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Great Pacific Garbage Patch
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a collection of marine debris in the North Pacific Ocean. Marine debris is litter that ends up in the ocean, seas, and other large bodies of water.
How Plastics Are Poisoning Us
They both release and attract toxic chemicals, and appear everywhere from human placentas to chasms thirty-six thousand feet beneath the sea. Will we ever be rid of them?
June 26, 2023
In 1863, when much of the United States was anguishing over the Civil War, an entrepreneur named Michael Phelan was fretting about billiard balls. At the time, the balls were made of ivory, preferably obtained from elephants from Ceylon—now Sri Lanka—whose tusks were thought to possess just the right density. Phelan, who owned a billiard hall and co-owned a billiard-table-manufacturing business, also wrote books about billiards and was a champion billiards player. Owing in good part to his efforts, the game had grown so popular that tusks from Ceylon—and, indeed, elephants more generally—were becoming scarce. He and a partner offered a ten-thousand-dollar reward to anyone who could come up with an ivory substitute.
See full article here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/07/03/book-reviews-plastic-waste
Plastic recycling a "failed concept," study says, with only 5% recycled in U.S. last year as production rises
OCTOBER 24, 2022 / 6:20 AM / AFP
Washington — Plastic recycling rates are declining even as production shoots up, according to a Greenpeace USA report out Monday that blasted industry claims of creating an efficient, circular economy as "fiction."
Titled "Circular Claims Fall Flat Again," the study found that of 51 million tons of plastic waste generated by U.S. households in 2021, only 2.4 million tons were recycled, or around five percent. After peaking in 2014 at 10 percent, the trend has been decreasing, especially since China stopped accepting the West's plastic waste in 2018.
Virgin production — of non-recycled plastic, that is — meanwhile is rapidly rising as the petrochemical industry expands, lowering costs.
See Full Article at Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/plastic-recycling-failed-concept-us-greenpeace-study-5-percent-recycled-production-up/
Microplastics found in human blood for first time
Exclusive: The discovery shows the particles can travel around the body and may lodge in organs
Microplastic pollution has been detected in human blood for the first time, with scientists finding the tiny particles in almost 80% of the people tested.
The discovery shows the particles can travel around the body and may lodge in organs. The impact on health is as yet unknown. But researchers are concerned as microplastics cause damage to human cells in the laboratory and air pollution particles are already known to enter the body and cause millions of early deaths a year.
Huge amounts of plastic waste are dumped in the environment and microplastics now contaminate the entire planet, from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans. People were already known to consume the tiny particles via food and water as well as breathing them in, and they have been found in the faeces of babies and adults.
The scientists analysed blood samples from 22 anonymous donors, all healthy adults and found plastic particles in 17. Half the samples contained PET plastic, which is commonly used in drinks bottles, while a third contained polystyrene, used for packaging food and other products. A quarter of the blood samples contained polyethylene, from which plastic carrier bags are made.
See Full Article at Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/24/microplastics-found-in-human-blood-for-first-time
Plastic pollution: Green light for 'historic' treaty
By Helen Briggs
Environment correspondent
The world is set to get a global treaty to tackle plastic pollution.
Nearly 200 countries have agreed to start negotiations on an international agreement to take action on the "plastic crisis".
UN members are tasked with developing an over-arching framework for reducing plastic waste across the world.
There is growing concern that discarded plastic is destroying habitats, harming wildlife and contaminating the food chain.
Supporters describe the move as one of the world's most ambitious environmental actions since the 1989 Montreal Protocol, which phased out ozone-depleting substances.
They say just as climate change has the Paris Agreement, plastic should have its own binding treaty, which sets the world on course for reducing plastic waste.
See Full Article at Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60590515
California officials approve plan to crack down on microplastics polluting the ocean
BY JAMES RAINEY STAFF WRITER
California aims to sharply limit the spiraling scourge of microplastics in the ocean, while urging more study of this threat to fish, marine mammals and potentially to humans, under a plan a state panel approved Wednesday.
