States federal government should ban single use plastic bags.
The Counter plan would solve. Plastic ban bags significantly reduce the amount of plastic
that flow into the ocean.
Surfrider Foundation & UCLA School of Laws 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)
Countries on nearly every continent have enacted legislation to reduce the use of on singleuse non-biodegradable plastic bags that clutter sidewalks, clog storm drains, and eventually find
their way into the oceans.38 Notably, the European Commission adopted regulations in
November 2013 that would require member states to either start charging for single-use plastic bags
or ban them altogether. More than 70 percent of commenters on the proposed regulations agreed that
a ban was needed.39 County and municipal governments throughout the United States have
also begun to adopt bans or imposed fees on single-use non-biodegradable plastic bags in
response to plastic bag litter that clutters sidewalks, clogs storm drains, and eventually finds its way
into the ocean. Local bag bans and fees have been widely successful in reducing the
environmental harms and economic costs associated with plastic bag waste and litter . Many
states legislatures also have considered plastic bag bans or fees, including Oregon, California,
Maryland, and Virginia, but no state has yet enacted a ban or fee into law.
34

NAUDL 2014-15
Solvency- Banning plastic bags reduces use

[___]
[___] Bag bans have been historically successful.
Surfrider Foundation & UCLA School of Laws 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)
Successful bag ban ordinances in cities and counties around the country demonstrate
that a ban on single-use plastic bags or food containers can significantly reduce plastic
litter without harmful economic impacts on consumers, small businesses, or large
retailers. In order to prevent the ban from being overbroad, the ban could exempt
plastic items with certain necessary uses (e.g., protecting unwrapped prepared foods;
preventing contamination of other goods placed together in the same bag; or enclosing
prescription drugs from pharmacies).8
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NAUDL 2014-15
Solvency: stops plastic at the source

[___] Most ocean trash originates on land.
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/)
Some plastic and marine debris comes from fishing gear, offshore oil and gas platforms, and ships.
But 80 percent of it comes from the landlitter that gets stuck in storm drains and is washed
into rivers and out to sea, the legal and illegal dumping of garbage and appliances, and plastic
resin pellets inadvertently spilled and unloaded by plastic manufacturers. Trash Travels,
Ocean Conservancys 2010 report, states that 60 percent of all marine debris in 2009 consisted
of disposable items, with the most common being cigarettes, plastic bags, food containers,
bottle caps and plastic bottles. And no matter where the litter originates, once it reaches the ocean,
it becomes a planetary problem as garbage travels thousands of miles carried by the gyres.
[___] Nearly 80% of ocean plastics starts from a land based source.
It is crudely estimated that 80 percent of the garbage comes from land-based sources and 20
percent is from ships. According to a 2011 EPA report titled, Marine Debris in the North Pacific:
The primary source of marine debris is the improper waste disposal or management of trash
and manufacturing products, including plastics (e.g., littering, illegal dumping) Debris is
generated on land at marinas, ports, rivers, harbors, docks, and storm drains. Debris is generated at
sea from fishing vessels, stationary platforms and cargo ships.
Much of the land-based sources of ocean waste originates from the great rivers from around the
world.
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NAUDL 2014-15
Solvency: Reducing use of plastic

[___] Even Ocean Cleanup proponents conclude that efforts to reduce input of plastics into
the oceans are necessary.
Slat et al, founder and lead designer The Ocean Cleanup Project, 2014
(Boyan, A Feasibility Study, http://www.theoceancleanup.com/fileadmin/mediaarchive/theoceancleanup/press/downloads/TOC_Feasibility_study_lowres.pdf)
Based on this collected evidence, it is concluded that The Ocean Cleanup Array is likely a feasible
and viable method for large-scale, passive and efficient removal of floating plastic from the North
Pacific Garbage Patch.
However, for this project to be successful in reducing the amount of plastics in the Great
Pacific Garbage Patch, it is essential for the influx of new plastic pollution into the oceans to
be radically reduced.
[___] Reduction in use of plastic necessary to lower the amount of plastic in the oceans, must
break the recycling cycle.
But even when plastics do get recycled, in the vast majority of cases, recycling only kicks the can
down the road one generation by creating a product that cant or wont (because of economic
constraints) be recycled again. In short, the vast majority of the recycling industry isnt doing anything
to solve marine plastic pollution, and for the most part, recycling is just creating a secondary
market for waste. Even if the economics of Slats Ocean Cleanup Array didnt further impede its
viability, more plastic would still be entering the ocean than his device would pull out. Placing
fees on producers of virgin plastics, and giving breaks to those who use 100% recycled
content or are actively working towards it, would help to balance this equation out and would
be great news for the ocean.
37

Oceans Clean Up Negative

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Ocean Clean Up Negative

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Solvency: Reducing use of plastic.................................................................................................30

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Ocean Clean Up Coming Now

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Ocean Clean Up Coming Now - Extensions

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Clean Up Efforts Kill Sea Life

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Clean Up Efforts Kill Plankton

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Plastics Dont Kill off Species

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Food Chain not protected by clean up

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Food Chain not protected by clean up- Extensions

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Clean Up Fails- Logistical Nightmare -- Location/Depth of plastics/Sea Life/ Ocean Conditions/

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Clean Up Fails- Logistical Nightmare- General Extensions

[___] Multiple barriers to successful system of clean up

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Clean Up Fails- Logistical Nightmare- Sea Life Extension

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Clean Up Fails- Logistical Nightmare - Ocean Conditions Extensions

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Clean Up Fails- Size of the Ocean

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Clean Up Fails- Depth of the Ocean

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Clean up fails- Sinking plastic

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Clean up fails- Experts Agree

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Clean up fails- Experts Agree Extensions

[___] No scienctists support the passive collection method.

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Plastic Transition Disadvantage 1NC 1/2

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Plastic Transition Disadvantage 1NC 2/2

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Link- Obligation to clean

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Link- Wasting Resources

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Impact- Transition from plastics needed

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Social Services Trade Off Link

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Answer To: Project will pay for itself

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Answer To: Project will pay for itself

Ocean Clean Up Negative

Ban Plastic Bags Counterplan