Eight years ago, a scientific manuscript made its way around the media circuit to much ballyhoo that ocean plastic levels were astronomically high (8 million tons worth). Consequently, many government policies were enacted (like banning plastic straws) that were pitched to help reduce ocean plastic pollution. However, The New York Times revealed last week that the 2015 study was off … by a lot.

There’s less plastic pollution flowing into the ocean from land than scientists previously thought, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The researchers estimated that about 500,000 metric tons of plastic end up in the ocean each year, with about half from land. The other half comes from the fishing industry in the form of nets, ropes, buoys and other equipment.

An earlier, widely publicized study in 2015 estimated that about eight million metric tons of plastic were entering the ocean each year from rivers alone. The new research might seem like good news, but the full picture is complicated: The amount of plastic in the ocean is still increasing by about 4 percent every year, according to the study.

The Gray Lady says we should stay panicked. Despite this good news even a small increase ads up to a huge accumulation over time and attempts to move the goal posts quoting a German scientist named Mikael Kaandorp who says humans are accumulating more and more plastics in the environment.

But even though plastics in the overall environment are bad, that isn’t relevant to the topic of ocean bound plastics and even calls into question not only the researcher quoted but also The Times‘ reporter. The Times also says that there has been a large body of research to address the gap of knowledge about the amount of plastic estimated and what has actually been observed and plastic pollution overall can cause a lot of ecological damage. Very good point.

But ocean plastic pollution isn’t necessarily the same as plastic pollution in the overall natural environment and it begs the question: Like the ocean plastic pollution estimates, is the environmental plastic pollution based on estimates or what has actually been observed? The article doesn’t say. But (not surprisingly) jumps back to the topic of ocean plastic.

Plastic pollution, whether in the ocean or natural environment overall, is not good and efforts should be made to clean it up. But this is another example of news outlets, like The New York Times, preferring political advocacy rather than reporting the news thoroughly and accurately. Have you also noticed entrepreneur Boyan Slat has not been mentioned and has seemingly been memory holed?

Just about everything is made up of plastic, and there is really little that can be achieved to remove all pollution (plastic or otherwise). But to entirely eradicate plastic (which is what seems to be the case being made) would result in a catastrophe costing not only millions of jobs but the loss of millions of human lives too. Then again, that is obviously the point and, as far as the legacy media is concerned, the goalposts will be moved accordingly.