The Ocean Protection Council voted to make California the first state to adopt a comprehensive plan to rein in the pollution, recommending everything from banning plastic-laden cigarette filters and polystyrene drinking cups to the construction of more green zones to filter plastics from stormwater before it spills into the sea.
The proposals in the report are only advisory, with approval from other agencies and the Legislature required to put many of the reforms into place. But the signaling of resolve from council members – including Controller Betty Yee and the heads of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection agencies – puts California in the vanguard of a worldwide push on the issue.
See Full Article at Source: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-02-23/california-approves-microplastics-ocean-plan
How the fossil fuel industry is pushing plastics on the world
We’re in the midst of an energy transition. Renewable power and electric vehicles are getting cheaper, the grid is getting greener, and oil and gas companies are getting nervous.
That’s why the fossil fuel giants are looking towards petrochemicals, and plastics in particular, as their next major growth market.
“Plastics is the Plan B for the fossil fuel industry,” said Judith Enck, Founder and President of the nonprofit advocacy group Beyond Plastics.
Plastics, which are made from fossil fuels, are set to drive nearly half of oil demand growth by midcentury, according to the International Energy Agency. That outpaces even hard-to-decarbonize sectors like aviation and shipping.
See full article at source: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/29/how-the-fossil-fuel-industry-is-pushing-plastics-on-the-world-.html
HOW BAD ARE PLASTICS, REALLY?
Plastic production just keeps expanding, and now is becoming a driving cause of climate change.
January 3, 2022.
This is hardly the time to talk about plastics is what I think when Dad, hovering over the waste bin at a post-funeral potluck, waves me over, his gesture discreet but emphatic. He has retrieved from the trash a crystalline plastic cup, with fluted, rigid sides. “Polystyrene,” he grins, inverting the cup to reveal its resin code (a 6 stamped inside the recycling symbol). “But not my kind.”
Dad, back in the 1960s, had manufactured a more resilient variety of polystyrene for Union Carbide, one of the 20th century’s major plastics manufacturers, since acquired by Dow Chemical Company. Now, in the parish hall, I recognize he is seconds from crushing the cup. As if on cue, he closes his grip. Being a certain type of polystyrene—and this is his point—the cup splinters into a strange bloom of shards arrayed about the cup’s circular bottom.
No butadiene, I think. “No butadiene,” he says, which, on the production lines he ran, had been added to rubberize the resin, one among 10,000 helpmates that make plastics as we know them possible. Dad shuffles off to find the recycling bin, though he knows the cup has little chance for recovery and likely a long afterlife ahead. This is especially true for polystyrenes, of which there are multiple varieties; plastics, as the anthropologist Tridibesh Dey notes, are a chemically complex lot, designed for performance rather than reclamation.
Dad once believed that plastics could be reused indefinitely. I imagine that, maybe, he thought plastics, like their makers, deserved the chance to begin again. When Union Carbide downsized in the 1970s, Dad took severance and stayed home with my siblings until he could figure out what a life beyond plastics might look like. The answer, it turned out, was public administration: For a time, he ran my hometown’s recycling program. Recycling, though, never lived up to Dad’s ideal. Of all the plastics made over his lifetime, less than 10 percent has been effectively repurposed.
See full article at source: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/01/plastic-history-climate-change/621033/
Plastic Waste Makers Index
Executive Summary: Single-use plastics – the cheap plastic goods we use once and then throw away – epitomise the plastics crisis. Today, single-use plastics account for over a third of plastics produced every year, with 98 per cent manufactured from fossil fuels.
Unsurprisingly, single-use plastics also account for the majority of plastic thrown away the world over: more than 130 million metric tons in 2019 – almost all of which is burned, buried in landfill, or discarded directly into the environment.
The cost of single-use plastic waste is enormous. Of all the plastics, they are the most likely to end up in our ocean, where they account for almost all visible pollution, in the range of five to 13 million metric tons each year.1,2,3 Once there, single-use plastics eventually break down into tiny particles that impact wildlife health – and the ocean’s ability to store carbon.4 Single-use plastics contain chemical additives such as plasticisers that have been found in humans and are linked to a range of reproductive health problems.5 And if growth in single-use plastic production continues at current rates, they could account for five to 10 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.6
Despite these threats, the plastics industry has been allowed to operate with minimal regulation and transparency for decades. Government policies, where they exist, tend to focus on the vast number of companies that sell finished plastic products. Relatively little attention has been paid to the smaller number of businesses at the base of the supply chain that make “polymers” – the building blocks of all plastics – almost exclusively from fossil fuels.
