joG
DP Veteran
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This agglomerate results from the plastics released by countries in the Pacific Ocean.
The Atlantic Ocean has its own vertex, the Sargasso Sea near Caribbeans, and there is far less pollution thanks to the fact that most of western garbage is burned/methanized/recycled.
Regrettably the best approaches, such as billing CO2 emissions, are rendered impossible by globalization and the various free market rules (WTO, EU, treaties, ...) since they would simply result in more outsourcing and worse environmental outcomes.
Therefore governments have to use more targeted, inefficient and radical approaches. Environment and free market are natural antagonists.
Forbidding plastic forks is certainly a "targeted, inefficient and radical" approach. France gets the cookie for that, I guess.