naturalnews--2019-05-02--Are you part of the problem Plastic pollution and its negative side effects on wildlife

Are you part of the problem? Plastic pollution and its negative side effects on wildlife

(Natural News) A piece of plastic trash doesn’t have to be accidentally swallowed by an animal for it to harm the creature’s chances of survival. Plastic pollution has grown so prevalent that it is disrupting the courtship and mating rituals of water birds and wildlife. This could contribute to the further decline of endangered animals that are already struggling to replenish their diminishing numbers.  At the Ogston reservoir of Derbyshire in the U.K., a local photographer was snapping photos of a breeding pair of great crested grebes (Podiceps cristatus) engaged in a courtship dance. Normally, the birds would alternate in offering each other bits of plants that would be later used to build their nest.  The photographer, Mary Wilde, quickly realized that the yellowish object borne in the beak of one of the grebes was not a weed. Instead, it was a plastic sheet, which the bird soon dropped back down into the water.  “It’s usually a beautiful sight, the birds dive down to offer each other bits of weed and flick their heads back and forth,” Wilde said in an interview.”It dropped the plastic back down into the water afterwards.” (Related: Convenience for us KILLS them: U.K. study finds ALL of the dolphins, whales, and seals washed up on their shores have plastic in their guts.)  The great crested grebe is a migratory waterbird that is capable of flight but prefers to swim. It is usually found in lakes that are ringed by plenty of reeds. Its diet is mostly made up of fish as well as a number of aquatic invertebrates taken during the summer.  Support our mission and protect your health: Organic Seeds of Life combines Red Raspberry Seed Power, Black Cumin Seed Power and Red Grape Seed Powder into the most potent nutrient-rich supplemental superfood powder you've ever experienced. Loaded with flavonoids, antioxidants, anthocyanins, OPCs, ALA and a vast array of vital nutrients. Learn more here.  First recorded in Anglo-Saxon times (AD 410-1066), the bird is covered in thick waterproof feathers. The qualities of its skin nearly led to its extinction in the U.K., as humans hunted the grebes to make fancy hats and other fur-based articles of clothing.  Eventually, the bird species gained protected status and made a successful comeback. A 2013 census identified more than 4,600 breeding pairs during the summer, with more animals coming over during the winter.  This species of grebe is fairly famous for its complicated mating displays. Both the male and female birds shake their heads at each other before diving beneath the water in search of pretty-looking material that can impress their potential mates.  In the case of the Ogston grebe, it apparently came across a piece of plastic that had sunk to the bottom of the reservoir. The incident indicated that the artificial lake contained enough plastic trash that the chances of a bird coming up with a potentially deadly chunk of plastic was fairly common.  “Plastic pollution has been big news recently thanks to programmes such as BBC’s Blue Planet – but the problem is so close to home, not just in far-away oceans and this photo is a stark reminder of that,” explained Katie Helps of the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust. “In Derbyshire, plastic is clogging up our rivers and places that should be havens for wildlife.”  Helps went on to stress that everyone contributed to plastic pollution. By the same token, everyone could also help prevent plastic waste.  Plastic can physically break apart during its extremely long stay in the environment, but it does not decay. Large fragments could trap, injure, or even kill animals. Meanwhile, the smaller pieces could end up swallowed by animals that mistake the trash for food. The resulting microplastic contamination could go up the food chain until it reached humans.


naturalnews--2019-07-29--Will plastic pollution end the world Experts say its possible

Will plastic pollution end the world? Experts say it's possible

(Natural News) A team of 250 experts from around the world has named plastic pollution as one of the greatest threats to global health. Estimates suggest that eight million tons of plastic waste is dumped into the oceans every year. There is little doubt that the plastic revolution has changed the world –but as we are seeing now, change isn’t always for the better. The plastic so much of society has come to depend on is now strangling wildlife, slowly killing Earth’s oceans and silently destroying the planet.  In addition to the sheer volume of plastic waste — which is problematic in and of itself — there is the greater issue of what happens once the plastic enters the environment. Plastic doesn’t break down the way organic matter does. Some plastics can take up to 1,000 years to decompose — and during that lengthy decomposition time, plastic products can (and do) release toxic chemicals into the environment. This is bad news not just for the environment, but for all the living things in it — including humans.  One of the biggest threats to the health of humanity and the entire planet is plastic waste. Even the United Nations, a corrupt organization bent on global takeover, has been forced to recognize the growing problem of plastic. In the U.N.’s Sixth Global Environment Outlook, 25o top-tier scientists from 250 different nations joined forces to write up a 700-page report examining what threats currently face the world’s population.  As Daily Mail reports, plastic waste has been named one of the biggest threats facing planet Earth and its inhabitants. While the U.N. report may be focused on human health, if all that plastic waste is bad for us, you can bet its probably harmful to everything else living here, too.  100% organic essential oil sets now available for your home and personal care, including Rosemary, Oregano, Eucalyptus, Tea Tree, Clary Sage and more, all 100% organic and laboratory tested for safety. A multitude of uses, from stress reduction to topical first aid. See the complete listing here, and help support this news site.  The report cautions, “Marine plastic litter can result in a significant ecological impact from entanglement and ingestion, and can also act as a vector for the transport of invasive species and other pollutants.”  There are many reasons why plastic is a threat to humans. For one, plastics contain an array of known toxins, like BPA, pthalates and other harmful chemicals. These chemicals leach out of plastic and are absorbed into soil, food and water — and eventually, these toxins wind up accumulating in our bodies. Science shows plastic chemicals are capable of all kinds of harm. Even the supposedly safe “alternative” plastics, like BPA-free versions, typically contain chemicals that are still harmful to human health. From causing cancer to disrupting hormones and affecting brain development, the toxins found in everyday plastics are no joke.  The U.N.’s report names plastic waste as a major threat to human health, and there is a call for “urgent action” to address the eight million tons of plastic garbage that enters the oceans each year. So far, however, there has been no international consensus on how to mitigate plastic. The mountains of plastic waste overtaking the Earth and its oceans will soon be as insurmountable as the politics.  While the ruling elite may never come to an agreement on plastic, consumers can still take matters into their own hands. There are many ways you can reduce your plastic consumption while also increasing your sustainability and self-reliance. Replacing plastic water bottles with a reusable one is a great first step towards reducing the amount of plastic you use. You can also harvest your own rainwater to avoid the toxins typically found in tap water.  Switching out single-use plastic bags for reusable bags at the grocery store is another key way you can reduce your plastic consumption. When buying food storage containers, select alternative materials such as ceramic, glass or stainless steel instead of plastic. While reusing and recycling plastic is very important, reducing how much of it ends up in your home is also key to reducing your exposure to plastic toxins.  Learn more about sustainable living at Environ.news.


naturalnews--2019-11-17--Study: Plastic pollution is harming photosynthetic bacteria in the ocean that produce 10 percent of

Study: Plastic pollution is harming photosynthetic bacteria in the ocean that produce 10 percent of the oxygen we breathe

(Natural News) Marine microorganisms may also be threatened by plastic pollution in the ocean. Since one type of photosynthetic bacteria accounts for 10 percent of the oxygen production on Earth, we need to take steps to protect the microbes before we run out of breathable air.  Australian researchers issued a warning following their recently published study. They reported that toxic chemicals leaching out of plastic waste harmed the oxygen-producing bacteria Prochlorococcus.  Not only did the chemicals halt the photosynthetic activity of Prochlorococcus, but the toxins also hampered the bacteria’s growth.  In their experiment, the Macquarie University (Macquarie) team obtained pieces of PVC matting and a thin plastic carrier bag. They placed each type of plastic trash in separate containers with artificial seawater for five days.  Once the toxic chemicals had leached out of the plastic, the researchers exposed Prochlorococcus to the contaminated seawater. The bacteria altered their growth activity and activated stress-related genes to try and protect themselves from harm.  By 2050, experts predict that plastic trash will outnumber the fish in the ocean. The future prevalence of plastic pollution bodes ill for the marine bacteria that produce much of the oxygen that humans (and other land animals) need to live. (Related: Will plastic pollution end the world? Experts say it’s possible.)  Plastic pollution may harm photosynthetic bacteria that produce 10 percent of the world’s oxygen  “These tiny micro-organisms are critical to the marine food web, contribute to carbon cycling and are thought to be responsible for up to 10 per cent of the total global oxygen production,” explained Macquarie researcher Dr. Lisa Moore. “So one in every 10 breaths of oxygen you breathe in is thanks to these little guys, yet almost nothing is known about how marine bacteria, such as Prochlorococcus, respond to human pollutants.”  Support our mission to keep you informed: Discover the extraordinary benefits of turmeric gummy bears and organic "turmeric gold" liquid extract, both laboratory tested for heavy metals, microbiology and safety. Naturally high in potent curcuminoids. Delicious formulations. All purchases support this website (as well as your good health). See availability here.  Her Macquarie colleague, Dr. Sasha Tetum, served as the lead author of the study. He explained that plastic pollution might affect the ocean ecosystem in other ways than the much-publicized effects on seabirds, turtles, and other large organisms.  Most studies on ocean pollution and plastic trash have covered marine organisms. Either the animals ate the pollutants by mistake or got entangled in the drifting products.  However, plastic garbage also affected the microorganisms in the oceanic ecosystem.  Prochlorococcus is a species of cyanobacteria. Similar microbes might have made Earth a livable place for complex animals and humans.  Ancient cyanobacteria took sunlight and used the energy to power photosynthesis. They broke down water into hydrogen and oxygen, and the latter gas molecule eventually filled the atmosphere.  The toxic chemicals that leach from plastic trash  The Macquarie researchers obtained samples of two Prochlorococcus strains that lived at different depths of the ocean. They exposed the bacterial cells to the artificial seawater with toxic chemicals from either disposable plastic bags or PVC.  The results showed that PVC inflicted the worst harm on the cyanobacteria. In 24 hours, the leached chemicals completely stopped one of the Prochlorococcus strains from producing any oxygen. In comparison, the toxic chemicals from the grey plastic bags began reducing the oxygen-producing ability of both cyanobacteria strains following 24 hours of exposure.  Further, the leached chemicals from both plastic trash hampered Prochlorococcus from developing correctly. The cyanobacteria failed to photosynthesize efficiently.  Even worse, the Prochlorococcus cells displayed signs of altered gene activity in response to exposure to toxic chemicals.  Moore, Tetum, and their colleagues noted that PVC contains plasticizers, synthetic compounds that increase its flexibility. It also uses other chemicals that ensure it remains clean and control its temperature to prevent any damage. These harsh substances may account for PVC’s toxic effects on Prochlorococcus.  “Now we’d like to explore if plastic pollution is having the same impact on these microbes in the ocean,” commented Tetu.


