Infinite Plastic Pollution Meets Systemic Inelasticity

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In the 1970’s economists typically dismissed the “Limits to Growth” report as “worthless science” and “ignorance masquerading as knowledge”. Robert Solow’s possibly illogical but impressively complex maths of “Eternal Growth” obscured his own ignorant limits of imagination.

“Solow and colleagues never considered outputs—waste and pollution—to be more than a nuisance. They did not imagine that greenhouse gas emissions could be so consequential as to threaten ecosystem integrity in ways that could affect growth.” C F Jones 2019

All that beautifully aggregating maths was never gonna add up to modelling the real world, let alone predict tsunamis of plastic, or any other waste waiting in the wings of wasted history.

Like recycling.

What a waste.

I started sorting rubbish in the early 1980’s in Berlin when recycling was officially built into the system. The new recycling regime was adopted with great enthusiasm. This produced a lot more sorted waste than expected and the carefully (re)constructed re-cycling market couldn’t cope with the excess supply.

So one started to export sorted waste to be dumped or burnt “abroad”. This never stopped. Exporting rubbish has been a growth business for 40 years.

Not just for the Exportweltmeister.

Globally, recycling turns out to have been a 91% marketing myth.

Plastics are now everywhere. From beaches to breastmilk.

Just follow the nanoparticles …

gaia0geld – back to top

introductions

animated plastic history

BBC4 iplayer 23/8/2021 Plastic In a new show produced by Jon Holmes, Comedian (and actual council Waste Education Officer) Jon Long and Biologist Gillian Burke take on green issues in this fast paced new enviro-comedy. The topic – Plastic. Scourge of the planet, or synthetic scapegoat? Featuring sketches, songs, and expert interviews. Tonnes of questions, and even one or two answers. Producer: Jon Holmes An unusual production for BBC Radio 4

bbc.co.uk/iplayer 3/2021 The coronavirus pandemic’s led to a huge increase in plastic waste, six or seven times higher in some countries. It’s partly down to obvious things like the massive global demand for PPE (Personal Protective Equipment). There are other pressures too, like lower oil prices, which help manufacturers make things more cheaply. For years the focus has been on trying to cut down how much we end up throwing away for landfill. The UK Plastics Pact – a group of businesses, organisations and governments – say they’re focused on trying to cut down on plastic packaging and encourage new tech and recycling ideas for the future. Scientists are busy coming up with new ideas on what to do with plastic – it’s even being tested as a building material. But after 2020 – and the possible effects Covid has had on that progress – what now for the relationship between Earth and her former favourite? Is it heading to the end – or can plastic find a future?

back to top

updates 4-2023

theguardian.com 7-4-2023 Plastics touching our food may be making us gain weight – Hormone-disrupting chemicals are entering our bodies. We eat 44lbs of plastic in our lifetimes -by Adrienne Matei

When it comes to keeping off extra pounds, watching what we eat may not be enough – we have to keep an eye on our food’s packaging, too.

Rates of obesity among US adults have increased from 14% in 1980 to 42% today, and half the world is expected to be overweight or obese by 2035, with children and teens facing the sharpest increase in obesity and its consequences. Because data doesn’t support the idea that overeating and lack of exercise are squarely to blame, the scientific community is exploring other factors that may contribute – including metabolic disruption caused by eating products packaged in plastic.

For a study published last year, researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology set out to determine what chemical compounds exist in 34 common plastic items that touch things we eat, such as yogurt cups, juice bottles, styrofoam meat trays, gummy-candy packages, and plastic wrap used for produce and cheese, as well as items often found in kitchens, like polyurethane placemats and sponges.

Of the 55,000 chemicals the researchers found in these items, only 629 were identifiable, with 11 being known metabolic disruptors such as phthalates and bisphenols, which interfere with our bodies’ ability to regulate weight, among other troubling health effects. However, when exposed to in vitro human cell cultures (studies have not used human or animal test subjects), far more chemicals than the identified 11 metabolic disruptors triggered adipogenesis – the process underlying obesity, in which cells proliferate and accumulate an excess of fat. …

…The scientists I speak to frequently argue that we need to start reducing our exposure to plastic without waiting for more slow-moving research to unequivocally prove that the plastics in our food, products, blood and organs are risk factors for bad health outcomes. Wagner is no exception. While he cannot make a causal link between metabolism-disrupting chemicals in plastic and the obesity epidemic, “How much evidence do we need before we do something right?” Wagner asks.

There is potentially positive news from the Norwegian study … some plastic producers, whether intentionally or not, are making less harmful forms of plastic. If industry manufacturers were transparent about the entire suite of chemicals present in their products, consumers could choose plastics with safer formulations and better overall industry safety standards could be developed.

Really, reducing our plastic exposure should be our overall goal; the FDA’s approach to regulating chemicals used in food packaging has been described by experts as “woefully outdated”, and there’s a chance that even plastic producers are not sure what chemicals end up in the products they make. But it’s clear that these plastics and the chemicals associated with them are making their way into our bodies – by transference from packaging, but also in the form of microplastics, with humans eating an estimated 44lbs of plastic in our lifetimes.

When we think about cutting junk out of our diets, the culprits shouldn’t just be candy and soda – plastic needs to go, too.

>ocean plastic

independent.co.uk 18-3-2023 Scientists sound the alarm as plastic waste forms rocks off coast of Brazil: ‘New and terrifying’ – ‘Pollution has reached geology’ says a scientist – by Stuti Mishra

…”…Geologists in Brazil’s Trindade Island have made a ”terrifying” discovery: rocks made from plastic debris. Scientists studying the remote island – which is a turtle refuge – found that plastic has become intertwined with rocks on the island, sparking alarms over the growing impact of plastic waste over the earth’s geological cycles. The island is located 1,140km from the southeastern state of Espirito Santo and it is a protected area for green turtles, which lay their eggs there. “This is new and terrifying at the same time, because pollution has reached geology,” Fernanda Avelar Santos, a geologist at the Federal University of Parana, said, Mr Santos went on to say that “the pollution, the garbage in the sea, and the plastic dumped incorrectly in the oceans is becoming geological material…preserved in the earth’s geological records”…”…

abc.net 16-3-2023 What happened to The Ocean Cleanup — the system that would rid the oceans of plastic?

…”…The UN estimates at least 14 million tonnes of plastic enter the oceans every year. “The trouble is, and the old saying is, if you depend on clean-up, you’ll be cleaning for the rest of your life. You have to get into prevention,” Professor McIlgorm said. Amanda Reichelt-Brushett, a marine ecotoxicologist at Southern Cross University, said the work The Ocean Cleanup is doing in the Pacific can help get the ball rolling on the necessary prevention that is needed. “Those type of images [of the clean up of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch] send messages to help change people’s behaviour,” Professor Reichelt-Brushett said. “They’re really important visual messages that go towards awareness raising and dealing with the problem at its source.”…”…

>plastic futures

bbc.co.uk 14-3-2023 Could waste plastic become a useful fuel source? Plastic waste dumps, says Prof Erwin Reisner, could be the oil fields of the future. – By Katherine Latham

“Effectively, plastic is another form of fossil fuel,” says Prof Reisner, who is professor of energy and sustainability at the University of Cambridge. “It’s rich in energy and in chemical composition, which we want to unlock.”

But the chemical bonds that make up plastics are made to last and, of the seven billion tonnes ever created, less than 10% has been recycled. Dilyana Mihaylova, plastics programme manager for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, says: “Our extractive, take-make-waste economy [means] billions of dollars’ worth of valuable materials are lost.”

Worldwide, more than 400 million tonnes of plastic is produced every year – roughly the same weight as all of humanity. Today, around 85% ends up in landfill or is lost to the environment where it will stay for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years.

Now the race is on to find the best way to break those chemical bonds and reclaim the Earth’s precious resources locked into plastic.

Mechanical recycling, where waste plastic is washed, shredded, melted and reformed, degrades plastic over time and can result in inconsistent quality products. The plastics industry is keen on chemical recycling, where additives are used to alter the chemical structure of waste plastic, turning it back into substances that can be used as raw materials, perhaps for making fuel like petrol and diesel.

But that approach is currently costly and inefficient and has been criticised by environmental groups. “So,” says Ms Mihaylova, “just as we can’t recycle our way out of the plastics pollution crisis, we can’t rely on plastics-to-fuel processes to solve the problem either.”

Could a new solar-powered system show the way forward? Prof Reisner and his team have developed a process that can convert not one, but two waste streams – plastic and CO2 – into two chemical products at the same time – all powered by sunlight.

The technology transforms CO2 and plastic into syngas – the key component of sustainable fuels such as hydrogen. It also produces glycolic acid, which is widely used in the cosmetics industry. The system works by integrating catalysts, chemical compounds which accelerate a chemical reaction, into a light absorber.