See Full Article at Source: https://www.minderoo.org/plastic-waste-makers-index/findings/executive-summary/
The United States’ contribution of plastic waste to land and ocean
RESEARCH ARTICLE ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
The United States’ contribution of plastic waste to land and ocean
View ORCID ProfileKara Lavender Law1,*,
View ORCID ProfileNatalie Starr2,
View ORCID ProfileTheodore R. Siegler2,
View ORCID ProfileJenna R. Jambeck3,4,
View ORCID ProfileNicholas J. Mallos5 and
View ORCID ProfileGeorge H. Leonard5
Science Advances 30 Oct 2020:
Vol. 6, no. 44, eabd0288
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abd0288
Plastic waste affects environmental quality and ecosystem health. In 2010, an estimated 5 to 13 million metric tons (Mt) of plastic waste entered the ocean from both developing countries with insufficient solid waste infrastructure and high-income countries with very high waste generation. We demonstrate that, in 2016, the United States generated the largest amount of plastic waste of any country in the world (42.0 Mt). Between 0.14 and 0.41 Mt of this waste was illegally dumped in the United States, and 0.15 to 0.99 Mt was inadequately managed in countries that imported materials collected in the United States for recycling. Accounting for these contributions, the amount of plastic waste generated in the United States estimated to enter the coastal environment in 2016 was up to five times larger than that estimated for 2010, rendering the United States’ contribution among the highest in the world.
INTRODUCTION
Plastic waste contaminates all major ecosystems on the planet, with concern increasing about its potential impacts on wildlife and human health, as smaller and more widespread plastic particles are identified in both the natural (1–4) and built (5–7) environment. For decades, scientists have documented plastic debris in the ocean (8). Marine sources of ocean pollutants were addressed in the 1970s (9) and 1980s (10), before the focus turned to land as the purported, yet poorly substantiated, source of 80% of marine debris. In 2015, Jambeck et al. (11) used global solid waste management data compiled by the World Bank (12) to estimate the amount of inadequately managed plastic waste generated within 50 km of the coastline that entered the global ocean in 2010 [4.8 to 12.7 million metric tons (Mt)]. Since then, a nominal value of 8 Mt has been broadly adopted as a quantitative benchmark of the annual scale of ocean plastic pollution, spurring responses by nongovernmental organizations, policy-makers, and the plastics and consumer products industries. Stemming from this analysis, many remediation efforts have focused on countries in South and Southeast Asia (13–15).
However, high-income countries such as the United States and members of the European Union (EU-28) also had large plastic emissions to the ocean in 2010, according to Jambeck et al. (hereafter “2010 analysis”). Despite having robust waste management systems, the large coastal populations and very high per capita waste generation rates in these high-income countries together resulted in large amounts of mismanaged waste due only to litter (estimated 2% of waste generation) that is available to enter the ocean. According to the 2010 analysis, the U.S. coastal population generated the highest mass of plastic waste of any country (13.8 Mt, 112.9 million people), whereas coastal populations in EU-28 countries collectively produced even more plastic waste (14.8 Mt, 187.3 million people). The next highest country in coastal plastic waste generation was China (11.6 Mt per day, 262.9 million people).
See Full Article at Source: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/44/eabd0288
WASTE ONLY How the Plastics Industry Is Fighting to Keep Polluting the World
July 20 2019, 7:30 a.m.
THE STUDENTS AT Westmeade Elementary School worked hard on their dragon. And it paid off. The plastic bag receptacle that the kids painted green and outfitted with triangular white teeth and a “feed me” sign won the students from the Nashville suburb first place in a recycling box decorating contest. The idea, as Westmeade’s proud principal told a local TV news show, was to help the environment. But the real story behind the dragon — as with much of the escalating war over plastic waste — is more complicated.