newsweek--2019-01-03--Plastic Pollution Floating Parks Made From Recycled Material Could Help Tackle Waste Crisis

Plastic Pollution: Floating Parks Made From Recycled Material Could Help Tackle Waste Crisis

The equivalent of one truck of plastic waste is dumped into the ocean every minute, but what if it could be caught and removed before it drifted out to sea? One such solution, called the Recycled Park Project, is being floated in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Developed over the last five years, the idea is turning plastic waste into islands.  The Recycled Island Foundation and the WHIM Architecture firm launched the Recycled Park Project in 2014 with the aim of catching plastic waste in Rotterdam’s New Meuse river before it enters the North Sea. Three floating litter traps with nets attached collect litter in the water while volunteers sweep the riverbank.  The retrieved plastic is converted into hexagonal building blocks which have been used to build a floating island park in the river itself. The park is open to the community and filled with plants and benches, giving people a new green habitat to enjoy in the heart of the city.  A 140 square meter prototype was opened to the public in July 2018. It’s hoped that five more plastic litter traps can be added to the river, creating an island of at least 190 square metres. If successful, similar islands could be built worldwide, with research ongoing in Indonesia.  The River Meuse carries a huge amount of plastic waste which is exposed after high tide on the river banks. By removing plastic from the river, the more costly and difficult job of removing it from the North Sea is avoided.  Despite the obvious benefits, however, retrieving plastic waste from the river is technically illegal. Waste in the New Meuse River still legally belongs to whoever discarded it, as EU law states that waste may not be abandoned and littering is a form of abandonment. So, the taking and using of this waste in theory amounts to stealing from its most recent owner.  But since there’s no way of identifying to whom the litter belongs and with no way of identifying ownership, it’s socially acceptable for anyone to take and use plastic waste in rivers.  In order to encourage more reuse and recycling, we need to start treating waste as our communal property. A communal approach would encourage a sense of responsibility for waste and ensure that the community reaps the benefits of any solution, such as a floating park.  So how would communal approaches work in practice? There would need to be a clear stage at which waste becomes communal property. This could be, for example, by making contents in specific bins free for people to take and use. For households in the UK, the contents of a bin belongs to the householder until it is removed by the local authority.  It’s not free for others to take and use it, either before, during or after collection, including by the employees of the waste management services. In one legal case, waste management workers for a corporation were convicted of stealing goods from bins collected in the course of their duties. Once waste is collected, it becomes the property of the local authority responsible for managing the waste.  Communal bins would provide an additional benefit if combined with rules that require the contents to stay within the community. Local dumps already exist, but much of this waste is currently being taken elsewhere for landfill or exported to other countries.  If at least some waste were to stay permanently in the communities in which it’s created, people would be faced by the vast amounts of waste they produce and could see the benefits of producing less of it.  The current system of privatizing waste is failing to curb the pollution crisis, but with a communal approach, people would have the right to launch creative solutions of their own. We need the freedom to imagine different ways of living with the plastic our modern world accumulates.  This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.


prisonplanet--2019-09-13--Earthworms are SHRINKING because of underground microplastic pollution which irritates their guts an

Earthworms are SHRINKING because of underground microplastic pollution which irritates their guts and stunts their growth, study reveals

Earthworms are getting smaller because they’re digesting microplastics from the soil and struggling to grow, according to research.  The list of ways plastic pollution is damaging our health and natural environment is seemingly endless, and a new study study has added another facet to the issue.  And sickly worms could have knock-on effects on the ecosystem in general because they play a crucial role in maintaining soil and other animals.  The damage could even extend to humans, experts say, having a ‘serious impact’ on mankind by changing our environment.  Chemicals in plastic from carrier bags, microbeads in cosmetics and synthetic fibres from clothing can irritate the creatures’ digestive systems.  They may cause damage to their gut and make it more difficult to absorb nutrients or eat properly, which can stunt their growth or make them lose weight.  Or plastics can physically clog up their bodies to make it harder for them to eat at all, researchers from Anglia Ruskin University said.  In lab experiments, rosy-tipped earthworms (Aporrectodea rosea) which were exposed to polyethylene lost an average of 3.1 per cent of their body weight in just 30 days.  This article was posted: Friday, September 13, 2019 at 4:35 am


thedailyrecord--2019-02-16--How dog walkers can play their part in fighting back against plastic pollution

Dog walkers in Kilmarnock and the Irvine Valley are being asked to play their part in the fight against plastic pollution.  Paws on Plastic is a campaign group which encourages dog owners to pick up two pieces of plastic litter on their daily walks.  Campaigner Marion Montgomery, originally from Ayr, founded the group in November in Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire.  It has quickly attracted interest around the UK and already has almost 2000 members on Facebook and Twitter.  Marion told the Kilmarnock Standard: “The strength of Paws on Plastic is its simplicity.  “Dog owners are already out there walking their dogs every day.  “We see the litter, we have a spare bag in our pocket and it just takes a second to pick up a couple of pieces.  “No extra time or effort is required yet if we all do our own wee bit, with over 1000 of us that’s over 2000 pieces a day – although, as you will see from posts on Facebook, most people pick up more than two pieces each as it is rather addictive.”  At a time where plastic pollution is a significant talking point and with around nine million dogs in the UK, the impact could be massive if everyone did their bit.  Plastic pollution has been making headlines for months as programmes like the BBC’s ‘Blue Planet II’ and new research draw attention to the horrifying extent of the problem.  The sheer volume of plastic pollution is highlighted by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s finding that there will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050 if we carry on as we are.  The impacts of plastic pollution range from rubbish on our beaches and direct harm to birds and other wildlife, to destroying the image of our countryside and natural parks, to the less-understood long-term impacts on habitats, food chains and human health.  The instructions of Paws on Plastic are simple – members pick items up using a spare poo bag and take them home, saving the bag to use again.  They then post a photo of their dog on the Paws on Plastic Facebook page to celebrate their efforts.  The campaign is supported by Keep Scotland Beautiful, Keep Britain Tidy, Surfers Against Sewage, Forestry Commission Scotland and the National Trust for Scotland, among others. To join in look for Paws on Plastic on Facebook or Twitter.  Paws on Plastic follows the plogging movement, which hit our shores from Scandinavia at the beginning of last year. Plogging involves joggers lifting litter while on their running routes. For details see Plogging Scotland on Facebook.


thedailyrecord--2019-03-30--Campaigners call for plastic pollution crackdown in East Kilbride

East Kilbride politicians and campaigners have called for a plastic pollution crackdown in the town.  The calls come with an increase in fly-tipping in the East Kilbride and surrounding areas over the past months.  Local green campaigner Kirsten Robb felt that more could be done to keep the wildlife in the town protected for the next generation.  She told the East Kilbride News: “Plastic pollution messes up our streets and can be a danger to people and wildlife.  “But it can be tackled as shown by the plastic bag tax which has led to a great reduction.  “We can all do more ourselves to reduce our use of plastics but a similar tax on throw away plastics would cut litter and reduce the amount of resources, particularly oil, wasted in making these single use items.  “As a society we need action to move away from plastic products that are made from climate busting fossil fuels and invest more in initiatives to reduce, repair, re-use and recycle items.  “With Cosla advising that the Scottish Government will not meet its waste targets, such action on waste needs to be sped up.”  East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow MP Dr Lisa Cameron also backed green campaigners as she supported the Plastic Ocean Foundation’s campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of plastic use.  The foundation hosted an event at Westminster to further raise awareness and encourage sustainable practices, which was backed by Dr Cameron.  She said: “The foundation has recently released a documentary film, ‘A Plastic Ocean’, that has been displayed in schools, workplaces, and parliaments in 60 countries and has been viewed by millions.  “Through the film, we are learning about the serious danger our plastic use poses for the ocean.  “Since the Plastic Oceans Foundation acknowledges that plastic has been a vital development allowing for life-saving medical and technological innovations, they seek a creative approach to changing how we live with plastic.  “They seek to reduce wasteful single-use plastic and improve approaches for reusing and recycling plastics. Ultimately, their vision is to stop plastic pollution reaching the ocean within a generation.  “I am supporting their cause to ensure a more sustainable future for the next generation.”


theguardianuk--2019-03-15--US accused of blocking ambitious global action against plastic pollution

