plastic pollution

Plastic waste forms huge, deadly masses in camel guts

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via Science News

Marcus Eriksen was studying plastic pollution in the Arabian Gulf when he met camel expert Ulrich Wernery. “[Ulrich] said, ‘You want to see plastic? Come with me.’ So we went deep into the desert,” Eriksen recalls. Before long, they spotted a camel skeleton and began to dig through sand and bones.

“We unearthed this mass of plastic, and I was just appalled. I couldn’t believe that — almost did not believe that — a mass as big as a medium-sized suitcase, all plastic bags, could be inside the rib cage of this [camel] carcass,” says Eriksen, an environmental scientist at the 5 Gyres Institute, a plastic pollution research and education organization in Santa Monica, Calif.

Read the full story here: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/camel-eating-plastic-trash-waste-deadly-masses

More than 1.56 billion face masks could end up polluting oceans: report

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via CTV

TORONTO — More than 1.56 billion face masks used in 2020 will make their way into our planet’s oceans, joining literal tonnes of other plastic pollution, according to an estimate by OceansAsia.

The Hong-Kong based marine conservation organization released a report on Monday that details one of the devastating side-effects of the COVID-19 pandemic: the increase in plastic use and disposal.

Read the full story here: https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/more-than-1-56-billion-face-masks-could-end-up-polluting-oceans-report-1.5221239

Java’s protective mangroves smothered by plastic waste

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via Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research

The mangrove forests on Java’s north coast are slowly suffocating in plastic waste. The plastic problem in northeast Asia is huge and a growing threat to the region’s mangroves; a natural ally against coastal erosion. Based on fieldwork published in Science of the Total Environment, NIOZ researcher Celine van Bijsterveldt shows that restoration of this green protection belt is impossible without better waste management.

Read the full story here: https://www.nioz.nl/en/news/javas-protective-mangroves-smothered-by-plastic-waste

Brewers are addressing the beer industry’s plastic dilemma

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via Marin Independent Journal

Early this year, a brewery in East Aurora, New York, began offering customers a free pint of beer for each plastic four-pack or six-pack can carrier that they returned, a reuse program aimed at reducing the volume of plastic that flows into our economy’s waste stream, the terrestrial environment and the ocean.

It was a good move for the beer industry. 42 North Brewing’s effort is focused specifically on the almost ubiquitous beverage carriers made by the company PakTech, and it will hopefully inspire other breweries to follow suit. After all, the United States and the European Union are huge contributors to the world’s plastic crisis, which poses an existential threat to marine wildlife.

Read the full story here: https://www.marinij.com/2020/11/24/brewers-are-addressing-the-beer-industrys-plastic-dilemma/

The Uneasy Afterlife of Our Dazzling Trash

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via The New York Times

Every day, for the past 14 years, Bruce Bennett has received packages filled with CDs. Sometimes a few at a time and sometimes in packs of hundreds, shiny old discs arrive at his CD Recycling Center of America in Salem, N.H., a 300-foot blue trailer tucked behind a commercial strip, to ascend to the CD afterlife.

The CD recycling process requires Mr. Bennett, 55, to store a truckload, or approximately 44,000 pounds, of CDs in a warehouse before the discs can be granulated into raw polycarbonate plastic, resulting in a white and clear powdery material that glints and resembles large snowflake crystals stuck together.

Read the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/07/style/the-uneasy-afterlife-of-our-dazzling-trash.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Style

Coronavirus is causing a flurry of plastic waste. Campaigners fear it may be permanent

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via CNN

Surgical masks, gloves, protective equipment, body bags — the Covid-19 crisis has spurred a rapid expansion in the production of desperately-needed plastic products, with governments racing to boost their stockpiles and regular citizens clamoring for their share of supplies.Related stories

Such production is necessary. But all that plastic ends up somewhere — and environmental campaigners fear it is just the tip of a looming iceberg, with the pandemic causing a number of serious challenges to their efforts to reduce plastic pollution.

Read the full story here: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/04/world/coronavirus-plastic-waste-pollution-intl/index.html

New enzyme cocktail digests plastic waste ‘six times faster’

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via Circular

The scientists who re-engineered the plastic-eating enzyme PETase have now created an enzyme ‘cocktail’ which can digest plastic up to six times faster.

A second enzyme, found in the same waste dwelling bacterium that lives on a diet of plastic bottles, has been combined with PETase to speed up the breakdown of plastic.

Read the full story here: https://www.circularonline.co.uk/news/new-enzyme-cocktail-digests-plastic-waste-six-times-faster/

Plastic trash flowing into the seas will nearly triple by 2040 without drastic action

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An ambitious plan, two years in the making, might have the solution.

via National Geographic

THE AMOUNT OF plastic trash that flows into the oceans every year is expected to nearly triple by 2040 to 29 million metric tons.

That single, incomprehensibly large statistic is at the center of a new two-year research project that both illuminates the failure of the worldwide campaign to curb plastic pollution and prescribes an ambitious plan for reducing much of that flow into the seas.

Read the full story here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/07/plastic-trash-in-seas-will-nearly-triple-by-2040-if-nothing-done/

Kauai Artists Collaborate With Nature For Marine Debris Projects

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via Honolulu Civil Beat

Ghost nets and plastic fragments are becoming collectibles as artists turn the trash into works of art.

Plastic bags and straws cause countless marine fatalities as their small size, shine and color are an irresistible lure to birds, fish, and turtles. But the most lethal plastic products in the North Pacific are the fishing nets and gear purpose-built to catch and kill marine wildlife. These nets, which can stretch 6 miles in length, comprise about half of the plastic garbage in the Patch. But on Kauai, fishing nets account for almost 90% of marine debris that washes in with the tides.

Artists sensitive to this disaster have started to look at ghost nets and fragments of plastic as raw material for their creativity. Only 10% of plastic on average is recycled. This leaves a tsunami of synthetic waste to pollute our most precious natural places and resources. They hope their work can bring focus to the problem.

Read the full story here: https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/08/kauai-artists-collaborate-with-nature-for-marine-debris-projects/

Upcycling plastic waste toward sustainable energy storage

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via UC Riverside News

Simple process transforms PET plastic into a nanomaterial for energy storage

What if you could solve two of Earth’s biggest problems in one stroke? UC Riverside engineers have developed a way to recycle plastic waste, such as soda or water bottles, into a nanomaterial useful for energy storage. 

Mihri and Cengiz Ozkan and their students have been working for years on creating improved energy storage materials from sustainable sources, such as glass bottles, beach sand, Silly Putty, and portabella mushrooms. Their latest success could reduce plastic pollution and hasten the transition to 100% clean energy.

Read the full story here: https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2020/08/11/upcycling-plastic-waste-toward-sustainable-energy-storage