“Our process works at room temperature and room pressure,” he says. “Reactions run automatically when you expose it to sunlight. You don’t need anything else.” And, assures Prof Reisner, the process produces no harmful waste. “The chemistry is clean,” he says.

Other solar-powered technologies hold promise for tackling plastic pollution and CO2 conversion, but this is the first time they have been combined in a single process…”…

theguardian.com 8-3-2023 More than 170tn plastic particles afloat in oceans, say scientists – ‘Cleanup is futile’ if production continues at current rate, amid rapid rise in marine pollution – by Helena Horton, Damian Carrington

>recycling

theguardian.com 2-2023 Stop ‘wishcycling’ and get wise: how to recycle (almost) everything – From contact lenses to blister packs and used dental floss, there are items that perplex even the most dedicated recycler. Here is the expert guide to getting organised – and getting rid of your rubbish – by Emma Beddington

phys.org 2-2023 Degradation of plastic waste using newly developed biocatalysts

dezeen.com 1-2023 PlasticFree is a database of plastic alternatives for designers

twitter/HannahRitchie 1-2023 plastic versus other grocery bags

I’ve seen various (very valid) critiques of the “20,000 uses of an organic cotton bag to equal a plastic bag” stat over the last few days.

I’ve updated our chart at @OurWorldinData to provide more nuance to these numbers 👇

What’s going on? A short thread 🧵 pic.twitter.com/drbVnMP8YQ
— Hannah Ritchie (@_HannahRitchie) September 13, 2022

sciencealert.com 1-2023 Bacteria Can Use Plastic Waste as a Food Source, Which Isn’t as Good as It Sounds – by Carly Assella

…”…The rate of plastic decay identified in the current study is far too slow to completely solve the problem of plastic pollution in our oceans, but it does indicate where some of our planet’s missing plastic might have gone.

“Our data show that sunlight could thus have degraded a substantial amount of all the floating plastic that has been littered into the oceans since the 1950s,” says microbiologist Annalisa Delre.

Microbes could have then come in and digested some of the Sun’s leftovers.

Since 2013, researchers have warned that microbes are likely thriving on plastic patches in the ocean, forming a synthetic ecosystem that has come to be known as a ‘plastisphere’.

There’s even evidence to suggest that some of these microbial communities are adapting to eating different types of plastic.

Previous studies have identified specific bacteria and fungi, on land and in the sea, that appear to eat plastic. But while that knowledge could help us better recycle our waste before it ends up in the wild, its other uses are controversial.

Some scientists have proposed we unleash plastic-munching equivalents on pollution hotspots, like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Others are not so sure that’s a good idea. Engineered enzymes and bacteria that break down plastic might sound like a great way to make our waste disappear, but some experts are worried about unintended side effects to natural ecosystems and food webs.

After all, breaking down plastic isn’t necessarily a good thing. Microplastics are a lot harder to clean up than larger pieces, and these tiny remnants could infiltrate food webs. Filter feeders, for instance, might mistakenly grab tiny pieces of plastic before microbes do…”…

> micro plastics, pollution

phys.org 10-1-2023 Are we breathing airborne microplastics? Study finds higher concentrations indoors – by Colin Hutchins

>plastic pollution, recycling

bloomberg.com 27-12-2022 Amazon Packages Burn in India, Final Stop in Broken Recycling System – Plastic wrappers and parcels that start off in Americans’ recycling bins end up at illegal dumpsites and industrial furnaces — and inside the lungs of people in Muzaffarnagar. – By K Oanh Ha

phys.org/news/ 21-12-2022 Microplastics deposited on the seafloor have tripled in 20 years

…”…This new study, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, shows that microplastics are retained unaltered in marine sediments, and that the microplastic mass sequestered in the seafloor mimics the global plastic production from 1965 to 2016. “Specifically, the results show that, since 2000, the amount of plastic particles deposited on the seafloor has tripled and that, far from decreasing, the accumulation has not stopped growing mimicking the production and global use of these materials,”…”…

news.sky.com 3-12-2022 Record number of plastic nurdles found on beaches as environmental groups call for tougher laws – The tiny plastic pellets are hazardous to the environment and wildlife and are very difficult to clean up. A survey has now found a record number on beaches around the world and campaigners want new laws in place to help reduce spillages. – by Aisha Zahid

>plastic futures, pollution treaty

euronews.com 28-11-2022 Plastic pollution treaty: Countries prepare to negotiate details of ‘landmark’ deal – by Maeve Campbell & Charlotte Elton

…”…The United Nations approved a landmark agreement to create the world’s first ever global plastic pollution treaty in March.Though the resolution was a major step forward, negotiators still have a long way to go. Any treaty that puts restrictions on plastic production, use or design would affect oil and chemicals companies that make raw plastic, as well as consumer goods giants which sell thousands of products in single-use packaging. It would also affect the economies of major plastic-producing countries, including the United States, China, India, Saudi Arabia and Japan….”…

unep.org/news 28-11-2022 What to expect as negotiations to end plastic pollution kick off

…”From 28 November to 2 December, representatives from governments, the private sector and civil society will start developing an international legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution, including in the marine environment, a document they hope to finalize by 2024. The first session of this Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), known as INC-1, comes nine months after representatives from 175 countries endorsed a landmark resolution on plastic pollution … The resolution comes amid a mounting plastic crisis that experts say threatens the environment, human health and the economy. Research shows that humanity produces around 460 million metric tonnes of plastic a year, and without urgent action, this will triple by 2060. According to one UNEP study, over 14 million metric tonnes of plastic enters and damages aquatic ecosystems annually, and greenhouse gas emissions associated with plastics are expected to account for 15 per cent of the total emissions allowable by 2050 if humanity is to limit global warming to 1.5°C…”…

>plastic realities , pollution, Antarctica

ox.ac.uk/news 25-11-2022 Synthetic fibres discovered in Antarctic samples show the ‘pristine’ continent is now a sink for plastic pollution

>plastic futures, enzymes

news.sky.com 5-10-2022 Worm’s saliva found to break down plastic in major pollution breakthrough – Enzymes in the saliva of the wax worm have been found to speed up the time it takes polyethylene to degrade from decades to a matter of hours. – By Guy Birchall

> plastic realities ,pollution, oceans

theguardian.com 9-2022 NGO retracts ‘waste colonialism’ report blaming Asian countries for plastic pollution – Ocean Conservancy apologises for ‘false narrative’ of 2015 study that put blame for bulk of world’s plastic waste on five Asian states

…”…An environmental watchdog has retracted an influential report that blamed five Asian countries for the majority of plastic pollution in the ocean. The report, Stemming the Tide, from the US-based environmental advocacy group Ocean Conservancy, also included incineration and waste-to-energy as “solutions” to the plastics crisis. Published in 2015, it was decried as “waste colonialism” by hundreds of environmental, health and social justice groups across Asia. The watchdog has now publicly apologised for unfairly “creating a narrative” about who is responsible for producing plastic waste and removed the report from its website. Its apology was welcomed on Wednesday as “long overdue” by Gaia, an alliance of 800 waste-reduction groups in 90 countries, and by Break Free From Plastic, a global movement of more than 2,000 organisations. …

…Since then, data has been published showing that the US ranks third among countries contributing to coastal plastic pollution and challenges the widely held belief that the US is adequately managing its pollution, underlining its waste footprint to developing nations. Other research, which Ocean Conservancy is now promoting, recommends interventions to reduce, reuse and better manage plastic across all economies.”

>microplastics, food pollution

sussexlive.co.uk 15-9-2022 University of Brighton researchers warn of ’emerging crisis’ as ‘toxic’ microplastics found in Sussex seafood – Researchers from the University of Brighton described the evidence as “alarming” – By Kieran Graves

ALT plastic futures

theguardian.com 8-2022 Incredibly promising’: the bubble barrier extracting plastic from a Dutch river – Technology applied to Oude Rijn river helps stop plastic pollution reaching sea – by Senay Boztas

… Katwijk is the site for the world’s first river “bubble barrier” – an experimental concept where a 120-metre stream of rising bubbles, plus the water current, pushes plastic waste to one side in order to be collected….

… Some researchers, however, point out that river plastics do not necessarily end up in the ocean, although they can still harm ecosystems and human livelihoods. Tim van Emmerik, an assistant professor at Wageningen University’s hydrology and quantitative water management group, says river systems also differ. “When thinking about rivers globally, just imagine how widely they can vary, from narrow canals in Amsterdam and Leiden, to great deltas like the Mekong,” he points out. “Most tech solutions, such as the Bubble Barrier, only cover a range of them, emphasising there will always be a need of a solution portfolio. Of course, consuming and polluting less plastics will help no matter where you go, and may in fact have the greatest impact.”

Back in Katwijk, there are plans to build a visitor and education centre next to the bubble barrier to do just that, and hopes are running high. Under the summer sun, a stream of gentle bubbles breaks the river surface, a little like a jacuzzi. “We were looking forward,” says van Delft, quite seriously, “to coming to the opening in a swimsuit!”