Environmental groups involved in talks at a United Nations conference in Kenya have accused the US of blocking an ambitious global response to plastic pollution.  Representatives of countries at the UN environment conference in Nairobi this week agreed to significantly reduce single-use plastics over the next decade but the voluntary pledges fell far short of what was required, according to green groups.  Norway, Japan and Sri Lanka had put forward proposals for a legally binding agreement for nations to coordinate action against plastic litter in the oceans and microplastics. India also suggested strong action with a resolution to phase out single-use plastic across the world.  But a coalition of environmental groups at the conference condemned the US for blocking the ambitious attempts to tackle plastic pollution at source as well as downstream.  An initial ministerial statement at the beginning of the event had proposed a commitment to “phase out single-use plastics ... by 2025”, a far stronger promise than the compromise nations reached.  On Friday, a series of non-binding proposals were agreed, including the adoption of an action plan by the International Maritime Organization’s marine environment protection committee to reduce plastic litter from ships, and suggestions for better global management of data on plastic pollution. A final statement said countries would “address the damage to our ecosystems caused by the unsustainable use and disposal of plastic products, including by significantly reducing single-use plastic by 2030”.  In response, environmental groups including Break Free From Plastic, IPEN, Plastic Change, No Waste Louisiana and Coare said the proposals did not go far enough.  “Despite sweeping agreement by the majority of countries that urgent, ambitious and global action is needed to address plastic across its lifecycle, from production to use to disposal, a small minority led by the United States blocked ambitious text and delayed negotiations,” they said in a statement.  Countries most affected by plastic pollution including the Philippines, Malaysia and Senegal were against the resolution being watered down.  Large oil firms in the US are investing billions of dollars in petrochemical production over the next decade, particularly shale gas.  The new facilities, which are being built by ExxonMobile Chemical and Shell Chemical, among others, will help fuel a 40% rise in plastic production in the next decade, according to industry experts.  The world already produces more than 300m tonnes of plastic a year.  “It’s hard to find one solution for all member states,” Siim Kiisler, the president of the UN environment assembly, told Agence France-Presse before the final decision. “The environment is at a turning point. We don’t need verbose documents, we need concrete commitments.”  When asked whether the US had pushed to have the commitments watered down during the week’s negotiations, Kiisler said: “I will not answer that question.”  David Azoulay, from the Center for International Environmental Law, condemned the weakening of the commitment.  He said: “The vast majority of countries came together to develop a vision for the future of global plastic governance. Seeing the US, guided by the interests of the fracking and petrochemical industry, leading efforts to sabotage that vision is disheartening.”


theguardianuk--2019-03-21--Plastic pollution can the ocean really be cleaned up

Plastic pollution: can the ocean really be cleaned up?

Somewhere in Hilo, on Hawaii’s Big Island, a team of scientists and engineers are tending to The Ocean Cleanup’s 600-metre-long rubbish-herding device, after its maiden voyage to the Great Pacific garbage patch was cut short in December 2018, because it fractured into two pieces.  The project has had its fair share of problems since it was unveiled in May 2017 and has been criticised by marine scientists and environmental groups for its potential negative environmental impact. However, some still herald The Ocean Cleanup for having a positive effect on plastic pollution.  Pete Ceglinski, the Australian co-founder and chief executive of the Seabin Project – plastic-cleaning devices deployed in harbours and marinas – is one. He credits Boyan Slat, the inventor behind The Ocean Cleanup, with increasing the global awareness of the ocean plastics issue over the past six years.  But marine biologist Dr Jennifer Lavers from the University of Tasmania says that argument is also the project’s downfall. “I think that’s really dangerous,” Lavers says. “It gives people a false sense of hope that this team of people have got [plastic pollution] covered, and that we just need to throw some money at the problem.”  Plastic pollution is a devastating problem for the world’s oceans and marine life. According to the UN, about 8m tonnes of plastic waste is dumped in the seas annually. It has been discovered at the deepest point of ocean, in Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean, and in Australia, CSIRO scientists found microplastics in the sediment of the Great Australian Bight. Last year Guardian Australia reported that scientists now believe “plastic is literally everywhere.”  So the idea of attempting to “clean up” the ocean is a quixotic one. Can these projects really make a difference?  The answer is yes, but not as expected.  Smaller technical solutions can make an impact in a localised area. Two rubbish-sucking Seabins were recently installed in Sydney’s Darling Harbour. The devices suck in water, trapping rubbish in a mesh bag, and recirculate the water back into the environment. There are 450 Seabins in 26 countries around the world, in 60 harbours throughout the US, Europe, and now the Asia-Pacific, collecting on average around 4kg of marine litter a day – or about 1.4 tonnes a year, according to Ceglinski.  Another local installation, known as Mr Trash Wheel, is making a difference in Baltimore’s Inner Harbour, on the US’s north-east coast. As the wheel turns, it collects litter from the harbour and stores it in a barge for later removal. “It’s such a great idea,” says Lavers. “If we could get something like that in major cities that have suitable harbours, it would be transformational.”  Lavers, who has been studying ocean plastics for the past 15 years, says these are good examples of small-scale cleanups that can have a local impact.  However, she warns that can’t be extrapolated to the open ocean or the global plastic crisis. “We can’t technology our way out of this,” she says. “What we really need is policy change, and behavioural change, and that’s just starting to happen.”  “Things have changed rapidly in the last 12 to 18 months, it’s been really encouraging. We have the EU announcing enormous bans on single use plastics and microplastics – that’s the bold, meaningful change we need.”  Hobart city council recently announced it would ban single use plastics by 2020, while Launceston city council has pledged to do the same. The South Australian government is considering how to tackle single-use plastics and sought public comment on the issue earlier this year.  The Department of the Environment and Energy recently conducted an assessment of the voluntary phase-out of microbeads - and found it to be on track. Its Threat Abatement Plan for the impacts of marine debris on the vertebrate wildlife of Australia’s coasts and oceans was also updated. And while Woolworths and Coles were banning single-use plastic bags nationwide, fast-food giants McDonald’s committed to phasing out plastic straws in their Australian stores.  What those cleanup projects such as The Ocean Clean Up, Seabins and the Baltimore Water Wheel are good at is increasing awareness of the plastic problem. Says Ceglinski:“The real goal is to stop plastics from entering the water in the first place. And we can do that using the Seabin as a powerful communication tool.  He adds: “We don’t want people to be okay with throwing plastic in the water because the Seabin will pick it up for them. This was one of the main reasons we set out to attack it from an educational point of view – because it all boils back down to education.”  So, like Seabins quietly sucking away in harbours, community and individual cleanup action plays a role too. When you add up the numbers, at least in Australia – the potential impact of picking up rubbish on beaches is huge. “There’s around 50,000 volunteers across Australia who participate regularly in beach cleanups”, says Lavers.  “One single plastic bottle removed from a beach prevents it from making its way back into the ocean where it will eventually fragment into tens of thousands of micro- and nano-plastic particles. So there’s value in getting bigger items off the beach while we still can, because once they become tiny fragments in the marine environment, we have little to no hope of ever retrieving them, at least not with current technology.”  In Australia, Tangaroa Blue is one of the main groups that organises regular cleanups, along with Clean Up Australia, Seaside Scavenge, environmental conservation groups such as Sea Shepherd, while Ocean Conservancy organises global beach cleanups.  Heidi Taylor, co-founder and managing director of Tangaroa Blue Foundation, says cleanups must go hand in hand with reducing plastic consumption. “If all we do is clean up, then that’s all we’ll ever do. We have to stop debris and plastic ending up in the environment in the first place through source reduction.”  The data collected from beach cleanups give groups such as Tangaroa Blue the power to hold industry and producers accountable for their role in the plastic problem. “The cleanup is how we collect evidence,” says Taylor. “Volunteers don’t just pick up and count rubbish, they also record brands and barcodes – data which can be used to target the sources.”  Taylor noticed a difference in the beach cleanup data, after the single-use plastic bags ban came into force. “We’re just seeing more thicker bags, and now we know where they’re coming from because they’re branded, whereas before they were all grey. ”  On 4 March, the Australian Marine Debris Initiative (AMDI) ticked over 13 million data points – each representing an item of marine debris picked up from an Australian beach with its details logged by a volunteer.  Lavers is using the AMDI data to determine whether the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (Marpol) – which prevents the dumping of plastic and other waste from ships – has been effective since its ratification in 2013. “Asking this question is only possible because of Tangaroa Blue and other contributors to the AMDI. There’s no way we can write off beach cleanups as some small, meaningless contribution to the global plastic pollution problem.”


theguardianuk--2019-04-04--Marine plastic pollution costs the world up to 25bn a year researchers find

