We forgive you Florida

The new rings won’t add more deadly traps to the ocean. That’s good. But... if other manufacturers continue to use regular plastic rings, you’ll also be adding plastic that looks identical to an animal. Now, even if all manufacturers adopt these newer rings- the old ones will likely persist in nature for some time. Of course.... it may be a moot point anyway- and we could argue that if an animal were to eat one of these, it means they were going to eat a ring set anyway, so adding a chance that ring is not poison is perhaps better regardless.

But... I’d need to see environmental impact studies and long term findings to decide if this were a good thing. There’s also the unknown variable of suddenly increasing the amount of free nutrients in the local ecosystem. We know there is lots of plastic in the ocean. We know that is bad. But- if all that plastic were replaced by nutrient sources... what would happen?

We don’t know. You’d THINK food is better to dump than plastic- and perhaps. The food itself won’t remain in the ecosystem for as long directly... but what will that do? How will that effect plankton or algae populations? Oxygen levels in the water? The ability for sunlight to penetrate to deeper depths and so and so on.

If we see increases in certain types of marine life or micro organisms, effect the mixes of gasses being produced, effect migration or hunting or mating patterns for various species- we can’t say what effects that will have and in theory- even a well intentioned change could lead to catastrophe. But... good or bad I’d need more data to say.

Probably, at least once.