> plastic realties/pollution

phys.org/ 7-2022 Final destination deep sea: Microplastics’ impact on ocean floor even greater than assumed – by Serena Abel , Angelika Brandt,

vice.com 7-2022 The Entire Arctic Ecosystem Is Awash in Plastic Pollution, Dire Study Reports – Plastic has seeped into the air, ocean, ice, snow, seafloor, and shorelines of the Arctic – By Becky Ferreira

news.sky.com/ 5-2022 World’s plastic waste mapped from space for the first time – The Global Plastic Watch team took Sky News on a virtual tour of the site before it launched, showing the hundreds of plastic waste sites scattered round the world – by Victoria Seabrook

euronews.com 4-2022 How much plastic do you eat? It could be as much as a credit card a week – By Doloresz Katanich

A recent study has found that people eat five grams of micro and nanoplastics every week. From the most remote depths of the ocean, to the deepest section of the lung, microplastics appear to have invaded every bit of our lives, including the human gastrointestinal tract. The Medical University of Vienna has recently published a study in the journal Exposure & Health which suggests that on average, five grams of plastic particles enter the human gastrointestinal tract per person, per week. Previous studies have already found particles in the human blood and organs. While microplastics have also been found to harm unborn babies.

>ALTernative plastic futures – recycling – enzymes

independent.co.uk 4-2022 Scientists invent enzyme that can break down plastic waste in ‘hours instead of centuries’ – Recycling process could revolutionise how big industry reuses materials, reports Jane Dalton

nature.com 4-2022 Tailor-made enzymes poised to propel plastic recycling into a new era – Waste streams of the plastic poly(ethylene terephthalate) that can be recycled into material suitable for food packaging are limited, creating a shortfall of feedstocks. An enzyme has been discovered that widens the feedstock options – by Eggo U. Thoden van Velzen, Giusy Santomasi

>plastic export

qz.com 4-2022 Another big shipping line is refusing to export the West’s plastic waste – By Nicolás Rivero

thetimes.co.uk 2-2022 Waste exports are exploited by criminal gangs and should be banned

…”Waste exports must be banned because they are exploited by criminal gangs and the rubbish can end up being dumped illegally, the chief executive of the Environment Agency says. … Waste can be legally exported for recycling or incineration to generate energy but investigations have shown that rubbish placed in recycling bins by British households ends up at illegal dumps overseas. More than half of plastic waste collected for recycling in the UK is exported…”…

>plastic futures

uk.news.yahoo.com 3-2022 Step towards ‘proper’ plastic recycling as researchers recover 92% of plastic by Rob Waugh

A team of researchers at ETH Zurich have broken down plastic into its molecular building blocks, recovering 90% of them – and it could lead to a new way of using plastic. Most of the plastic we use is not recycled – and one of the reasons is that recycling doesn’t produce great products. But if a process can break down the long chain polymers in plastic into building blocks – ‘monomers’ – it could lead to a circular economy where plastic is recycled with no loss in quality. Polymers are the basis of many everyday plastics, such as PET and polyurethane. Athina Anastasaki, Professor of Polymeric Materials at ETH Zurich, is attempting to produce polymers that can be easily broken down into their building blocks so that they can be fully recycled.

Her team broke down polymethacrylates (e.g. PlexiGlass) that were produced using a specific technique called reversible addition-fragmentation chain-transfer polymerisation — otherwise known as RAFT. The new method has already attracted the attention of industry, Professor Anastasaki says. Anastasaki says, “Our method could conceivably be developed even further to involve the use of a catalyst. This could increase the amount recovered even more.” The catch is that, “Products made with RAFT polymerisation are more expensive than conventional polymers,” says Anastasaki. But the team are already working on methods to make it cheaper – and researching whether other polymers can be depolymerised. Anastasaki says, “It will take a lot of time and research before the process is established in the chemical industry.”

>ALTernative plastic futures – recycling – enzymes

New Enzyme Discovery is Another Leap Towards Dissolving Plastic Waste With ‘Amazing Efficiency’

>plastic realities

france24.com 2-2022 Plastic, chemical pollution beyond planet’s safe limit: study

“The torrent of man-made chemical and plastic waste worldwide has massively exceeded limits safe for humanity or the planet, and production caps are urgently needed, scientists have concluded for the first time. There are an estimated 350,000 different manufactured chemicals on the market and large volumes of them end up in the environment. “The impacts that we’re starting to see today are large enough to be impacting crucial functions of planet Earth and its systems”, Bethanie Carney Almroth, co-author of a new study told AFP in an interview. The study, by the Stockholm Resilience Centre, comes ahead of a UN meeting in Nairobi at the end of the month on tackling plastic pollution “from source to sea”, UN Environment Programme head Inger Andersen said on Monday. ..”…

france24.com 2-2022 Plastic, chemical pollution beyond planet’s safe limit: study

>plastic export

theguardian.com 3-2022 Rush of lawsuits over plastic waste expected after ‘historic’ deal– Like Paris climate agreement, treaty could provide tool to hold firms and states to account, say legal experts

>ALTernative plastic futures – politics

bbc.co.uk 3-2022 Plastic pollution: Green light for ‘historic’ treaty – By Helen Briggs

…”…UN member states have agreed to start international negotiations on drawing up a global plastics treaty that could set rules for production, use and disposal of plastics. The decision was made at a meeting of the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi.

Facts on plastic:
It’s thought more than five trillion pieces of plastic are in the world’s oceans, which can take years to break down
Each year, 400 million tonnes of plastic is produced and 40% of that is single-use – plastic only used once before it’s thrown away
More than eight million tonnes of plastic enters the world’s oceans each year and most of that escapes from land
Not all plastic can be recycled, either because of the way it’s made or because it’s too expensive or difficult to do so
Animals on land or at sea can be harmed by plastic. They can get trapped in carrier bags or food packaging or mistake plastic for food.

phys.org 2-2022 Reduce. Reuse. And then, when all else fails, recycle by Brynne Wilcox

>plastic realties

france24.com 2-2022 Plastic, chemical pollution beyond planet’s safe limit: study

phys.org 2-2022 Plastic pollution in oceans on track to rise for decades

medium.com/ 12-2021 The Future of Plastic – As we transition from the Age of Oil, what’s going to happen to the material that changed the world?

…”… A new paper in Science modelled the global plastics production system, looking for ways to make plastics with a net-zero climate impact. The researchers found that … net-zero emission plastics can be achieved by combining biomass and carbon dioxide (CO2) utilization with an effective recycling rate of 70% …”…

The Future of Plastics — Key Takeaways

Plastics are here to stay, they’ll just be made differently
New bio-based materials will replace some fossil based plastic
Recycling rates need to rise significantly to create more sustainable plastics
AI, robotics, social startups and chemical recycling technologies are all helping bring recycling rates up

theguardian.com 12/2021 ‘Disastrous’ plastic use in farming threatens food safety – UN – Food and Agriculture Organization says most plastics are burned, buried or lost after use

“The “disastrous” way in which plastic is used in farming across the world is threatening food safety and potentially human health, according to a report from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. It says soils contain more microplastic pollution than the oceans and that there is “irrefutable” evidence of the need for better management of the millions of tonnes of plastics used in the food and farming system each year…”…

theguardian.com 12/2021 ‘Deluge of plastic waste’: US is world’s biggest plastic polluter – At 42m metric tons of plastic waste a year, the US generates more waste than all EU countries combined by Oliver Milman

…“…Plastic waste is an environmental and social crisis that the US needs to affirmatively address from source to sea,” said Margaret Spring, chief conservation and science officer at Monterey Bay Aquarium. Spring chaired a committee of experts who compiled the congressionally mandated report for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine…”…

blogs.worldbank.org 9/11/2021 Six reasons to blame plastic pollution for climate change by Nina Tsydenova, Pawan Patil

…”…The impacts of mismanaged plastic waste on the climate, as well as on livelihoods and ecosystems, are an urgent development challenge. To solve this problem, targeted, innovative circular economy approaches are needed. A circular economy approach starts at the stage of product design and selection of raw materials with an aim to develop products that are optimized for reuse, creating ‘renewable resources’ and minimizing the need for both the final disposal of waste and mining of virgin materials.

