Tiny problem with your scenario, something myself and others have spotted.
What others?
We are the only two in this whole thread so comments like that really don't help reinforce your claims in my views here.
Any plastic above 0% in the Ocean is a problem,
By what unit of measure? 1 lego brick in the whole world is above 0% yet it's ecological impact is how significant? See the problem of needing accurately qualify and quantify the relevance of something. There is always a threshold value (plus numerous other factors) that can't be ignored for convenience of how someone feels about anything. That why the STEM fields are based on scientific process and fact, not
'feels therefore reals' logic.
take one of the many chemicals plastic leach in a chloride environment, and indecently contrary to idiotic belief do not degrade in any way shape or form,
Which chloride? Seawater is a ~35,000 PPM chloride solution all by itself plus there are very few plastics made that have proven have indefinite service lives when exposed to the natural elements. I deal with that problem constantly now when working with things that were made for plastics that are only 40 some years old that were assumed to be near eternal with estimated 1000+ year life expectancies when made.
You're strawmanning with those sort of ambiguous open ended statements that are easily taken apart by a tiny bit of reality.
My gut feeling is you looked at a couple of beaches somewhere and saw a few bits of plastic, you then extrapolated from that the amount of plastic you assume is in the Ocean.
And in comparison how much sand is on that beach? 'Can find' doesn't always equate to world ending disaster. Anyone who has an Giger counter knows how that works. Radiation is everywhere yet there are thresholds to when any form of it becomes plausibly dangerous to be around. 'Radiation found' is not equal to 'deadly because it exists'. There's a threshold level for all of it.
Then there the secondary and tertiary quantifier aspects of what you found. Who made it and how did it get there plus the time factor of how long did it take to get there from when it was made.
If you're on your beach and you find a plastic bottle that came from halfway around the world that was made before you were born in a place that has long since stopped dumping it's garbage in the sea are you at fault for it being there?
Am I at fault if I was alive when it was made and dumped even though I had nothing to do with it? What if it was dumped illegally or got washed out to sea in a natural disaster? then who's fault is it?
Others have actually gone out and studied it, weighed measured and recorded the amounts. The figures are so staggering that 70% of every nation on earth has its removal as a priority, including the USA.
Yes, and pretty much every developed country stopped their legal dumping of garbage in the ocean a long time ago being it's by far the most rational and effective method to deal with the issue. It also makes the who's is it and when did it enter the system parts of the greater equation rather important to know at this point so that we know how to deal with the greater problem properly rather than just blindly throwing other people's money and resources at things and hoping it makes things better without those actions just making new future problems.
Its basic cause and effect analysis where you have to weigh out the realistic significance of the problem and see if the cure is worth it or if it's worse than the disease which is something the blind ambition driven environmental protection sects have been absolutely disterous on doing.
I recently watched a documentary where there was a discussion on the Exxon Valdez cleanup sites where it now being found that where people tried to clean things up they have done far worse and longer lasting damage to the environment than where they did nothing. That's a huge new factor we have to take into consideration before going off half cocked and trying to clean things up we don't fully understand.
Say you do start cleaning up the plastic. How much environmental damage are you going to do due to the volumes of beneficial marine stuffs you are going to take out of the systems while going after PPT concentrations of microplastics assuming you have some sort of magical environmentally neutral cleaning system to begin with, which you won't.
THe ting is, you're not going to screen salt and pepper sized plastic bits out of a million cubic miles of sea water without taking a huge amount of beinfical marine stuff out with it. Nor without burning up countless volumes of other resources that could have been used in more beneficial (or not atall) ways in the act. What's the estimated environmental, financial and social impacts of those things?
They are not zero by a huge margin and had better have some pretty solid self justifying numbers behind them before you ever start to begin with. If not, the odds are you're just going to make things worse than had you done nothing.
So assuming you know something the scientist dont, i would contact your government pronto, you will be significantly rewarded for stopping them wasting money getting plastic out the water.
I don't need to contract anyone, everything I have said so far is well understood by the real experts who's jobs it is to deal with such matters, The problem is with the idealists who don't know or understand the true dynamics and real world cause and effect circumstances of their wants and related approaches.
My contribution is to to not go sticking my head into things that are highly complex and poorly understood and assuming that I know more than everyone else and thusly can fix them with idealistic grossly oversimplified and poorly thought out methods and I wish a lot more followed my lead including my government and who they listen to and why.
BTW also look up safe limits for organo phosphates as well as pcb's, which are just three of 15 significantly dangerous non degrading chems leaching out that plastic and getting into the food chain. look at the average level contained in any random sample of fish, then decide how significant it is, because your answers prove you dont actually have a clue about the problem. With all due respect.....
As with every real life situation it's not a one size fits all value or problem with a simple single action solution. When, where, how much for how long (multivariate problem) has everything to do with it at the end. Same with the cure.
Same again with who or what's the source and why origin points of it all I take no responsibility for things I did not do and have no personal control over nor do I take responsibility for the failings of those who are supposed to enforce the law to stop such actions from happening to begin with either. I also have zero intent to pay those who are supposed to be taking care of this stuff a second time because they failed to do it right the first time as well.
You feel strongly about it so you go burn up your time and money and leave mine alone. I have my own charitable interests to pursue that need my time and money more than I think yours do. That's where I stand in all of this.
Watch this video on the reality of these sorts of issues an you may come to see where I am coming from in all of this. Scott Adams does an excellent job of breaking down the reality of environmental concerns and how the bigger picture behind it needs to be looked at before anything is actually done now or later.
~ First 5 minutes is where you need to watch.
https://www.pscp.tv/w/1MYxNpNXknQGw?q=scott+adams.