The contest was sponsored by A Bag’s Life, a recycling promotion and education effort of the American Progressive Bag Alliance, a lobbying group that fights restrictions on plastic. That organization is part of the Plastics Industry Association, a trade group that includes Shell Polymers, LyondellBasell, Exxon Mobil, Chevron Phillips, DowDuPont, and Novolex — all of which profit hugely from the continued production of plastics. And even as A Bag’s Life was encouraging kids to spread the uplifting message of cleaning up plastic waste, its parent organization, the American Progressive Bag Alliance, was backing a state bill that would strip Tennesseans of their ability to address the plastics crisis. The legislation would make it illegal for local governments to ban or restrict bags and other single-use plastic products — one of the few things shown to actually reduce plastic waste.
View Full Article at Source: https://theintercept.com/2019/07/20/plastics-industry-plastic-recycling/
In rare show of solidarity, 14 key nations commit to protect oceans, BY LAURA PARKER
The world’s most far-reaching pact to protect and sustain ocean health offers hope that our seas’ dire problems might be solved.
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 4, 2020
WHEN THE HEADS of state of 14 nations sat down together in late 2018 to discuss the grim condition of the world’s oceans, there was no certainty that anything consequential would result. The leaders planned 14 gatherings, but met only twice before the pandemic upended their talks.
So when the group announced this week the world’s most far-reaching pact to protect and sustain ocean health, it signaled a bit more than a noteworthy achievement in a complicated time. The agreement, negotiated via the nuance-free tool of video conferencing, also offered hope of a renewed era of global accord on climate, where issues grounded in science might finally trump political posturing.
Overall, the 14 leaders agreed to sustainably manage 100 percent of the oceans under their national jurisdictions by 2025—an area of ocean roughly the size of Africa. Additionally, they vowed to set aside 30 percent of the seas as marine protected areas by 2030, in keeping with the United Nations’ campaign known as “30 by 30.” (Read more about 30 by 30 here.)
See Full Article at Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2020/12/in-rare-show-of-solidarity-14-key-nations-commit-to-protect-oceans/#close
Microplastics revealed in the placentas of unborn babies, by Damian Carrington Environment editor
Health impact is unknown but scientists say particles may cause long-term damage to foetuses
Microplastic particles have been revealed in the placentas of unborn babies for the first time, which the researchers said was “a matter of great concern”.
The health impact of microplastics in the body is as yet unknown. But the scientists said they could carry chemicals that could cause long-term damage or upset the foetus’s developing immune system. The particles are likely to have been consumed or breathed in by the mothers.
The particles were found in the placentas from four healthy women who had normal pregnancies and births. Microplastics were detected on both the foetal and maternal sides of the placenta and in the membrane within which the foetus develops.
A dozen plastic particles were found. Only about 4% of each placenta was analysed, however, suggesting the total number of microplastics was much higher. All the particles analysed were plastics that had been dyed blue, red, orange or pink and may have originally come from packaging, paints or cosmetics and personal care products.
The microplastics were mostly 10 microns in size (0.01mm), meaning they are small enough to be carried in the bloodstream. The particles may have entered the babies’ bodies, but the researchers were unable to assess this.
See Full Article at Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/22/microplastics-revealed-in-placentas-unborn-babies
Big Oil’s hopes are pinned on plastics. It won’t end well.
The industry’s only real source of growth probably won’t grow much.
The fossil fuel industry has not been doing well lately. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, growth in global demand had slowed to 1 percent annually. Now, lockdowns and distancing to stop the spread of the coronavirus have decimated the industry. The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently released projections of rapid short-term decline in global demand, to the tune of 9 percent for oil, 8 percent for coal, and 5 percent for gas.
Depending on how long and severe the economic crisis proves to be, it will take years for demand to recover. Indeed, with electric vehicles cutting into oil demand by the end of the decade, it may never fully recover. Industry analysts like Carbon Tracker’s Kingsmill Bond are speculating that 2019 may turn out to be the peak of fossil fuel demand, and historically, in other industries, a peak in demand “tends to mark the beginning of a period of low prices and poor returns,” says Bond.