The good news is that there are growing number of examples being implemented in South Asia. At all railway stations in India, tea will soon be served in perfectly biodegradable and environment-friendly earthen cups instead of plastic ones. Spider silk film and seaweed can replace plastic in various applications such as single-use sachets, which make up as much as 50 percent of all household plastic waste. In Maldives, an innovative collaboration between Parley for the Oceans and Adidas is bringing upcycled marine plastics into the global athletic wear supply chain. These sorts of innovations and partnerships show us that ground-breaking solutions for marine plastics and climate change exist and can be scaled up.”

independent.co.uk/ 9/11/2021 ‘Nurdles’ pollute our oceans as hundreds of thousands of plastic pellets found on coastline – Nurdles are tiny plastic pellets used in the manufacture of larger plastic products, as Ella Glover explains. Hundreds of thousands of plastic pellets, known as nurdles, have been found on the coastlines of 21 countries that took part in a pollution survey.

bbc.co.uk 11/2021 Wishcycling: The dos and don’ts of being good at recycling Helen Briggs

theconversation.com 2/1//2021 Oil companies are ploughing money into fossil-fuelled plastics production at a record rate – new research – by Fredric Bauer, Tobias Dan Nielsen

We have researched sustainable plastics for several years. And we have long argued that the climate impacts of plastics and petrochemicals production are being neglected, as the debate so far has mainly focused on later stages of plastic life-cycles. This resulted in a research project in which we mapped and analysed the fossil lock-ins of plastics and petrochemicals.

More recently, we investigated major plastics producers and the investments they are making which are likely to increase the production of fossil-based virgin plastics around the world. We discovered that the 12 largest petrochemical companies have cumulatively announced 88 new projects for production capacity increase and infrastructure expansion between 2012 and 2019. This is indicative of a global trend of increasing investments in the chemical industry, with available data for key regions showing that total investments more than doubled from 2007 to 2019, reaching levels we estimate have not been seen before.

These new and expanded facilities will operate for decades once they are opened, adding to the current greenhouse gas emissions of the chemical industry – which are already the third largest of all industries. …

Plastics therefore suffer from a severe case of “carbon lock-in” – a dependence on fossil fuel resources which is continually reinforced through technology, infrastructure, institutions and behaviour.

The IPCC recently warned that irreversible effects of intensifying climate change are imminent and that the agreed targets of limiting global warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees are soon beyond reach. At this point in time, all sectors of the global economy ought to be on track to reduce their use of fossil fuel resources, especially the most energy and emissions-intensive industries, which include cement, steel and chemicals.

From energy efficiency improvements and switching to renewable energy to improving circularity and recycling, there are plenty of opportunities for the industry to invest in solutions for a cleaner environment, as identified by the IEA. Yet only very few of the plastics and chemical firms have set emission reductions targets aligned with the Paris agreement.

There is a great need to move beyond words and small incremental changes, and take larger steps towards low-carbon and sustainable plastics. Working seriously on how to get there entails many different changes. The industry must trust and plan for a future in which the majority of plastics will be produced from recycled rather than virgin material. As for the virgin materials used, they should come from sustainably sourced biomass and other alternative feedstocks, and all energy used must be low-carbon. Carbon capture could be a solution for the remaining fossil-based production and emissions which cannot be mitigated soon enough – including from chemical recycling plants.

At the top of their list should be collaborating with partners throughout the industry as well as researchers, decision-makers, consumers, and civil society to produce reliable roadmaps and strategies on how to transition towards a sustainable plastic system. A convention on plastic pollution is emerging, but global meetings on climate change, such as COP26, need to focus more attention on the somewhat overseen issue of petrochemicals.

Meanwhile, at Yushan island, tankers with crude oil from Saudi Arabia will dock regularly and pump their cargo into steam crackers that will run 24/7 for decades. Naming it the Green Petrochemical Base does nothing to change the fundamentals of the industry and its modus operandi. Plastics are locked into fossil resources and this connection continues to grow stronger by the day.”…

reuters.com 28/10/2021 TRASH AND BURN – BIG BRANDS STOKE CEMENT KILNS WITH PLASTIC WASTE AS RECYCLING FALTERS – Consumer goods giants are funding projects to send plastic trash to cement plants, where it is burned as cheap energy. They’re touting it as a way to keep plastic out of dumps and use less fossil fuel. Critics say it undercuts recycling efforts and worsens air quality. One said it was “like moving the landfill from the ground to the sky.” By JOE BROCK, YUDDY CAHYA BUDIMAN, JOHN GEDDIE, VALERIE VOLCOVICI

“Less than 10% of all the plastic ever made has been recycled, in large part because it’s too costly to collect and sort. Plastic production, meanwhile, is projected to double within 20 years.”

…”… Critics say there’s little green about burning plastic, which is derived from oil, to make cement. A dozen sources with direct knowledge of the practice, among them scientists, academics and environmentalists, told Reuters that plastic burned in cement kilns emits harmful air emissions and amounts to swapping one dirty fuel for another. More importantly, environmental groups say, it’s a strategy that could potentially undercut efforts spreading globally to boost recycling rates and dramatically slash the production of single-use plastic…”

huffingtonpost.co.uk 26/10/2021 Where Does All Our Plastic Recycling Actually Go? – The PM claims plastic recycling isn’t worth it – so here’s breakdown of what the UK actually does with all of our discarded materials.
By Kate Nicholson

…”…What should we do? Greenpeace still encourages the public to continue recycling, but it is pushing for the government to drop all single-use plastic. The campaign group claims Downing Street’s previous pursuits against plastic straws and cotton bud sticks have little impact. Greenpeace’s Maja Darlington also told HuffPost UK that Johnson is right in that recycling alone is not the answer. She said: “We will not be able to recycle our way out of this mess. We need to turn off the tap of plastic pollution, and move to a system which prioritises reuse.”…”

thetimes.co.uk 21/10/2021 Microplastics in blood of farm animals by Peter Chappell

Microplastics have been found in the blood of cows and pigs in a study that raises questions over the food chain. Research at Vrije University in Amsterdam is believed to be the first to show that microplastic particles can be absorbed into the blood of mammals. Heather Leslie Vrije University

theconversation.com/ 14/10/2021 The plastic recycling system is broken – here’s how we can fix it Eleni Iacovidou

…”The investor Warren Buffett once remarked that “only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked”. For the plastics recycling industry, the pandemic was a bit like the tide going out, exposing its deep-rooted structural problems. Specifically, COVID-19 exposed the plastics recycling sector’s vulnerability to oil-price changes. Economic shutdown driven by the pandemic led to reduced global oil demand, which in turn caused oil prices to plunge. This shifted manufacturers’ preference towards making new plastic, increasing the cost of recycling plastics in the first place. Changes like this are leading to increasing pollution from new plastic production, with negative consequences for the health of our planet. In the short term, it could also threaten the livelihoods of those working in plastic waste management across the world. And in the long term, it could result in lower investment in the recycling sector, as companies may be wary of risking financial loss. …”…

bbc.co.uk/ 28/9/2021 Climate Change: Don’t sideline plastic problem, nations urged By Roger Harrabin

“Scientists are warning politicians immersed in climate change policy not to forget that the world is also in the midst of a plastic waste crisis. They fear that so much energy is being expended on emissions policy that tackling plastic pollution will be sidelined. … the issues are actually intertwined – and each makes the other worse. … (ZSL’s Prof Heather Koldewey) is urging world governments and policy makers to put nature at the heart of all decision making in order to jointly tackle the combined global threats of climate change and biodiversity loss. “…

hakaimagazine.com 20/9/2021 Scooping Plastic Out of the Ocean Is a Losing Game – Open ocean cleanups won’t solve the marine plastics crisis. To really make a difference, here’s what we should do instead. by Ryan Stuart

…”There is a harsh reality that all of us concerned with the mounting ocean plastic problem must confront: the vast majority of the plastic in the ocean is too small or too out of reach to ever be cleaned up. It is suspended in the water column, settled on the ocean floor, or degraded into microscopic particles that are difficult to detect, let alone collect. That realization is vital. With the plastic pollution problem growing increasingly dire, and with so many potential solutions on offer—all competing for limited funding, resources, and public support—it is more urgent than ever to focus on the approaches that are most likely to succeed. …

The unfortunate reality is that there is no key to cleaning up the ocean. The solution is not flashy or sensational. It’s not an entrepreneur with a big idea—a person we can look to as the one who will solve the problem. It’s the boring stuff: when you use plastic, dispose of it properly. If you want to do more, help clean up a river, harbor, or beach. But really, we need to slow the flow of garbage trucks. Because right now, they’re speeding up. We are using more plastic every year. By 2050, the garbage trucks could be unloading every 15 seconds instead of every minute. We don’t have all that long before the ocean is teeming with more plastic than fish.”

nypost.com 9/2021 Ocean Cleanup struggles to fulfill promise to scoop up plastic at sea

…”The non-profit, launched in 2013 amid buoyant media coverage, hopes to clear 90% of floating plastic from the world’s oceans by 2040. But the group’s own best-case scenario — still likely years away — envisions removing 20,000 tonnes a year from the North Pacific, a small fraction of the roughly 11 million tonnes of plastic flowing annually into the oceans. And that amount entering the ocean is expected to nearly triple to 29 million tonnes annually by 2040, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. “….

oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk 3-2021 Reinventing recycling: taking plastics from rubbish to resource – by Dr Fernando Vidal Pena

livescience.com/ 3-2021 Plastic-eating bacteria: Genetic engineering and environmental impact – how plastic-eating bacteria were discovered and re-engineered to help tackle the worlds plastic problem – By Scott Dutfield

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plastic realities

theconversation.com 10-2021 Pan-African research networks are needed to manage continent’s plastic pollution threat

bbc.co.uk 4/11/2021 Wishcycling: The dos and don’ts of being good at recycling Helen Briggs

huffingtonpost.co.uk 26/10/2021 Where Does All Our Plastic Recycling Actually Go? – The PM claims plastic recycling isn’t worth it – so here’s breakdown of what the UK actually does with all of our discarded materials.
By Kate Nicholson

theconversation.com/ 14/10/2021 The plastic recycling system is broken – here’s how we can fix it Eleni Iacovidou

dailymaverick.co.za 8-2021 Waste recycling is window-dressing because not all plastics are equal. Well-intentioned consumers recycle their plastics, but is there any point? The real problem is not just consumption and managing waste, say environmentalists – it’s the vested producers and the economy itself. By Onke Ngcuka

phys.org 7/2021 Is global plastic pollution nearing an irreversible tipping point? by Stockholm University

…”Rates of plastic emissions globally may trigger effects that we will not be able to reverse, argues a new study by researchers from Sweden, Norway and Germany published on July 2nd in Science. According to the authors, plastic pollution is a global threat, and actions to drastically reduce emissions of plastic to the environment are “the rational policy response”.

Plastic is found everywhere on the planet: from deserts and mountaintops to deep oceans and Arctic snow. As of 2016, estimates of global emissions of plastic to the world’s lakes, rivers and oceans ranged from 9 to 23 million metric tons per year, with a similar amount emitted onto land yearly. These estimates are expected to almost double by 2025 if business-as-usual scenarios apply.

“Plastic is deeply engrained in our society, and it leaks out into the environment everywhere, even in countries with good waste-handling infrastructure,” says Matthew MacLeod, Professor at Stockholm University and lead author of the study. He says that emissions are trending upward even though awareness about plastic pollution among scientists and the public has increased significantly in recent years.

That discrepancy is not surprising to Mine Tekman, a Ph.D. candidate at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany and co-author of the study, because plastic pollution is not just an environmental issue but also a “political and economic” one. She believes that the solutions currently on offer, such as recycling and cleanup technologies, are not sufficient, and that we must tackle the problem at its root.

“The world promotes technological solutions for recycling and to remove plastic from the environment. As consumers, we believe that when we properly separate our plastic trash, all of it will magically be recycled. Technologically, recycling of plastic has many limitations, and countries that have good infrastructures have been exporting their plastic waste to countries with worse facilities. Reducing emissions requires drastic actions, like capping the production of virgin plastic to increase the value of recycled plastic, and banning export of plastic waste unless it is to a country with better recycling” says Tekman. …” …

genevaenvironmentnetwork.org 6/2021 Facing the Plastic Pollution Crisis

The world is facing a plastic crisis, the status quo is not an option. Plastic pollution is a serious issue of global concern which requires an urgent and international response involving all relevant actors at different levels. This page aims at listing relevant information, research, data and/or press releases issued by our partners in Geneva and other institutions around the world.

Of all the plastic that ever existed: more than half was produced in the last 15 years and 91% has never been recycled. The Story of Plastics

A Glimpse on the Global Plastic Crisis

Confronting the Plastic Pollution Pandemic | IISD | 22 December 2020
How fossil fuel-derived pesticides and plastics harm health, biodiversity, and the climate | Barbara A Demeneix | The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology | June 2020
The world’s plastic pollution crisis explained | National Geographic | 7 June 2019
Plastic Pollution and Potential Solutions | Christopher J. Rhodes | Science Progress | 1 September 2018
Beat Plastic Pollution | World Environment Day 2018 | UNEP | 5 June 2018
Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made | Roland Geyer, Jenna R. Jambeck, et al. | Science Advances |
Plastic Pollution News Blog | Drs Steve and Deonie Allen

phys.org/news 2020 The plastic myth and the misunderstood triangle by Kate Raynes-Goldie

Of all the plastic we’ve ever produced, only 9% has been recycled. So what happened to all that plastic you’ve put in the recycling bin over the years? Hands up if you grew up thinking that recycling plastic waste is key to saving the environment. It turns out that for decades the recyclability of plastics was grossly oversold by the plastics industry.

The creation of this recycling myth is why, despite 30 years of being diligent recyclers, we have things like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. In fact, we’ve only recycled 9% of all the plastics we’ve ever produced. And, our use of plastics is still increasing every year. The reality of the situation is that recycling plastics is actually really hard and expensive.

fastcompany.com/ 2020 recycling wrong solution by Don Norman “I am proud to be one of the developers of what is today called human-centered design. That is design that always starts off understanding the needs, capabilities, and desires of people. It has four basic principles, all four of which are being violated by today’s recycling craze.

livescience.com 2020 How much plastic actually gets recycled? Recycling doesn’t always give your plastic bottle new life – “In most of the country, most types of plastic are not recyclable” by Isobel Whitcomb

… “A recent report released by Greenpeace surveyed the United States’ 367 materials recovery facilities — the facilities that sort our recycling — and found that only plastic bottles are regularly recycled. The fate of most other types of plastic, from clamshells to packaging, is usually a landfill or incineration.

… Not all plastic is created equal … is recycling worth it? For bottles labeled “1” or “2”, the answer is “yes,” Pochiro said. There’s also a growing market for plastics labeled “5,” a flexible plastic that includes mini-yogurt containers. An increasing percentage of fives are actually getting recycled. For other numbers, it’s important to check the restrictions of your local recycling facility, Pochiro said. – Hocevar’s answer was simpler: a resounding “no” on numbers 3, 4, 6 and 7. These plastics just gunk up an already strained recycling system, he said. “It does more harm than good,” Hocevar said.” …

theguardian.com 2020 The solution to the plastic waste crisis? It isn’t recycling – There’s no way of making current levels of consumption ‘environmentally friendly’ by John Vidal

“But would it really make much difference if … the 359m tonnes of plastic that the world makes a year, was recyclable? Is the type of plastic the problem, or is it the fact that we are overwhelmed with vast quantities of waste we cannot process? The question is barely raised by the Green Alliance, whose new report, paid for by some of Britain’s biggest plastic recyclers, laments that people are confused about what can be recycled or composted.”

insider.com 2019 MIT researcher Andrew MCafee says recycling-is-useless … and he’s probably right – Recycling plastic uses up a lot of resources, and after all the hauling around, sorting, and processing of bottles and containers, it often ends up getting thrown away or burned. MIT business researcher Andrew McAfee says we’d be better off putting our plastic waste into well-managed landfills. He argues we should spend our “mental budget for thinking about the Earth on more high-impact changes,” like carbon taxes on major polluters and nuclear energy.

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plastic export

bbc.co.uk 17/5/2021 UK plastic waste being dumped and burned in Turkey, says Greenpeace – by Kathryn Snowdon

theguardian.com 27/5/2021 Call for G7 Cornwall summit to forge global plastic pollution treaty – Nestlé and UK supermarkets sign open letter calling for G7 nations to show leadership this June

euractiv.com 5/2021 Stop exporting plastic waste out of Europe, EU lawmakers say – Thirty-one lawmakers in the European Parliament have signed a manifesto calling for the end of plastic waste exports outside Europe and the facilitation of intra-EU shipment procedures to promote a genuine circular economy within the EU.

advances.sciencemag.org 4/2021 More than 1000 rivers account for 80% of global riverine plastic emissions into the ocean – Lourens J. J. Meijer, Tim van Emmerik, Ruud van der Ent, Christian Schmidt ,Laurent Lebreton

Plastic waste increasingly accumulates in the marine environment, but data on the distribution and quantification of riverine sources required for development of effective mitigation are limited. Our model approach includes geographically distributed data on plastic waste, land use, wind, precipitation, and rivers and calculates the probability for plastic waste to reach a river and subsequently the ocean. This probabilistic approach highlights regions that are likely to emit plastic into the ocean. We calibrated our model using recent field observations and show that emissions are distributed over more rivers than previously thought by up to two orders of magnitude. We estimate that more than 1000 rivers account for 80% of global annual emissions, which range between 0.8 million and 2.7 million metric tons per year, with small urban rivers among the most polluting. These high-resolution data allow for the focused development of mitigation strategies and technologies to reduce riverine plastic emissions.

independent.co.uk/ 4/2021 Even in the far reaches of the Indian Ocean we can’t escape plastic waste – we need coordinated action to tackle it – The most dire projections suggest our seas may contain more weight in plastics than fish by the year 2050 – we need creative measures on land and at sea to reduce it by Rita Issa

phys.org 4/5/2021 Plastic pollution in the deep sea: A geological perspective – Geological Society of America – A new focus article in the May issue of Geology summarizes research on plastic waste in marine and sedimentary environments. Pollutants, including plastic, reach deep-sea fans through linked sediment routing systems, as well as from outside the associated catchment(s), via near-shore and shelfal currents (i.e., littoral cells), eolian transport, surface currents, and direct input from oceanic sources such as shipping and fishing.

