A conflict for me with this article is I'm not against doing the right things in the effort to limit trash and things that don't degrade.
What I'm against is meaningless "scientific" studies and discoveries for the obvious. Better to use the monies to do good works than to "study" and reassert over and over again what is well known.
For instance, in 3-1/2 months the "scientific" crew on the island could have collected and disposed of ALL "38 million" pieces of trash.
Why didn't they? Is it because it won't sell like yet another useless article "saving" our planet?  Nor promote a cause for marches?
At least it didn't make thousands of little pink hats and plasticized protest signs that will be discarded in heaps at every landfill. Nor does it wear down a hundred thousand shoes which need replacement sooner than they would otherwise.