But the industry has a response to this dire forecast, and it can be summarized in one word: plastics.
See Full Article at Source: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/21419505/oil-gas-price-plastics-peak-climate-change
Special Report: Plastic pandemic - COVID-19 trashed the recycling dream, by Joe Brock
(Reuters) - The coronavirus pandemic has sparked a rush for plastic.
From Wuhan to New York, demand for face shields, gloves, takeaway food containers and bubble wrap for online shopping has surged. Since most of that cannot be recycled, so has the waste.
But there is another consequence. The pandemic has intensified a price war between recycled and new plastic, made by the oil industry. It’s a war recyclers worldwide are losing, price data and interviews with more than two dozen businesses across five continents show.
“I really see a lot of people struggling,” Steve Wong, CEO of Hong-Kong based Fukutomi Recycling and chairman of the China Scrap Plastics Association told Reuters in an interview. “They don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.”
The reason: Nearly every piece of plastic begins life as a fossil fuel. The economic slowdown has punctured demand for oil. In turn, that has cut the price of new plastic.
See full article at source: https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-plastic-recycling-spe/special-report-plastic-pandemic-covid-19-trashed-the-recycling-dream-idUSKBN26Q1LO
Groundbreaking Study Exposes United States as Top Plastic Polluter 11 • 09 • 2020
Written by Jennie Romer and Lily Iserson
In 2016, the U.S. generated 42 million metric tons of plastic waste, more than any other country in the world. This startling number is one of the key takeaways from a recent study in Science Advances, The United States’ contribution of plastic waste to land and ocean, by Law et. al. The study analyzes not only generation but also the impact of where America’s plastic waste ends up. Researchers found that in 2016, the amount of plastic waste generated in the U.S. estimated to enter the coastal environment — either illegally dumped in the U.S. or collected in the U.S. for recycling and exported to countries where it was inadequately managed — was among the highest in the world.
This flips on its head the plastics industry’s talking points, and even the U.S. EPA’s talking points, that blame Asian countries for plastic pollution overall. The numbers in the new report run counter to that accusation. In reality, the U.S. adds to the waste management problems of countries like India, Malaysia, and Indonesia because we unload our waste onto their lack of sustainable infrastructure.
“Without waste management infrastructure improvements,” a related research group wrote in a 2015 study, “the quantity of plastic waste entering the ocean from land is predicted to increase by an order of magnitude by 2025.” The new report expands this previous inquiry by focusing on the relationship between plastic pollution and inadequate waste management.
See Full Article at Source: https://www.surfrider.org/coastal-blog/entry/groundbreaking-study-exposes-united-states-as-top-plastic-polluter?utm_medium=email&utm_source=getresponse&utm_content=BFFP+Newsletter%3A+It%E2%80%99s+time+Whole+Foods+eliminates+single-use+plastic%2C+South+Korea%E2%80%99s+plastic+waste+surge+%26+Emergency+legal+action+to+block+Ineos%21&utm_campaign=Breakfreefromplastic+Membership+Master+List
How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled
September 11, 20205:00 AM ET
Laura Leebrick, a manager at Rogue Disposal & Recycling in southern Oregon, is standing on the end of its landfill watching an avalanche of plastic trash pour out of a semitrailer: containers, bags, packaging, strawberry containers, yogurt cups.
None of this plastic will be turned into new plastic things. All of it is buried.
"To me that felt like it was a betrayal of the public trust," she said. "I had been lying to people ... unwittingly."
Rogue, like most recycling companies, had been sending plastic trash to China, but when China shut its doors two years ago, Leebrick scoured the U.S. for buyers. She could find only someone who wanted white milk jugs. She sends the soda bottles to the state.
But when Leebrick tried to tell people the truth about burying all the other plastic, she says people didn't want to hear it.