theoceancleanup.com 2021 The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the largest accumulation of ocean plastic in the world and is located between Hawaii and California. Scientists of The Ocean Cleanup have conducted the most extensive analysis ever

mapbox.com/blog/tackling-ocean-plastic-pollution-in-4-maps

bbc marine debris Photographer Mandy Barker – “Where Noon Wears a Watch”

*Photographer Mandy Barker – marine debris -“Where Noon Wears a Watch” bbc*

turn off the plastic tap – Benjamin Von Wong -2021

How about raking and compounding the big plastic patches into islands of sufficient floating mass to carry, well, art festivals or energy farms, perhaps?

earther.gizmodo.com 2021 Archaeologists Uncover Disturbing Amount of Plastic Waste at Iron Age Site by George Dvorsky

bbc.co.uk/ 2021 Plastic pollution: Bangor University researchers get samples in wine bottles By Catherine Evans – “She said getting local swim groups to become waterloggers for microplastics research was useful because “people who love the place where they swim know they need to take to protect it and are more likely to be horrified if they find it in their local swim spot.”

smithsonianmag.com 2019 Found: A Bees’ Nest Built Entirely of Plastic Waste – It could be a sign of bees’ adaptability to a changing environment—but the habit might also be causing them harm by Brigit Katz,

theguardian.com 2021 Pervasive’ plastic pollution in the Arctic – Polyester fibres that injure marine life were found in sea water across region. The Arctic is “pervasively” polluted by microplastic fibres that most likely come from the washing of synthetic clothes by people in Europe and North America, research has found.

theconversation.com 15/3/2021 Plastic warms the planet twice as much as aviation – here’s how to make it climate-friendly by Laurie Wright

We’re all too aware of the consequences of plastics in the oceans and on land. However, beyond the visible pollution of our once pristine habitats, plastics are having a grave impact on the climate too. Newly published research calculates that across their lifecycle, plastics account for 3.8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That’s almost double the emissions of the aviation sector. If it were a country, the “Plastic Kingdom” would be the fifth-highest emitter in the world.

the conversation.com 2018 Plastic is now part of our planet’s fabric – a scientist and archaeologist discuss what happens next Sharon George, Matt Edgeworth – A brief history of plastics –

theguardian.com/ 2020 The plastic we use unthinkingly every day is killing our planet – and slowly but surely killing us by Andrew Paris – As researchers, we have been shocked to find the most remote depths of the Pacific Ocean polluted by our plastic. And it will outlive us all.

theguardian.com 2019 The missing 99%: why can’t we find the vast majority of ocean plastic? What scientists can see and measure, in the garbage patches and on beaches, accounts for only a tiny fraction of the total plastic entering the water.

…”What we commonly see accumulating at the sea surface is “less than the tip of the iceberg, maybe a half of 1% of the total,” says Erik Van Sebille, an oceanographer at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

… Nanoplastic research is still in its infancy. But laboratory tests show that unlike microplastics, nanoplastics are small enough to accumulate within the bloodstreams and cell membranes of a range of organisms, even passing the blood-brain barrier in a test on Japanese medaka fish, and cause various toxic effects, including neurological damage, and reproductive abnormalities.

“This question of where is all the plastic in the sea … For 40 years we sought out plastic we could see. Now we reach the nanoscale, which is very particular, very reactive, and we have to begin again,” says Ter Halle.

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/world-oceans-day-plastic-pollution-b1861581.html

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microplastics

sciencealert.com 22/12/2021 Study Finds Alarming Levels of Microplastics in The Feces of People With IBD by Mike McRae

“Motes of weathered plastic increasingly dust every corner of our planet, permeating our food, our air, and our water. From the moment we’re born – if not long before – we’re exposed to its effects, and we don’t fully know what that’s doing to our health and wellbeing…”…

guardian.com 8/12/2021 Microplastics cause damage to human cells, study shows – Harm included cell death and occurred at levels of plastic eaten by people via their food by Damian Carrington

sciencedirect.com/ 24/11/2021 A rapid review and meta-regression analyses of the toxicological impacts of microplastic exposure in human cells by Evangelos Danopoulosa, MaureenTwiddy, RobertWest, Jeanette M.Rotchellc

https://metro.co.uk/2021/06/01/scientists-reached-one-of-the-oceans-deepest-points-and-found-plastic-14684849/embed/#?secret=NocaSPjItF

nationalgeographic.com 2020 Microplastics have moved into virtually every crevice on Earth – A collection of new research provides more clues about where and how microplastics are spreading. by Laura Parker

ox.ac.uk/news/ 26/5/2021 ocean plastic can get a boost to its wave-induced transport because of its size –
Plastic pollution and other ocean debris are a complex global environmental problem. Every year, ten million tonnes of plastic are estimated to be mismanaged, resulting in entry into the ocean, of which half will float initially. Yet, only 0.3 million tonnes of plastic can be found floating on the surface of the ocean. Where has the rest of the plastic gone? ‘Although anyone walking on the beach will know waves transport floating debris towards the shore, the rate at which they do so depends on many factors that existing models, which are highly simplified, ignore.” says Ton van den Bremer …” read journal article here

academictimes.com 4/2021 Biodegradables could be worse than regular plastics in an important way By Asher Jones

biotechniques.com 3/2021 Microplastic and antibiotic-resistant bacteria: the double threat by Lucy Shard

… Prof Mengyan Li : “These wastewater treatment plants can be hotspots where various chemicals, antibiotic-resistant bacteria and pathogens converge and what our study shows is that microplastics can serve as their carriers, posing imminent risks to aquatic biota and human health if they bypass the water treatment process.”https://www.biotechniques.com/microbiology/microplastic-and-antibiotic-resistant-bacteria-the-double-threat/embed/#?secret=SMHhF6mQvs

bbc.co.uk/ 4/2021 How is bacteria being used to tackle microplastic pollution?

Microplastics are a big problem when it comes to protecting the environment. They pollute the world’s oceans and can be very damaging to sea creatures and other animals. Microbiologists at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) have come with a clever way of removing these tiny pieces of plastic from the environment, and it involves the use of bacteria! Researchers at PolyU believe the sticky bacteria could be used to form microbe nets that can trap microplastics in polluted water.

nature.com 5/2021 Microplastics are everywhere — but are they harmful? Scientists are rushing to study the tiny plastic specks that are in marine animals — and in us. by XiaoZhi Lim

… “The tiniest specks, called nanoplastics — smaller than 1 micrometre — worry researchers most of all (see ‘Microplastics to scale’). Some might be able to enter cells, potentially disrupting cellular activity. But most of these particles are too small for scientists even to see; they were not counted in Koelmans’ diet estimates, for instance, and California will not try to monitor them. …

For the moment, levels of microplastics and nanoplastics in the environment are too low to affect human health, researchers think. But their numbers will rise. Last September, researchers projected15 that the amount of plastic added to existing waste each year — whether carefully disposed of in sealed landfills or strewn across land and sea — could more than double from 188 million tonnes in 2016 to 380 million tonnes in 2040. By then, around 10 million tonnes of this could be in the form of microplastics, the scientists estimated — a calculation that didn’t include the particles continually being eroded from existing waste.

It is possible to rein in some of our plastic waste, says Winnie Lau at the Pew Charitable Trusts in Washington DC, who is the first author on the study. The researchers found that if every proven solution to curb plastic pollution were adopted in 2020 and scaled up as quickly as possible — including switching to systems of reuse, adopting alternative materials, and recycling plastic — the amount of plastic waste added could drop to 140 million tonnes per year by 2040.

By far the biggest gains would come from cutting out plastics that are used only once and discarded. “There’s no point producing things that last for 500 years and then using them for 20 minutes,” Galloway says. “It’s a completely unsustainable way of being.”

theguardian.com 3/2021 Plastic particles pass from mothers into foetuses, rat study shows – Nanoparticles found in foetal brains and hearts, but impact on human health is as yet unknown by Damian Carrington

Tiny plastic particles in the lungs of pregnant rats pass rapidly into the hearts, brains and other organs of their foetuses, research shows. It is the first study in a live mammal to show that the placenta does not block such particles. The experiments also showed that the rat foetuses exposed to the particles put on significantly less weight towards the end of gestation. The research follows the revelation in December of small plastic particles in human placentas, which scientists described as “a matter of great concern”. Earlier laboratory research on human placentas donated by mothers after birth has also shown polystyrene beads can cross the placental barrier. Microplastic pollution has reached every part of the planet, from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans, and people are already known to consume the tiny particles via food and water, and to breathe them in.

