plastic pollution

Degradable plastic polymer breaks down in sunlight and air

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via PNAS

Plastic trash chokes shorelines and oceans, in part because plastic polymers do not easily decompose. But a new kind of environmentally degradable plastic could help change that: It breaks down in about a week in sunlight and air, according to a recent study in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS). Chemical characterization using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and mass spectroscopy, among other techniques, revealed that the plastic decomposed rapidly in sunlight from a petroleum-based polymer into succinic acid, a naturally occurring nontoxic small molecule that doesn’t leave microplastic fragments in the environment.

Read the full story here: http://blog.pnas.org/2021/07/degradable-plastic-polymer-breaks-down-in-sunlight-and-air/

plastic scrap

‘Preventing more, picking up less.’ Proliferating plastic pollution sparks change in approach

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via Phys.org

As plastic pollution soars—filling waterways, air, soil and living things with the material—some in St. Louis are joining efforts to confront the crisis through new approaches.

Experts hope the shifting strategies—which include harnessing crowd-sourced data to learn more about what kind of waste accumulates and where—could result in better policy interventions and ultimately help spark widespread reevaluation of who shoulders the burden of plastic waste. That means potentially pushing greater responsibility toward producers, instead of leaning on consumers to constantly clean up the mess as disposable, single-use plastic proliferates.

Read the full story here: https://phys.org/news/2021-06-proliferating-plastic-pollution-approach.html

NGOs and Governments Push for World Treaty on Plastic Waste

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via The Maritime Executive

The push for a global coherent strategy to tackle ocean plastic pollution is gaining momentum amidst failure by some of the world’s biggest polluters to endorse a United Nations-led process to enact a treaty.

Following shortly after World Ocean Day, environmentalists, conservationists and some countries have renewed calls for a global treaty on plastic pollution. Their hope is that a treaty could help contain the growing menace of plastic waste, which is clogging oceans and having adverse impacts on the environment, marine life, human health and economic activity.

Read the full story here: https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/ngos-and-governments-push-for-world-treaty-on-plastic-waste

Eyesea enlists shipping industry help to track plastic pollution

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via Ship-Technology.com

Non-profit organisation Eyesea aims to track global pollution and maritime hazards in the form of a map with help from the shipping industry. The company recently completed testing its solution with two commercial vessels and has plans for more testing later this year. We spoke to Eyesea to find out more about the technology as well as how the app came to be.

About 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered in water meaning that protecting the oceans is paramount to the well-being of our planet. Meeting the demands of a growing population has led manufacturing companies to produce increasing numbers of products for consumers which ultimately results in more waste being produced and ending up as ocean pollution.

Read the full story here: https://www.ship-technology.com/features/eyesea-enlists-shipping-industry-help-to-track-plastic-pollution/

New tool highlights the world’s ocean pollution problem

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via The Denver Channel

We know pollution is a problem, and we know waste ends up in our waterways. But it’s hard to quantify exactly how much waste and where it’s coming from. A new, first-of-its-kind data tool aims to change that by letting us see how much plastic is being dumped, and what’s being done about it.

“A lot of the waste is generated on land and ultimately can end up in the oceans being brought through rain and wind and rivers and other forms of direct dumping that produces between 19 and 23 million metric tons of plastic waste entering our oceans and lakes and rivers every single year,” said Molly Morse, project scientist at UC Santa Barabara’s Benioff Ocean Initiative.

Read the full story here: https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/national/new-tool-highlights-the-worlds-ocean-pollution-problem

National Oceans Day And ‘The Plastic Pandemic.’ What Will You Do?

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via Forbes

The covid pandemic increased the amount of plastic used globally in our efforts to try to keep Covid-19 from spreading.

Plastic gloves, plastic bags instead of canvas shopping bags, plastic in face mask fibers, plastic face shields and even those syringes the medical professionals use to vaccinate us all. Plastic water bottles, more takeout food in Styrofoam containers, more plastic garbage bags as we cleaned more and took out the garbage more often, and don’t forget all that bubble wrap for all those online orders….Think about what plastic you used over the past 15 months, for example. Now multiply that times 320 million Americans or 7+ billion people worldwide.

Read the full story here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joanmichelson2/2021/06/09/national-oceans-day-and-the-plastic-pandemic-what-will-you-do/

Plastic waste in the sea mainly drifts near the coast

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via Science Daily

The pollution of the world’s oceans with plastic waste is one of the major environmental problems of our time. However, very little is known about how much plastic is distributed globally in the ocean. Models based on ocean currents have so far suggested that the plastic mainly collects in large ocean gyres. Now, researchers at the University of Bern have calculated the distribution of plastic waste on a global scale while taking into account the fact that plastic can get beached. In their study, which has just been published in the Environmental Research Letters scientific journal, they come to the conclusion that most of the plastic does not end up in the open sea. Far more of it than previously thought remains near the coast or ends up on beaches. “In all the scenarios we’ve calculated,” says Victor Onink, the study’s lead author, “about 80 percent of floating plastic waste drifts no more than 10 kilometers from the coast five years after it entered the ocean.”

Read the full story here: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210602130246.htm

The Coca-Cola Company And The Ocean Cleanup Join Forces To Clean Up 15 Of The World’s Most Polluting Rivers Of Plastic Waste

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via Forbes

The Coca Cola Company and The Ocean Clean-Up project have announced they will be collaborating on a ground-breaking partnership to clean up some of the world’s worst polluting rivers – and collect plastic waste which can be recycled to make new bottles.

The Ocean Clean-Up’s research shows that 1,000 rivers are responsible for nearly 80% of riverine plastic entering the world’s oceans, and their goal is to tackle them with their River Interceptor solution.

Read the full story here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/afdhelaziz/2021/06/02/the-coca-cola-company-and-the-ocean-cleanup-join-forces-to-clean-up-15-of-the-worlds-most-polluting-rivers-of-plastic-waste/

On Bonfires outside Bucharest, Waste from Western Europe

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via Balkan Insight

plastic scrap

Besides Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria have also become significant destinations for waste from Western Europe since China closed its doors. Much ends up being burned or buried, with dire consequences for the environment and public health.

On May 12, border officials in southern Romania stopped three trucks loaded with 59 tons of waste trying to enter from Bulgaria. The drivers’ paperwork did not entirely match the contents – steel, plastic and scrap metal – so the convoy was turned back.

Read the full story here: https://balkaninsight.com/2021/05/24/on-bonfires-outside-bucharest-waste-from-western-europe/

Pandemic mask mountain sets new recycling challenge

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via Phys.org.

Researchers in Australia want to transform single-use COVID masks into road material. In the United States, the protective gear is recycled into benches. And in France, they are reborn as floor carpets for cars.

plastic scrap

Used to curb the spread of COVID-19, masks are exacerbating another pandemic: plastic pollution.

Read the full story here: https://phys.org/news/2021-05-pandemic-mask-mountain-recycling.html