See Full Article at Source: https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled
More Bad News For Oil & Gas: Plastic Recycling Targeted By University of Delaware
July 20th, 2020 by Tina Casey
Just in time for Plastic Free July, earlier this month the US Department of Energy earmarked $11.6 million for a new high-impact R&D effort called the Center for Plastics Innovation. The taxpayer dollars will support new transformative plastic recycling technology, which would be a giant step up from good old fashioned shredding and melting. Group hug for taxpayers! If all goes according to plan, CPI’s work will lead to a high value, high efficiency plastic recycling stream that will undercut the use of virgin oil and gas in the chemical industry.
A Transformative Era For Plastic Recycling
There are some signs that legacy oil and gas giants are planning ahead for a transformative plastic recycling scenario. For example, last year Royal Dutch Shell announced a pyrolysis-based method that produces chemical building blocks for new products from old plastic.
The big question is, who will be the next global leader in the transformative plastic recycling era of tomorrow, and it appears that the Department of Energy is determined not to let grass grow under the feet of the USA.
The new Plastic Innovation Center will be based at the University of Delaware, which has a head start in the chemistry field thanks in part to a long running relationship with the firm DuPont.
That’s a good thing, because CPI has its work cut out for it.
“Worldwide, more than 350 million tons of plastics were produced in 2018 alone. Only 12% of this plastic waste is reused or recycled, according to an industry report. Current recycling strategies fall far short in recovering material that is as high in quality as the material you started with — a major hurdle the CPI will be working to overcome,” the University of Delaware explained in a press release last week.
See Full Article at Source: https://cleantechnica.com/2020/07/20/more-bad-news-for-oil-gas-plastic-recycling-targeted-by-university-of-delaware/
The insanity of plastic recycling
BY ALEX TRUELOVE, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 06/23/20 02:30 PM EDT
It has been said that insanity can be defined as “doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” Yet here we are, after decades of failures and broken promises, convinced that we’ll recycle our way out of the plastic pollution crisis.
This misguided approach was in full view on Wednesday, June 17, when the Senate Environment and Public Works committee gathered to discuss the topic of recycling, and, in particular, recycling plastic. Witnesses representing consumer brands and plastic initiatives promoted the same, tired narrative: With more time and more money, we can capture the mystical value of a material that has been discarded ever since it was created. We can recycle the non-recyclable.
Recycling as a concept is wonderful. It works for materials like glass and aluminum that retain value over time. Your glass bottle can be easily reused or re-molded into another glass bottle within days, ad infinitum.
Plastic, however, doesn’t retain value and therefore cannot participate in the same circular economy of infinite reuse. Most plastic items — bags, foam containers, straws and lids — are simply the beginning and end of the line. They have no aftermarket, nowhere to go. Best case, your plastic bottle is converted into a lower-value product, maybe a carpet, only to be replaced by another bottle made from virgin plastic. The carpet, of course, will eventually become trash after its value is exhausted. Best case, landfill. Worst case — ask a sea turtle, or any of the hundreds of marine creatures that have ingested or died from our plastic pollution.
See full article at source: https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/504091-the-insanity-of-plastic-recycling
'More masks than jellyfish': coronavirus waste ends up in ocean
A glut of discarded single-use masks and gloves is washing up on shorelines and littering the seabed
Conservationists have warned that the coronavirus pandemic could spark a surge in ocean pollution – adding to a glut of plastic waste that already threatens marine life – after finding disposable masks floating like jellyfish and waterlogged latex gloves scattered across seabeds.
The French non-profit Opération Mer Propre, whose activities include regularly picking up litter along the Côte d’Azur, began sounding the alarm late last month.
Divers had found what Joffrey Peltier of the organisation described as “Covid waste” – dozens of gloves, masks and bottles of hand sanitiser beneath the waves of the Mediterranean, mixed in with the usual litter of disposable cups and aluminium cans.
The quantities of masks and gloves found were far from enormous, said Peltier. But he worried that the discovery hinted at a new kind of pollution, one set to become ubiquitous after millions around the world turned to single-use plastics to combat the coronavirus. “It’s the promise of pollution to come if nothing is done,” said Peltier.
See full article at source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/08/more-masks-than-jellyfish-coronavirus-waste-ends-up-in-ocean