Demand is set to rise, too. At 380m tonnes a year, we produce 190 times more plastic than we did in 1950. If the demand for plastic continues to grow at its current rate of 4% a year, emissions from plastic production will reach 15% of global emissions by 2050. More than 99% of plastics are manufactured from petrochemicals, most commonly from petroleum and natural gas. These raw materials are refined to form ethylene, propylene, butene, and other basic plastic building blocks, before being transported to manufacturers.

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paying for plastics

As with any product the negative cost to the ecosystem or human health should be in the price. But it isn’t.

theconversation.com 3/2021 Plastic is part of the carbon cycle and needs to be included in climate calculations

bbc.co.uk 3/2021 Plastic pollution: Is the drinks industry doing enough to reduce single-use plastics?

ecowatch.com/ 2021 Why Plastic Pollution Is a Producer Responsibility By Alex Truelove

We’re all culprits in the plastic pollution crisis — and that’s by design. I was reminded of this recently when I ordered a set of carbon filters for my countertop compost bin. (Like most people, I don’t care for smelly kitchens.) The package arrived in a layered-plastic bubble envelope. Inside I found another clear plastic bag encasing the filters. Finally, adding insult to injury, each filter was wrapped individually in plastic. That made at least three layers of plastic for each filter.

Frustratingly, in an effort to reduce waste, I had created more. And I’m not alone. A recent landmark study confirmed that the United States is the most plastic-polluting country in the world. Every 16 hours Americans throw away enough plastic to fill a football stadium. Adding to my frustration was a sense of helplessness. There was no way I could have known or changed the fact that these products were shrouded in layer upon layer of disposable plastic packaging.

I know millions of Americans feel the same way. …

But what if … companies were held responsible for their products? Would it prevent the onslaught of plastic junk filling up our landfills and too often ending up in the ocean? History suggests manufacturers would design products to be more reusable, repairable and resilient, because they’d want to limit the waste they would have to manage.

Which brings us to an idea known as producer responsibility.

Producer responsibility programs have existed around the world for decades and have successfully increased collection, recycling and reuse for the products they cover. For the most part these programs regulate hazardous, hard-to-dispose-of products such as batteries, paint, mercury thermostats, carpet, pesticides, tires and pharmaceuticals. Dozens of states already have programs in place for these items.”

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plastic production + use

theguardian.com 5/2021 Twenty firms produce 55% of world’s plastic waste, report reveals – Plastic Waste Makers index identifies those driving climate crisis with virgin polymer production

onegreenplanet.org 6/2021 Petition: 20 Companies are Responsible for Most Plastic Waste – They Must Switch to Sustainable Alternatives Now! By Shelby Hettler

Plastic pollution is one of the huge issues that we are facing today. Chemicals and small particles from plastic are ending up everywhere – in the ocean, soil, placentas, animal stomachs, and human organs. Plastic is killing our planet as well as those who live on it, and we need to fight back against plastic pollution. Many people have started doing this in their own lives by opting for reusable alternatives to single-use plastic and being more mindful of the waste they create. While this is amazing, the problem won’t be solved until corporations are held accountable.

A recent study found that just 20 companies are responsible for 55% of the plastic waste in the entire world. These companies are headquartered in different countries around the world, with ExxonMobil of the US being the absolute worst. A few of the other companies include Dow, Sinopec, and Indorama Ventures. The report also highlighted investors and banks that finance the plastic producers including, Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bank of America.

Polypropylene, Polyethylene, Polyvinyl, Polystyrene etal

The recycling problem has a lot to do with there being so many different types of plastic. – Too many. And none designed for recycling.

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ALTernative plastic futures

news.yahoo.com 15/12/2021 Microbes around the world are evolving to eat plastic (and it could help deal with plastic pollution) by Rob Waugh

Across the world, microbes are evolving to eat plastic and the finding could have important implications for the battle against plastic pollution. Microbes in the ground and in seawater have evolved to have enzymes which can break down different plastics, researchers at Sweden’s Chalmers University have found. The global plastic problem has exploded in the past 70 years — from around two million tonnes per year to around 380 million — which has given microbes time to evolve.

The researchers analysed samples of environmental DNA from around the world, looking for microbial enzymes which could break down plastic. They found that levels of such enzymes were highest in the areas with most plastic pollution.

Aleksej Zelezniak, associate professor in systems biology at Chalmers, said: “Using our models, we found multiple lines of evidence supporting the fact that the global microbiome’s plastic-degrading potential correlates strongly with measurements of environmental plastic pollution – a significant demonstration of how the environment is responding to the pressures we are placing on it.”

In total, more than 30,000 enzyme ‘homologues’ were found with the potential to degrade 10 different types of commonly used plastic. Homologues are members of protein sequences sharing similar properties.

Some of the locations that contained the highest amounts were highly polluted areas, for example samples from the Mediterranean Sea and South Pacific Ocean. Jan Zrimec, lead author of the study and former postdoctorate student in Zelezniak’s group, now a researcher at the National Institute of Biology in Slovenia, said: “Currently, very little is known about these plastic-degrading enzymes…”…

Read more

plastichealthsummit.org 10/2021 Plastic Health Summit pdf download speakers:

Jo Royle, CEO & Founder Common Seas
Dick Vethaak, Expert micro-and nanoplastics
Maria Westerbos, Founder & Director Plastic Soup Foundation

independent.co.uk 9/2021 Plastic waste is the next asbestos – WHO should declare it a public health emergency – While there is global agreement to curb plastic’s impact, production continues to rise – by Maria Westerbos

phys.org 19/10/2021 How a bacterium may help solve the plastic pollution crisis In a recent study published in Scientific Reports, researchers from Nara Institute of Science and Technology revealed a bacterium that is not only able to degrade difficult-to-recycle petroleum-based plastics but can also sustainably produce more environmentally friendly biodegradable plastics.

euronews.com 11/2021 ECO-INNOVATION – This ‘floating continent’ could collect and recycle plastic from the ocean in future By Doloresz Katanich

‘The 8th continent’ is an award-winning design that recycles ocean plastic and is completely self-sustainable. Its five-part structure contains everything from greenhouses and living quarters to biodegradable waste collectors. Senior designer at Zaha Hadid Architects in London, Lenka Petráková, developed the idea for her student master thesis a few years ago in Vienna, Austria, having studied ocean pollution at university. The architect says the prototype is named after the sheer amount of plastic waste coagulating in the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’. “I realised how destroyed the oceans are and how many species are extinct, how much pollution is there, and that the parts that may have never seen a human being, feel the effects of our activities,” she says. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), at least 8 million tonnes of plastic end up in the sea every year. And a majority of this plastic ends up in our food and body. On top of this, 100,000 marine mammals and turtles and 1 million sea birds are killed by plastic pollution annually…”…

bbc.co.uk 11/2021 Plastic pollution: Can seaweed end problem? By Sarah Easedale

globalcitizen.org/ 31/8/2021 The Plan to Stop the Plastic Crisis Is Gaining Momentum – And you can join the push to clean our planet today. by Joe McCarthy

“Corporations have made pledges. Community organizers have staged beach clean-ups. Politicians have boldly described the urgency of the problem. Yet the rate of plastic pollution continues to climb. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the amount of annual plastic waste entering the ocean rose by 30%, according to Scientific American. Over the next decade, plastic production is predicted to increase by 40%. That means more marine animals will swallow and die from plastic. Our food system will become further infiltrated with plastic. And each gust of wind will carry even more nanoplastic particles. This scenario is not tenable, according to the One Source Coalition, a group of environmental organizations that includes the World Wildlife Fund and corporations like Unilever. …”…

recycling-magazine.com/ 31/8/2021 Billion investment in plastic recycling in Sweden – Swedish Plastic Recycling (Svensk Plaståtervinning) is investing in building the world’s largest and most modern facility for plastic recycling, Site Zero.

thetimes.co.uk 11/2021 Eco-friendly plastic is made of oil and salmon sperm by Rhys Blakely

…”A new plastic made from salmon sperm and vegetable oil could be the most environmentally friendly version yet invented, a team of Chinese scientists has said. It is created from short strands of DNA, the substance that carries genetic code and which forms a twisting double helix structure inside living cells. The researchers obtained their raw material from salmon sperm, although just about any living thing is a potential source…”…

phys.org/ 12/2021 Ocean plastic is creating new communities of life on the high seas

“Coastal plants and animals have found a new way to survive in the open ocean—by colonizing plastic pollution. A new commentary published Dec. 2 in Nature Communications reports coastal species growing on trash hundreds of miles out to sea in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, more commonly known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” “The issues of plastic go beyond just ingestion and entanglement…”… phys.org/tags/plastic/

bbc.co.uk 7/2021 The fungus and bacteria tackling plastic waste – By accident Samantha Jenkins discovered the plastic eating properties of one fungus By Emma Woollacott

…”The fungus had eaten its way through the plastic sponge intended to seal it in, breaking it down and assimilating it like any other food. The aim of the project was to evaluate a number of strains of fungus for use in bio-based insulation panels, but the hungry fungus has taken them in another direction. Biohm is now working to develop the strain to make it an even more efficient digester that could potentially help get rid of plastic waste.”…

bbc.co.uk 19/7/2021 Using plastic waste to help solve sand shortages By Bernd Debusmann

This means that sand is typically dredged from rivers, and due to the environmental damage this causes a number of countries have introduced bans in recent years – including India, Cambodia and Vietnam. The knock-on impact has been supply issues in nations undergoing construction booms such as China and India, which have the largest and second-largest construction sectors. Shortfalls of sand in India continue to fuel a big increase in illegal sand mining, controlled by criminal gangs, known as “sand mafias”, These groups have been linked to dozens of murders, including the 2015 killing of investigative journalist Jagendra Singh.