Marine plastic pollution costs the world up to $2.5bn a year, researchers find

Plastic pollution in the world’s oceans costs society billions of dollars every year in damaged and lost resources, research has found.  Fisheries, aquaculture, recreational activities and global wellbeing are all negatively affected by plastic pollution, with an estimated 1-5% decline in the benefit humans derive from oceans. The resulting cost in such benefits, known as marine ecosystem value, is up to $2.5bn (£1.9bn) a year, according to a study published this week in Marine Pollution Bulletin.  Plastic waste is also believed to cost up to $33,000 per ton in reduced environmental value, the study found. An estimated 8m tons of plastic pollution enter the world’s oceans every year.  Dr Nicola Beaumont, an environmental economist at Plymouth Marine Laboratory, who led the study, said the investigation was the first of its kind to explore the social and economic impact of plastics in the sea.  “Our calculations are a first stab at ‘putting a price on plastic’. We know we have to do more research to refine, but we are convinced that already they are an underestimate of the real costs to global human society,” said Beaumont.  The estimates do not take into account the direct and indirect impacts on the tourism, transport and fisheries industries, or on human health, the authors warned.  Plastic waste can be found all over the world – from the most populated coastlines to the most remote – and its impact on zooplankton, invertebrates, fish, turtles, birds and mammals is all negative, the study found. But authors discovered that plastics – which can remain buoyant for decades or longer, travelling distances of more than 3,000km from origin – create new habitats for bacteria and algae. These “colonies” increase the biogeographical range of bacteria and algae, thereby risking the spread of invasive species and disease, the research found.  Dr Kayleigh Wyles, an environmental psychology lecturer at the University of Surrey, said the research was the first to show the “holistic” impact of plastic pollution.  “As well as the devastating effect plastics have on our ecological and marine systems, they also directly and indirectly impact society,” she said.  “Quantifying the enormous tangible and intangible costs associated with marine plastic waste can only help to make the case for devoting our attention and resources now to protecting the seas for future generations to enjoy.”  Beaumont said she too hoped the study would streamline services to address plastic pollution and “help us make informed decisions”.  “Recycling a ton of plastic costs us hundreds against the costs of thousands if we let it into the marine environment,” she said.  “We now trade carbon to reduce emissions to the atmosphere, so we should be able to do something similar with plastics. We hope this study will highlight the reality of the plastic problem in human terms.”


theguardianuk--2019-12-05--Plastic pollution kills half a million hermit crabs on remote islands

More than half a million hermit crabs have been killed after becoming trapped in plastic debris on two remote island groups, prompting concern that the deaths could be part of a global species decline.  The pioneering study found that 508,000 crabs died on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands archipelago in the Indian Ocean, along with 61,000 on Henderson Island in the South Pacific. Previous studies have found high levels of plastic pollution at both sites.  Researchers from the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (Imas) at the University of Tasmania, the Natural History Museum in London, and the community science organisation the Two Hands Project, found one to two crabs per metre squared of beach were being killed by litter.  They surveyed sites across four Cocos Islands and Henderson for open plastic containers, with the opening sloped upwards in a way that would prevent the crab from leaving, and counted the number of entrapped crabs in each. They then extrapolated their results across another 15 islands in the Cocos archipelago.  The problem is exacerbated as hermit crabs use the odour of recently deceased crabs to track down newly available shells, leading to multiple crabs becoming trapped in the same area – in one instance, 526 crabs were found in a single plastic container.  Dr Alex Bond, a senior curator at the Natural History Museum and one of the report’s researchers, said: “The problem is quite insidious really, because it only takes one crab.  “Hermit crabs do not have a shell of their own, which means that when one of their compatriots die, they emit a chemical signal that basically says there’s a shell available, attracting more crabs … essentially it is this gruesome chain reaction.”  Hermit crabs are an important part of tropical environments as they disperse seeds and aerate and fertilise soil, so their decline could have a significant impact on surrounding ecosystems.  The Cocos Islands and Henderson Island are highly polluted, with 414m and 38m pieces of debris respectively, found on their beaches and in nearby vegetation.  Bond said the potential for plastics to cause damage on land was under-acknowledged: “In the ocean, it entangles and is ingested by wildlife; on land it acts as a trap, as we’ve seen, but can also be a physical barrier to species moving along the ground.”  The Imas researcher Dr Jennifer Lavers, who led the study, said: “These results are shocking but perhaps not surprising, because beaches and the vegetation that fringes them are frequented by a wide range of wildlife.  “It is inevitable that these creatures will interact with and be affected by plastic pollution, although ours is one of the first studies to provide quantitative data on such impacts.”  The research team say their findings show the need for an urgent investigation into the death rate of hermit crabs worldwide.


theguardianuk--2019-12-27--Revealed: microplastic pollution is raining down on city dwellers

Microplastic pollution is raining down on city dwellers, with research revealing that London has the highest levels yet recorded.  The health impacts of breathing or consuming the tiny plastic particles are unknown, and experts say urgent research is needed to assess the risks.  Only four cities have been assessed to date but all had microplastic pollution in the air. Scientists believe every city will be contaminated, as sources of microplastic such as clothing and packaging are found everywhere.  Recent research shows the whole planet appears to be contaminated with microplastic pollution. Scientists have found the particles everywhere they look, from Arctic snow and mountain soils, to many rivers and the deepest oceans. Other work indicates particles can be blown across the world.  The level of microplastic discovered in the London air surprised scientists. “We found a high abundance of microplastics, much higher than what has previously been reported,” said Stephanie Wrightfrom Kings College London, who led the research. “But any city around the world is going to be somewhat similar.”  “I find it of concern – that is why I am working on it,” she said. “The biggest concern is we don’t really know much at all. I want to find out if it is safe or not.”  About 335m tonnes of new plastic is produced each year and much leaks into the environment. The research, published in the journal Environment International, collected the microplastics falling onto the roof of a nine-storey building in central London. This ensured that only microplastic from the atmosphere was collected.  They were found in all eight samples, with deposition rates ranging from 575 to 1,008 pieces per sq metre per day, and 15 different plastics were identified. Most microplastics were fibres made of acrylic, most likely from clothing. Just 8% of the microplastics were particles, and these were mostly polystyrene and polyethylene, both commonly used in food packaging.  The rate of microplastic deposition measured in London is 20 times higher than in Dongguan, China, seven times higher than in Paris, France and nearly three times higher than Hamburg, Germany. The researchers do not know the reason for the variation, but differences in experimental methods are likely to be partly responsible.  The microplastic particles in London were between 0.02mm and 0.5mm. These are large enough to be deposited on to the airways when inhaled and would be swallowed in saliva. Smaller particles that can get into the lungs and bloodstream represent the greatest potential health hazard. These were seen in the samples but their composition could not be identified with current technology.  The serious health damage caused by the pollution particles emitted by traffic and industry are well known. A comprehensive global review earlier in 2019 concluded that air pollution may be damaging every organ and virtually every cell in the human body.  But the potential health impacts of inhaling plastic particles from the air, or consuming them via food and water, are unknown. People eat at least 50,000 microplastic particles per year, according to one study.  Plastics can carry toxic chemicals and harbour harmful microbes, and the limited research done to date has shown harm to some marine creatures. The only assessment of microplastic in human lungs, published in 1998, found inhaled fibres were present in cancerous lung specimens.  “These studies showing just how much plastic is in the air are a wake-up call,” said Steve Allen, at the EcoLab research institute near Toulouse, France, and whose own work has shown microplastic air pollution in remote mountain areas. “The [London research] is a very well done study showing incredibly high numbers of airborne microplastics.  “Currently we have very little knowledge on what effect this airborne pollution will have on humans,” he said. “But with what we do know it is pretty scary to think we are breathing it in. We need urgent research.”  Johnny Gasperi, at the Université Paris-Est, said the research shows a widespread contamination of the air by microplastics. He said the London study showed that microplastic deposition did not depend on the strength or direction of the wind, suggesting the city itself was the most likely source.  Melanie Bergmann, at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, said more research on the potential health effects of microplastic pollution was very important. “We do not currently know what proportion of inhaled microplastics actually penetrates the deep lung,” she said.  The European commission’s chief scientific advisers said in a report in April: “The evidence [on the environmental and health risks of microplastics] provides grounds for genuine concern and for precaution to be exercised.”  Microplastics are also found in drinking water and in August an assessment by the World Health Organization found no evidence to date of harm but said more research was needed.  Cutting microplastic pollution requires changing how plastic is used and disposed of, said Wright: “You can’t clean it up, so it is about stopping it at source.” Allen said: “This is not a problem that is going to go away anytime soon.”


theindependent--2019-02-16--Fabrics made from squid-based material could cut ocean plastic pollution

New fabrics based on substances found on squid tentacles could replace the materials currently shedding vast quantities of plastic into the world’s oceans.  One day these squid-based substances could be use to make smart fabrics that sense their surroundings and even repair themselves.  As they can break down in the environment without causing harm, scientists also hope these laboratory-grown materials can help cut marine pollution.  Synthetic textiles like polyester are durable replacements for natural fabrics like wool and cotton, but they also contribute to the trillions of microplastics filling the world’s oceans.  Concern has been growing about this form of pollution, which is known to be consumed by underwater wildlife with potentially harmful health effects.  These tiny shards of plastic come from many sources, but by far the most abundant variety is thought to be microfibres, which are produced in their thousands every time a piece of clothing is machine washed.  To tackle this problem, Dr Melik Demirel has been leading a project at Pennsylvania State University growing new fibres in large fermentation tanks using the same substances that make up natural materials.  “We are developing different types of protein-based fibres, similar to silk and wool and so on,” said Dr Demirel.  “The problem with synthetics is that they don’t adapt to the natural cycle, so they are not degradable,” he added.  “You need to come up with something that works with the cycles of nature, and the logical answer is to use the same building blocks as nature.”  Among these building blocks are proteins normally found in the suction cups of squid tentacles, which can be grown in genetically modified bacteria and turned into fibres.  If these “biosynthetic” materials were to shed fibres during the washing process, they would naturally break down in the water system with no harmful effects for wildlife.  Dr Demirel presented his work so far as part of a panel exploring solutions to the microplastic crisis at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting.  Besides replacing plastic-based materials, he said he hoped to develop materials that can be used instead of fibres like cotton, which despite being natural can come with an enormous water and carbon footprint.  In a process similar to the creation of beer or yogurt, his “biosynthetic” fibres are created in fermentation tanks using bacteria and substances like corn syrup as the starting materials.  The next step is to scale this process up so that it can compete with the millions of tonnes of cotton and other textiles produced every year.  “We can make kilograms but we cannot make tonnes yet,” said Dr Demirel.  We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.  At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads.