“People don’t comprehend, or it doesn’t strike them, that there is a shortage [of sand],” says Shobha Bhatia, a professor of civil and environment engineering at Syracuse University. …

“We found that you can replace up to 10% of the sand in concrete with the plastic, and it has the same strength and the same longevity,” says Dr John Orr. Unlike sand, plastic won’t stick to the cement paste around it, so it can only replace 10% of the raw material, he says. “But that still saves the need for a huge amount of sand, and helps to reduce the vast amount of plastic waste on India’s streets. …

“Sand is really just a symptom of a larger problem. It’s not just that we’re using too much sand, but we’re using too much of everything (says Vince Beiser). “We’re using up all the planet’s resources at a rate that cannot continue.” “We should be looking for solutions that address the main problem – overconsumption of natural resources – rather than asking what one can do about sand, and then separately about climate change or traffic. “A lot of these problems are interconnected and the solutions have to be as well.”

wired.co.uk 7/2021 How LEGO perfected the recycled plastic brick – After 72 years and billions of interlocking polymer toy bricks, at last the company has an eco alternative

…”What’s more, the vast majority of those 110 billion bricks, as much as 80 per cent, were made from acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene, or ABS, a petroleum-based thermoplastic prized for its strength and rigidity. ABS does not like being recycled because it loses those sturdy qualities. Such is the resilience of ABS, it takes lifetimes to break down, meaning whatever is made from the stuff will be hanging around on our planet for an awfully long time. This is why, in 2015, after 66 years of pumping out vast quantities of unrecyclable interlocking toy bricks and perhaps sensing the impending plastic backlash, LEGO announced it was putting $155 million of its huge income (2019 revenue hit $7 billion) into a new Sustainable Materials Centre. …”…

chemistryworld.com 10/6/2021 Genetically engineered microbes convert waste plastic into vanillin
BY Jack Washington

Scientists in the UK have genetically engineered Escherichia coli to transform plastic waste into vanillin. ‘Instead of simply recycling plastic waste into more plastic, what our system demonstrates for the first time is that you can use plastic as a feedstock for microbial cells and transform it into something with higher value and more industrial utility,’ says Stephen Wallace from the University of Edinburgh. The biotransformation ‘isn’t just replacing a current chemical process, it’s actually achieving something that can’t be done using modern synthetic methods.’

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is one of the most widely used types of plastic. Most existing recycling technologies degrade PET into its substituent monomers, ethylene glycol and terephthalic acid, then repurpose them in second-generation plastic materials. Wallace and Joanna Sadler, also at the University of Edinburgh, want to upcycle these monomers into alternative products.

phys.org/news/ 6/2021 ‘Vegan spider silk’ provides sustainable alternative to single-use plastics

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, created a polymer film by mimicking the properties of spider silk, one of the strongest materials in nature. The new material is as strong as many common plastics in use today and could replace plastic in many common household products.

phys.org/news 4/2021 The future looks bright for infinitely recyclable plastic from Berkeley Lab

“Plastics are a part of nearly every product we use on a daily basis. The average person in the U.S. generates about 100 kg of plastic waste per year, most of which goes straight to a landfill. A team led by Corinne Scown, Brett Helms, Jay Keasling, Kristin Persson at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory set out to change that. …

“These days, there is a huge push for adopting circular economy practices in the industry. Everyone is trying to recycle whatever they’re putting out in the market,” said Vora. “We started talking to industry about deploying 100% percent infinitely recycled plastics and have received a lot of interest.”

Plastics were never designed to be recycled. The need to do so was recognized long afterward,” explained Nemi Vora, first author on the report and a former postdoctoral fellow who worked with senior author Corinne Scown. “But driving sustainability is the heart of this project. PDKs were designed to be recycled from the get-go, and since the beginning, the team has been working to refine the production and recycling processes for PDK so that the material could be inexpensive and easy enough to be deployed at commercial scales in anything from packaging to cars.”

bbc.com/ 12/5/2021 The world’s first ‘infinite’ plastic By Katherine Latham

“The way we normally recycle plastics is a downward spiral of waste and degraded materials, but there is another option – turning plastic back into the oil it was made from. There is one man-made material that you can find in the earth, the air and in the deepest ocean trenches. It is so durable that the majority of what has been created is still present in our ecosystem. Having made its way into the food chain, it permeates our bodies, flowing from our blood into our organs, even finding its way into the human placenta.

It is of course plastic, and this durability is also what makes the material so useful. Cables stretching across ocean floors, water pipes under the ground and packaging that keeps food fresh all rely on this property.

Efficiently recycling plastic by conventional means is notoriously difficult, and only 9% of all plastic ever made has been recycled into new plastics. But what if there was a way to turn plastic back into the stuff it was made from? The “next grand challenge” for polymer chemistry – the field responsible for the creation of plastics – is learning to undo the process by turning plastics back into oil.

This process – known as chemical recycling – has been explored as a viable alternative to conventional recycling for decades. So far, the stumbling block has been the large amount of energy it requires. This, combined with the volatile price of crude oil sometimes makes it cheaper to produce new plastic products than to recycle existing plastic.” …

vox.com 2020 How plastic “waste” is getting a greener second life – New innovations are creating a more sustainable future for single-use plastics.

physics world.com 5/2021 Recycled plastic bags make sustainable fabrics by Isabelle Dumé

… “Polyethylene is one of the most common plastics in the world, but it is seldom found in clothing because it cannot absorb or carry away water. (Imagine wearing a plastic bag – you would feel very uncomfortable very quickly.) Now, however, researchers in the US have developed a new material spun from polyethylene that not only “breathes” better than cotton, nylon or polyester, but also has a smaller ecological footprint due to the ease with which it can be manufactured, dyed, cleaned and used.

The textile industry produces about 62 million tons of fabric each year. In the process, it consumes huge quantities of water, generates millions of tonnes of waste and accounts for 5–10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, making it one of the world’s most polluting industries. Later stages of the textile use cycle also contribute to the industry’s environmental impact. Textiles made from natural fibres such as wool, cotton, silk or linen require considerable amounts of energy and water to recycle, while textiles that are coloured or made of composite materials are hard to recycle at all. … Researchers led by Svetlana Boriskina of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) set out to produce an alternative. …”

mining.com 3/2021 New fuel from plastic waste aims to replace fossil fuels in marine industry

treehugger.com/ 8/2019 Get Ready for the Onslaught of “Smart Plastic Incineration” By Lloyd Alter

independent.co.uk 5/4/2021 Scientists produce biodegradable plastic made from fish waste – ‘When we start the process, there is a faint kind of smell, but that disappears,’ explains Francesca Kerton, lead project investigator by Tom Batchelor – Scientists working on an alternative to polluting plastic have discovered a biodegradable material derived from fish waste that would otherwise be thrown away, which could be used in a variety of products including packaging and clothing.

https://india.mongabay.com/2019/07/turning-agro-waste-into-environment-friendly-plastics/embed/#?secret=xFbZUfabQ6

https://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/300320873/new-plymouth-businessman-turns-up-heat-to-solve-plastic-waste-problem

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ocean-pollution-kenya-plastic-bricks/

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/30/recycling-textile-waste-a-solution-exists-we-cant-go-backwards

greenpeace.org/ 2019 The #ReuseRevolution is the answer to the plastics crisis by Graham Forbes
“Plastic pollution is everywhere. … In response to this global environmental crisis, a growing movement—the Reuse Revolution—is already finding real and innovative solutions focused on reusing sustainable materials instead of throwaway plastics.”

medium.com 3/3021 Top 10 Benefits of Recycling Plastic

theguardian.com 2020 small-steps-towards-a-plastic-free-world

treehugger.com/ 24/5/2021 9 Ways to Combat Microplastics at Home By Lisa Jo Rudy

thebetterindia.com 2021 The brain behind Noida-based sustainable startup Kagzi Bottles, Samiksha Ganeriwal claims that their first-of-its-kind, 100% compostable paper bottles can be used to package toiletries, beverages, liquids and powders. by Urshita Pandit

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