theindependent--2019-05-14--Plastic pollution harms bacteria that produce 10 per cent of oxygen we breathe study reveals

Plastic pollution harms bacteria that produce 10 per cent of oxygen we breathe, study reveals

Plastic pollution harms bacteria in the ocean that produce 10 per cent of oxygen we breathe, new research has revealed.  Chemicals leached from plastic interfere with the growth of prochlorococcus, the ocean’s most abundant photosynethic bacteria and a critical part of the marine food web.  “This study revealed a new and unanticipated danger of plastic pollution,” co-author of the paper Lisa Moore from Macquarie University told The Independent.  People are aware about animals ingesting plastic but virtually nothing is known about how it affects life-giving bacteria at the base of the marine food chain.  This is the first study to look at how plastic affects prochlorococcus, which has a global population of three octillion individuals.  “These tiny microorganisms are critical to the marine food web, contribute to carbon cycling and are thought to be responsible for up to 10 per cent of the total global oxygen production”, said lead author and Macquarie University researcher Dr Sasha Tetu.  “So one in every 10 breaths of oxygen you breathe in is thanks to these little guys, yet almost nothing is known about how marine bacteria, such as prochlorococcus, respond to human pollutants.”  In laboratory experiments, researchers exposed two strains of prochlorococcus to chemicals leached from two common plastic products – grey plastic grocery bags and PVC matting.  Exposure to these chemicals impaired their function and altered the expression of a large number of genes, according to the paper published in Communications Biology.  “Our data shows that plastic pollution may have widespread ecosystem impacts beyond the known effects on macroorganisms, such as seabirds and turtles,” said Dr Tetu.  “If we truly want to understand the full impact of plastic pollution in the marine environment and find ways to mitigate it, we need to consider its impact on key microbial groups, including photosynthetic microbes.”  Plastic pollution already causes more than £10bn ($13bn) in economic damage to marine systems each year. The problem is only getting worse, with marine plastic set to outweigh fish by 2050.  “If management of plastic waste is left unattended, prochlorococcus populations could decrease in some locations, which could affect the other organisms that depend on prochlorococcus for food,” Dr Moore said.  “It is possible that some prochlorococcus are already affected when in close proximity to plastics.  “However, it would be decades before enough plastics build up in the oceans to affect prochlorococcus populations on a global scale.”  Conducting tests in the field is the next step for this research, said the authors of the study.


theindependent--2019-09-05--From the Stone Age to the Plastic Age Pollution in fossil record gives scientists name for modern e

From the Stone Age to the Plastic Age: Pollution in fossil record gives scientists name for modern era

Plastic pollution is now in the fossil record – a discovery that may mean this period of time becomes known as the plastic age, scientists say.  Deposits of plastic have increased exponentially since the end of the Second World War, doubling around every 15 years, the researchers said after combing through 200 years of sediment in California’s Santa Barbara Basin.  “We all learn in school about the stone age, the bronze age and iron age – is this going to be known as the plastic age?” asked lead author Jennifer Brandon from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. “It is a scary thing that this is what our generations will be remembered for.”  Most plastics were invented in the 1920s but it was not until after the Second World War that they were used widely. Scientists found microplastics – most of which were from clothing fibres – in reasonable quantities in all layers of the core after 1945.  “Our love of plastic is actually being left behind in our fossil record,” Dr Brandon told The Guardian. ”This study shows that our plastic production is being almost perfectly copied in our sedimentary record.”  Scientists found that by 2010, people were depositing 10 times as much plastic in the basin as they were before  the Second World War. The postwar period also showed an increase in the diversity of plastics – including plastic bag materials and plastic particles as well as fibres.  The study, published in Science Advances, is the first to look at the accumulation of plastic in one location. Researchers chose to study Santa Barbara Basin because the waters are still and there is a near total absence of oxygen, helping to preserve sedimentary layers.  Each 5mm of sediment translates to two years of history and scientists were able to sample sediments dated back to 1843.  Previous research by Scripps found microplastics at depths of up to 1,000m (3,300ft) off Monterey in California. In April, an explorer visited the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean – the deepest natural trench in the world – and found plastic bags.  Scientists estimate that between 4.8 and 12.7 million metric tons of plastic waste enter the ocean every year.  “Our results demonstrate that such an increase is now detectable not only in surface ocean water but also in a benthic ecosystem [the lowest level of a body of water], as recorded in the sedimentary record,” researchers wrote in the paper.  Scientists say they “predict that this growing rate of plastic deposition will continue to increase in the future, barring marked changes in policy or waste management”.  Earlier this year, scientists from the Marine Biological Association and the University of Plymouth found there had been a “significant increase” in larger plastic items found in the ocean from 1957 to 2016.  Plastic objects such as bags, rope and netting were among those retrieved from oceans. This rubbish already causes more than £10bn in economic damage to marine systems each year.  If these trends continue, marine plastic is set to outweigh fish by 2050.


theintercept--2019-10-27--How Plastic Pollution Is Making Central American Communities Uninhabitable

T thigh-deep in the muddy water as our boat pulls up to the shore, grass shushing against the hull. It is a still, cool morning and mist wicks off the river as the sun begins to rise above the trees. Down the beach, a white egret standing in the shallows takes flight in a burst of sound as the fishermen lift their net to reveal its glinting catch. Beside them, half-submerged, a plastic soda bottle noses purposefully past, toward the sea. As I step onto shore, I notice more bits of plastic lying among the reeds, half-buried in the mud, as well as stained scraps of cloth, bits of packing foam, a single cracked plastic sandal. Just beyond, Guatemala’s Motagua River pours into the Caribbean, carrying with it a daily freight of trash washed out of overcrowded city dumps and unofficial landfills hundreds of miles upstream. Worldwide, an estimated 80 percent of ocean plastic comes from land as “mismanaged waste.” Indeed, in Guatemala, there are almost no properly managed landfills and virtually no public water treatment plants. The result is a noxious chowder of sewage, industrial and agricultural runoff, and an ever-replenished flotilla of plastic trash, churning out from the river mouth toward the massive Mesoamerican reef, which has long supported rich biodiversity and fishing communities from Cancún to Nicaragua. Now, the beaches here and in neighboring Honduras are regularly buried in artificial tidewrack of toothbrushes, makeup containers, old syringes and bottles of IV fluid, action figures, streamers of plastic film, and foil chip bags. Hendrik, a young employee of the country’s department of protected areas, gave me and a few colleagues a tour in late 2018. For the last year, workers employed by the environmental ministry had been cleaning this stretch of beach, carting wheelbarrow loads of trash away, but even still the sand is mosaicked with colorful bits of plastic. “It’s a constant effort,” Hendrik said. However much trash they take away, the river always brings more to replace it.  El Quetzalito sits at the end of a dirt road that jounces through endless plantation rows of banana and palm trees, just a few miles from Guatemala’s border with Honduras. Just beyond the houses that stand on the bank of the Motagua, the river takes a right turn and dead-ends into the Caribbean in a muddy plume of sediment and debris. Though this small community, home to only about 305 people, lies nearly 200 miles from the busy, exhaust-choked capital, the city’s trash floats past and washes up onto the beaches every day. In 2016, footage of a massive landslide of garbage in the overfilled Guatemala City dump reportedly killed three trash-pickers and briefly drew international attention to the untenable conditions there. But with overburdened or nonexistent infrastructure throughout Guatemala, the rainy season regularly washes large quantities of trash out of many such dumps and into the rivers every year.  “It’s something that’s been happening for a while now,” said Marco Dubón, who goes by Marquito. Growing up, he doesn’t remember a time when the river wasn’t full of trash. In recent years, however, it’s gotten much worse. In 2017, threatened with a lawsuit from Honduras over its polluted beaches, Guatemala’s environmental minister introduced a device he dubbed the “bio-fence.” Made of empty plastic bottles roped together with plastic netting, the floating boom juts from shore into the main current of the river at an angle, funneling trash aside before it makes it to the sea. The bio-fence was installed near El Quetzalito, and a small group of residents, overseen by Marquito, was employed to remove the trash caught by the boom. They would also work to clean the beach just beyond town and hopefully make a dent in the overall pollution.  One Monday in September 2018, when we visit, there is a raft of plastic bottles and floating sticks caught in the crook of the bio-fence. The surface looks solid, but it undulates against the hull of the boat tied beside the bank. There is not too much trash coming down the river at the moment, Marquito explained, but it will come back with the rains. “When it’s full, you can practically walk on it,” he said. For now, the workers focus on the beach instead, a quick boat ride downriver. It is early, but the sun is already heavy. A bonfire of sodden wood and unidentifiable debris sends billows of steam and acrid smoke down the beach, but most of what the workers gather goes into large sacks to be carried back to town, to the recycling center. There, clean glass and plastic will be sorted apart, and everything else compacted down into fuel for the incinerator ovens of a cement company. The workers get about 2,800 quetzales per month, a little less than $400. The work isn’t pleasant, but it is steadier than fishing. Carlos René Ortega said that he prefers working on the beach to cleaning out the bio-fence or sorting trash in the heat of the stuffy, tin-roofed recycling center. On the beach, there’s a breeze around noon. And when they work at the bio-fence, they have to wade into the water to remove the trash. “We take turns,” he explained, “but after three or four hours, we come out itching.”  “Ten years ago, it was amazing to fish here,” Izak Dubón said, pausing to plant his spade in the sand. “You would find some big fish, you would actually make money.” Izak, 20, is tall and slender, with a surprisingly deep voice behind the aqua-blue kerchief he has tied over his mouth and nose. He used to go fishing with his dad, but now feels he has no other choice than to work for the environmental ministry. “This is a great country,” he said. “If we didn’t have all this contamination, we would have tourism.” In the afternoon, we take the boat across the river mouth to the beach opposite. Here, no one has removed any of the trash that is now piled up into dunes so deep you cannot see the sand. A TV lies half-buried in the refuse. At the far end of the beach, the stiff-legged carcass of a cow rolls at the edge of the surface, bloated and shining, a vulture hunched over it. Marquito, standing among the piles of plastic and driftwood, is unreadable. Quietly, as if to himself, he said, “There is work here for years.”  Since the first synthetic plastic appeared in 1907, we’ve made 8.3 billion tons of the stuff, 5 billion of which is still sloshing around the world, no longer in use but not going away anytime soon. Worldwide, countries with developing economies like Guatemala account for the main source of ocean plastic. Although high-income countries like the U.S. consume at a higher rate — and therefore throw away much more plastic per capita — less developed nations often lack infrastructure for proper recycling or disposal of waste, meaning that much more of their trash ends up in the ocean. In 2017, researchers found that 90 percent of the marine plastic washed out of just 10 rivers, including the Yangtze, the Nile, and the Ganges. These are the waterways of some of the most heavily populated areas of the world, and they carry huge amounts of plastic trash as a result. Like the Motagua, they may have minimal infrastructure for water treatment or waste disposal. Altogether, between 5 and 12 million tons of plastic flow from land into the sea every year.  The cost of such heavily polluted rivers is high on land too. “When you look at the map, Guatemala should have an abundance of water,” Gerardo Paiz explained in his office at the nonprofit Madre Selva — literally, Mother Forest — where he works as an activist and spokesperson. He gestured to a lush-looking topographical map of the country as he explained what all that jungle and mountain landscape hides. The Motagua runs about 300 miles, crossing most of the Central American isthmus, but, according to Paiz, almost all of the contamination occurs about a third of the way along its length, where it joins with tributaries carrying sewage, industrial runoff, and trash from Guatemala City.  There are no public water treatment plants in the country, Paiz said. The few wastewater plants that do exist are expensive and difficult to maintain, and many are no longer operating. In recent years, several internationally funded projects to build new wastewater infrastructure have been put on hold, possibly a result of Guatemala’s scandal-plagued government. In the meantime, untreated sewage and debris flow unimpeded into the river. For the downstream states of El Progreso and Zacapa, water is becoming a bigger problem. These states lie along Guatemala’s “dry corridor,” an agricultural region that has been hard hit by climate change and drought in the past decade. With the river too contaminated to use for drinking water or irrigation, communities along the river are caught in a tightening vise of scarcity and pollution. These environmental problems, compounded by violence, corruption, and poverty, are among the factors driving more than 116,808 Guatemalans to try and cross the U.S. border in fiscal year 2018. As for plastic, it’s not hard to follow the problem back to its source. “The plastic industry is aggressively moving to increase production,” said Judith Enck, a former regional U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator and public policy professor at Bennington College. A 2016 report predicted that plastic production would double in the next 20 years. Enck pointed out that despite recent bad press around plastics in the U.S., petrochemical companies are still making plans for new plants to turn byproducts from fracking into plastic. “They’re just marching right ahead with literally dozens of new plants in the United States.”  This gives companies a strong incentive to sell more plastic in the developing world, where growing economies have provided new markets for cheap and disposable plastic products. At a market in Puerto Barrios, a small city about 40 minutes from El Quetzalito, stand after stand displayed cheap, plastic-wrapped soccer jerseys and novelty T-shirts, baseball caps made of foam and plastic mesh, neon-colored toys, cheap sandals and shoes, and more. One large and growing source of plastic waste is packaging, especially laminated foil packets that are frequently used for food and other single-use products like soap or shampoo. These are popular in emerging economies like Central America and Asia, Enck pointed out, because it might be affordable for people to buy small quantities of a product instead of a whole bottle. But these materials, made up of specialized plastics and foils laminated together, are rarely recyclable. “Big companies are putting out all these products that they know have no chance of being recycled,” Enck said. “And they are selling them in places with not a lot of access to landfills.” In other words, with business as usual today, companies design and produce nonbiodegradable, nonrecyclable materials that will be used once and then discarded to flow directly to the ocean.  plastic pollution at the boardroom instead of the beaches?” was the question posed by Luisa Santiago, Latin America lead for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy initiative. Recycling is not the answer, she said. Only 9 percent of plastics produced today are ever recycled, and most of that material can only be recycled once before it, too, heads to a landfill or dump. “We understand that dealing with waste is part of the problem, but plastic pollution really needs to be solved upstream,” Santiago said. That means working with governments and industry to come up with better solutions to the problems that single-use plastics are meant to solve. Santiago’s organization issued an analysis in 2016 that found that $80 billion to $120 billion disappears from the economy every year in the form of single-use plastic packaging that is never recycled.  By making an economic argument against plastic, and toward a more circular economy, Santiago’s organization hopes to compel industry to change in a systematic way, instead of relying on consumers to try to make individual choices within a flawed system. “We need to redesign the system, and the consumer will be automatically shifted to that system — just as the consumer was shifted to a single-use system a couple decades ago,” she pointed out. The keystone of the New Plastics Economy plan is a pledge to eliminate “unnecessary plastics” by 2025. Achieving this, Santiago believes, requires working with companies like Coca-Cola and Nestle, even if that approach makes it harder to take a stance against the industry’s pure profit motives. “We don’t believe in banning plastic,” Santiago told me.  Judith Enck disagrees. “Bag bans do reduce plastic pollution,” she said. Since Enck stepped down from the EPA in 2017, she has started a project called Beyond Plastics, aiming to get communities to eliminate plastic pollution at a grassroots level. According to her, where bag bans are implemented, along with restricting Styrofoam and making plastic straws available only on request, they can be quite effective — an approach she calls “the plastics trifecta.” “They’re low-hanging fruit,” Enck pointed out. “And there are easy alternatives.” The problem is that these types of policies are not yet widespread. By her count, less than 10 percent of municipalities in the U.S. have passed any kind of anti-plastic legislation. In the developing world, however, plastic-free policies are spreading. In 2002, Bangladesh became one of the first countries to ban the disposable bags outright, and by this year, according to National Geographic, 34 African countries had bans on their books.  In Guatemala, too, plastic is increasingly seen as a problem. In late 2016, the town of San Pedro La Laguna made headlines by banning plastic bags and packaging. Residents are replacing them with reusable alternatives. In September of this year, the Guatemalan government announced a ban on single-use plastic and Styrofoam starting in 2021. The intervening two years should give vendors time to find compostable or reusable alternatives. And if policy has been slow to catch up to the problem, the conversation around plastic is changing quickly. People in El Quetzalito told us that they were more aware of pollution than they used to be. Many of them said they tried to reduce their own waste. Miguel López, a middle-aged man with a tanned, somber face beneath a bright teal baseball cap, told us that he felt he was a part of something good. “It’s important to do this,” he said, as he straightened from his rake to push his teal hat back on his head. The job, though hard and at times unpleasant, had a purpose. Squinting out at the water, he told us, simply, “For tomorrow, we need clean beaches.” Reporting for this story was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation, as part of the Adelante Latin America Reporting Initiative.


themanchestereveningnews--2019-03-14--More tiny pieces of plastic pollution were found in the River Irwell and River Tame than in the Rive

More tiny pieces of plastic pollution were found in the River Irwell and River Tame than in the River Thames, a new study reveals

A worrying new study has found high levels of tiny pieces of plastic pollution in stretches of two rivers in Greater Manchester.  More pieces of 'micro-plastics' were found in the locations surveyed on the River Irwell and River Tame than were identified from a stretch of the River Thames.  The study by university academics looked at 10 sites in total.  In the wake of the findings, Friends of the Earth said micro-plastics should now be considered as an 'emergent contaminant' - and called for the routine monitoring of all UK waters.  Using fluorescent lighting, researchers from Bangor University and Friends of the Earth identified and counted micro-plastic pollutants less than five millimetres in size per litre of water, including plastic fragments, fibres, film and microbeads in cosmetics.  More than 1,000 tiny pieces of plastic were found per litre of water surveyed from a stretch of the River Tame in Tameside - more than any other location assessed in the study.  A site on the River Irwell in Salford was also assessed. The study found almost 85 pieces of micro-plastic per litre of water at the location.  On the Thames, the figure stood at 84 pieces.  Just 2.4 pieces per litre of water was found at Loch Lomond in Scotland, with the figure at Ullswater in the Lake District standing at 29.5.  No exact locations where the surveyed were held on each river in Greater Manchester have been revealed.  Friends of the Earth is also urging MPs to support legislation to phase out plastic pollution within 25 years, including ending non-essential single-use plastic by 2025.  Millions have watched the plight of marine life struggling to survive in plastic-infested oceans and seas highlighted by Sir David Attenborough in the BBC series Blue Planet.  in Greater Manchester, mayor Andy Burnham held a 'green summit' last year and announced a vow to axe the use of all avoidable, single-use plastics within the region's tourism and hospitality sector by 2020.  Last year, a report for Friends of the Earth estimated huge quantities of micro-plastic pollution were entering UK waterways from a number of sources every year. The sources included from car tyres, clothing, plastic pellets used to make plastic items and paints on buildings and road markings.  Dr Christian Dunn, of Bangor University, said: "It was more than a little startling to discover microplastics were present in even the most remote sites we tested, and quite depressing they were there in some of our country’s most iconic locations.  "I'm sure Wordsworth would not be happy to discover his beloved Ullswater in the Lake District was polluted with plastic.  "Plastic is polluting our rivers, lakes and wetlands in a similar way as pollutants such as so-called 'emerging contaminants' like pharmaceutical waste, personal care products and pesticides.  "As with all emerging contaminants we don't yet fully know the dangers they present to wildlife and ecosystems, or even human health, and to what levels they occur in all our water systems."  Julian Kirby, plastics campaigner at Friends of the Earth, added: "The widespread contamination of our rivers and lakes with micro-plastic pollution is a major concern, and people will understandably want to know what impact this could have on their health and environment.  "Plastic pollution is everywhere - it's been found in our rivers, our highest mountains and our deepest oceans."  A spokesman for the Canal and River Trust told the M.E.N.: "The Canal and River Trust is really concerned about the amount of litter and plastics that enter its waterways, and spends over a £1m pounds a year clearing as much as we can with the help of our supporters.  "We have recently undertaken some analysis of our own into the scale of litter on our waterways, including micro-plastics, to help us plan what else needs to be done to tackle this problem. We hope to share this research by the summer so that we can start to work with key partners to do our bit in tackling this significant global issue.  "Some questions remain. As well as reducing sources of litter and plastic waste, attention needs to be focused on how we can clean up micro-plastic already in the environment."


naturalnews--2019-03-15--New study finds that 100 PERCENT of sea turtles have plastics in their bellies

(Natural News) The next time you come across a sea turtle in the wild, remember that there are pieces of plastic trash inside the animal’s belly. And if that is not stomach-churning enough for you, imagine the damage caused by jagged pieces of toxic pollutant tumbling inside your belly.  Researchers in the United Kingdom raised this issue after checking more than 100 turtles in three different oceans and seas. Given the results of their study, they warned that turtles and other forms of marine life are paying the price for the unfulfilled promises made by plastic manufacturers and governments when it came to cutting back on plastic pollution.  Supported by the University of Exeter and the marine conservation group Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), the study examined the digestive systems of turtles found in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the Mediterranean Sea. It found plastics, smaller microplastics, and various synthetic items in the bellies of each and every single animal.  “This study provides more evidence that we all need to help reduce the amount of plastic waste released to our seas and maintain clean, healthy and productive oceans for future generations,” said Penelope Lindeque, the co-author of the scientific paper. (Related: Plastic trash polluting our oceans is expected to double by 2025…what is being done to stop this global crisis?)  Lindeque and her research team had been studying microplastic pollution for many years. Time and again, they uncovered evidence that tiny plastic pollutants have contaminated almost every marine animal species that they have evaluated.  Get CLEAN FOOD and help support our mission to keep you informed: The Health Ranger Store lab verifies everything we sell with accredited testing for heavy metals, microbiology and food safety. Certified organic facility, ISO-accredited on-site laboratory, no GMOs or synthetic ingredients. The world's #1 source of lab-verified clean foods and superfoods for nutritional healing. 600+ products available. Explore now.  Microscopic zooplankton, fishes in adult and larval stages of life, and dolphins have all shown signs of accidentally eating plastic. Sea turtles are merely the latest in a long line of victims that the researchers looked over.  In the new study, the researchers safely extracted over 800 pieces of plastic from the guts of 102 turtles. The biggest particle measured less than half a centimeter in length, which is shorter than half the diameter of a penny.  Based on their estimates, the typical turtle would have around 150 plastic particles inside its digestive system. The amount varied according to the sea or ocean the animal lived in.  Of the three bodies of water involved in the study, the Mediterranean Sea displayed the highest level of plastic contamination. Some of the turtles living in that sea turned out to have up to 500 pieces of plastics inside their bodies.  The plastic trash recovered from the digestive systems of the sea turtles originated from a variety of sources. Cigarettes, polyester clothing, marine gear, and automobile tires proved to be the most common sources of these pollutants.  The researchers also found microbeads inside a good number of the animals. These tiny plastic spheres used to be the rage for certain personal care and beauty products, such as body washes and facial scrubs. However, the U.S. banned them in 2015 with the U.K. following suit in 2018.  Lindeque and her co-author Dr. Emily Duncan warned against underestimating the dangers of microbeads and other small bits of plastic contaminants. While microplastics were much less likely to become a deadly choking hazard to the animals that accidentally consumed them, the tiny pollutants could pose a different kind of threat to health.  “Future work should focus on whether microplastics may be affecting aquatic organisms more subtly,” Duncan remarked on the little-known effects of microplastics on sea turtles and other marine organisms. “For example, they may possibly carry contaminants, bacteria or viruses, or they may affect the turtle at a cellular or sub-cellular level.


newsweek--2019-01-31--Every Dolphin Whale and Seal in This Study Were Contaminated With Microplastics

Every Dolphin, Whale and Seal in This Study Were Contaminated With Microplastics

Scientists looking for microplastics in the digestive systems of sea animals stranded off the coast of the U.K. discovered the material in every creature they tested, according to a study.  A team analyzed a total of 50 animals across 10 species for their research published in the journal Scientific Reports. Microplastics were defined in the study as fragments measuring up to 5 millimeters (0.2 inches).  The samples used in the study were taken from 50 animals by members of the Scottish Marine Animal Strandings Scheme (SMASS) and the Cetacean Stranding Investigation Programme. Both projects are based in the U.K.  Of the plastics found in the sea creatures, 84 percent were synthetic fibres which generally originate from products such as clothing and fishing nets. The remainder of the contaminants were what the scientists described as fragments, likely to come from food and drink packaging.  The animals who died of an infection contained marginally higher levels of microplastics than those who perished due to different causes. However it was unclear whether microplastics were a contributing factor to infections, the authors from the University of Exeter and Plymouth Marine Laboratory wrote.  Brendan Godley, professor of conservation science at the University of Exeter, told Newsweek the study “highlights the magnitude of plastic pollution. We expected to find plastics but were somewhat surprised when we found fibers in every single animal of all species."  However, he said the team were relieved that the plastics appeared to pass through the animals, as animals contained 5.5 particles on average, which is considered relatively low.  Dr. Penelope Lindeque, head of the marine plastics research group at Plymouth Marine Laboratory, commented in a statement: "We don't yet know the effects of these particles on marine mammals. Their small size means they may easily be expelled, but while microplastics are unlikely to be the main threat to these species, we are still concerned by the impact of the bacteria, viruses and contaminants carried on the plastic."  Godley said the work could be expanded upon in future research using a larger sample of animals and across a range of geographic locations.  “I am particularly concerned for filter feeding whales,” he said. Past research has suggested that these animals, which ingest hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of water each day in order to feed off plankton, are at particular risk from ocean pollution.  The take-home message, said Godley, is that plastic appears to be so ubiquitous in the environment that all marine wildlife may be affected. “This should act as a canary in the coalmine for what we are doing to the environment on which we all depend." He said avoiding single use plastic is “clearly a first step” to tackling the problem.  “But in time, it is likely that we will need to look very hard at all aspects of our relationship with plastics," he argued. "With regard to the fibers found in our study animals, what polymers we use in our clothes and how we wash them and minimize environmental spillage would be two questions to address. Plastics are very useful, it is our current way of managing them that is the problem.”  The study is the latest to investigate the levels of tiny plastic particles present in sea animals, in the hope of furthering our understanding of the potential harms they pose. A separate piece of research by scientists at the University of Plymouth, U.K., found billions of nanoparticles contaminated shellfish exposed after six hours. The research was published last year in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.


tass--2019-10-09--Scientists say microplastics fractions are registered along entire Northern Sea Route

In September, 80 scientists from Russia, China and Sweden left for an expedition onboard the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh research vessel to study ecology and bio-chemical consequences from the thawing underwater permafrost in the East Arctic and along the Northern Sea Route. They have found already a record emission of methane in the Arctic seas.  TASS, October 9. Scientists, participating in the international scientific expedition onboard the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh research vessel, confirmed microplastics fractions along the entire Northern Sea Route, the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Pacific Ocean Studies Institute reported on its website on Wednesday.  "Another breakthrough result is microplastics found in upper water and in marine organisms along the Northern Sea Route," the report quoted the expedition’s leader Igor Semiletov as saying. "These discoveries will be the subjects of at least three publications in magazines of the Nature level."  Earlier, researchers during the Trans Arctic 2019 expedition on board the Akademik Treshnikov in July - September, 2019, came to the conclusion that the Barents Sea is the most polluted with microplastics Arctic sea.  Production of plastics has grown lately. More than half of it has been made over recent 15 years, as "we cannot imagine living without it - it’s convenient, light, enduring, in fact it’s eternal," an expert of the Russian State Hydrometeorology University Alexandra Yershova said, stressing the most hazardous are plastic fractions smaller than one millimeter.  "They, like a sponge, soak up everything from water - toxic and harmful substances, pesticides, heavy metals, pathogenic microbes. Filters - mollusks, fish fries - accumulate it, and this is how microplastics get into human’s food. Such filter-organisms are numerous in the Arctic - from microscopic crustaceans to whales, which filter up to 70 thousand liters of water at a time. Therefore, the Arctic is a region particularly vulnerable to microplastics pollution," she said.


theguardianuk--2019-07-07--The search for a cleaner greener plastic

The search for a cleaner, greener plastic

New kinds of plant-based plastic are beginning to permeate our lives. Supermarkets stock biodegradable bags to carry our groceries home, cafes serve coffee in compostable cups, and this year London Marathon runners could refuel with seaweed-based edible bubbles filled with sports drink. But if we just replace one kind of throwaway packaging with another, are we really solving the bigger problem?  There’s no denying that we have a plastic crisis on our hands. A 2017 study found that, of the 8.3bn tonnes of plastic produced since 1950, 6.3bn tonnes has been thrown away. And whether it ends up in landfill or in the sea, that plastic – thanks to the stability and durability that it is prized for – is not going anywhere fast.  Next year, a ban on single-use plastics including plastic straws, drink stirrers and cotton buds will come into effect in the UK. Canada recently announced it will ban “harmful” single-use plastics by 2021, becoming the latest in a long list of countries and states to limit the use of disposable plastics. This year Glastonbury banned the sale of single-use plastic bottles on site by replacing them with aluminium cans and offering water refills to festivalgoers.  But ditching single-use plastics by replacing them with biodegradable or compostable versions could be causing more problems than it’s fixing. “What worries me is that this isn’t really a solution, it’s just swapping one polymer for another,” says Mark Miodownik, professor of materials and society at University College London. ”If they end up in the environment, then it really does depend on the conditions that they find themselves in as to whether they biodegrade in any reasonable time.”  “If you’re putting your nappies and your wipes in [your home compost bin], you’re going to be disappointed.”  Deciphering the many labels applied to these plastics is no easy task. Many products described as as “compostable” actually only break down in industrial composters that maintain high temperatures for weeks at a time. Some are certified for home composting, but how long that takes will depend on the conditions of your individual compost heap. Plastics that are labelled “biodegradable” typically can’t be composted, but can be broken down by microorganisms – though the exact method and timescale for this process varies. A recent study found that biodegradable carrier bags could still hold shopping after having been buried in soil or left in the sea for three years.  Biodegradable plastics can be made from fossil fuels like traditional plastics, but in recent years the focus has been on those made from plants or other renewable resources, collectively called bioplastics. Not all bioplastics are biodegradable – Coca-Cola’s PlantBottle is partially made from plants but otherwise acts like a typical PET (polyethylene terephthalate ie regular plastic) bottle. Blends of plant-based starches account for nearly half of bioplastics, but other starting materials include fungi, milk and even leftover lobster shells.  While making plastics out of renewable materials is undoubtedly a step in the right direction, it won’t stop plastic piling up in landfill sites and in our oceans. The problem, says Miodownik, is that there’s no such thing as a sustainable material – only a sustainable system. And in the UK we don’t have a sustainable system to deal with the increasing number of compostable plastics finding their way into our daily lives.  Take the compostable coffee cup made by companies like Edinburgh-based Vegware. They are lined with a bioplastic called polylactic acid – or PLA – made from corn starch. Their lids are made with CPLA, crystallised polylactic acid, designed to withstand high heat. And they are certified with the Seedling logo, showing they meet a European standard for compostability known as EN 13432. This means the packaging will break down within 12 weeks to water, CO2 and biomass, leaving no more than 10% of the original material in pieces bigger than 2mm – but only under industrial-scale composting conditions.  PLA makes up around a quarter of all compostable plastics sold worldwide, and is used for transparent cold drinks cups, clear windows on food packaging like sandwich boxes, drinking straws and more. A home compost heap won’t reach the high temperatures needed to break it down. You might be tempted to put it in the recycling but there, PLA is often indistinguishable from traditional PET plastic bottles and can contaminate the recycling process. Council waste collections vary across the UK but few if any accept PLA in anything other than general waste. Most people will be left with only one option: the bin.  Vegware argues that when they are sent to landfill, its products are still the better choice because they’re made from plants and use lower carbon, recyclable or renewable sources. “These sustainability benefits still apply no matter what happens to them after use,” says Lucy Frankel, the company’s communications director.  But if it ends up in the ocean, PLA is bad news. “PLA is basically nondegradable in sea water,” says Dr Frederik Wurm of the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany, which means if it goes into the sea, “it’s not better than any other plastic”.  In fact, Vegware’s website points out that compostables are not a solution to marine plastic pollution – but in the rush to replace plastic with more environmentally friendly packaging, it’s a caveat that seems to have got lost.  Plastics that are certified for home composting fare better. Those include the potato-based wrapping for the Saturday Guardian, and a starch-based material called Mater-Bi made by bioplastics company Novamont, which the Co-op uses for its compostable carrier bags.  For people who don’t have a compost bin, some councils that collect food waste will accept compostable bags. But when food waste is processed, the bag may be separated out and sent to landfill or incinerated before your leftovers are composted. That’s because, as things stand, compostable plastics can’t just be sent to any industrial composter. “In-vessel” composters are best suited to breaking down these plastics – but lots of food waste is sent to anaerobic digesters, most of which can’t process compostable plastics at all.  If they are discarded in the environment, research has shown that compostable bags can survive for two years in soil. In sea water they could disappear in as little as three months, although exactly what products they release into the marine environment is not yet clear.  There are some new materials that do claim to totally break down in the environment. Pods made from seaweed by London-based Skipping Rocks Lab are not just biodegradable or compostable, but edible. As well as using the bubbles to deliver hits of Lucozade Sport to marathon runners this year, the company has been trialling edible sauce sachets with takeaways from 10 restaurants in a partnership with Just Eat. If you choose not to eat the packaging after you’re done with the sauce inside, the company says it breaks down in six weeks without needing any special treatment.  “There probably are niche applications for those where it’s the right thing to do,” says Miodownik, but he doesn’t see the edible pods as a big part of the plastics solution. A cofounder of the company has said they are focusing on sports events, festivals and takeaways.  In proposals published earlier this year, Defra said that it was aware of the trend for compostable packaging but that “appropriate treatment infrastructure” needed to exist before it could add compostables to a core list of materials that every council must collect for recycling.  Frankel says Vegware would like to see compostables added to that list. In the meantime, it is working with the waste sector to set up composting collections for its clients, and says its products are now accepted by 27 industrial composting facilities around the UK covering 38% of postcodes. This summer, it’s also starting to offer collection by courier costing £10 for small cafes and individuals using Vegware at parties, in partnership with recycling company First Mile.  To make compostable collections available for everyone, though, as well as making in-vessel composters that can break down these plastics more widespread, helping the machines that sort our rubbish identify what is compostable plastic and what is not will be key. “We’re looking into the possibility of putting some sort of marker into biodegradable plastic that you could then have a detector for,” says Miodownik.  In the short term, it would also be helpful to make the labels we use for plastics clearer. Wurm says that the label “biodegradable” should come with a time limit and information on what environment the plastic will break down in, to help bust the myth that biodegradable littering is no big deal.  He’d also like to see manufacturers think about the life cycle of their products before they decide what to make them from – including how long they’re likely to be used for, and what would happen if they were discarded. If you think it’s likely your drinking straws will end up in the sea, for example, you should not make them out of PLA. “It’s something that in many cases is not considered,” says Wurm.  A more radical solution would be for companies to rethink products so that they don’t require plastic packaging in the first place. “What most companies are doing is saying, we don’t want to redesign our system, we’re going to swap out one material for another, and then it’s someone else’s problem to deal with this down the line,” says Miodownik. “And that’s a disaster.”  As consumers, we could go all-in on reusables, carrying around our own coffee cups and cutlery, and even taking containers to stock up on pasta and cereal at the supermarket. But there are some situations where demand for throwaway packaging will remain. “Even with a major shift to reusable containers, some disposables will always be needed, especially for serving food,” says Frankel.  In that case, unless your packaging is part of a closed loop system with a dedicated compostables collection – as exists at the Houses of Parliament, for example, which switched to compostable packaging last year – recyclable bioplastics could be the more sustainable choice.  “For millions of people in their everyday lives, the best thing is to have plastics that don’t biodegrade, that have long lives – that’s the whole brilliant point of them – and that get collected and recycled back into new things,” says Miodownik.  Until compostables are widely collected, encouraging companies to make more packaging recyclable, as well as reducing and reusing where you can, is the best way to make an impact on the future of plastics, he says: “Every time you choose not to buy something because the thing it’s wrapped in is not recyclable, you’ve made a difference.”


theindependent--2019-03-01--Balloons pose biggest risk of death for seabirds eating plastic scientists say

Balloons pose biggest risk of death for seabirds eating plastic, scientists say

Balloons have been identified as as a major threat to the seabirds traversing the world’s oceans and mistakenly feeding on plastic.  While soft plastics only accounted for 5 per cent of the plastics consumed by albatrosses and other birds, a new study found they were responsible for 40 per cent of deaths.  Researchers at the University of Tasmania in Australia concluded that while harder shards tend to pass quickly through the gut, softer pieces are more likely to cause blockages.  One in five birds that consumed balloons died, the scientists said.  “Among the birds we studied the leading cause of death was blockage of the gastrointestinal tract, followed by infections or other complications caused by gastrointestinal obstructions,” said PhD student Lauren Roman, who led the study. “Balloons or balloon fragments were the marine debris most likely to cause mortality.”  The scientists used cause-of-death data for 1733 seabirds of 51 species.  While they identified just five balloon-related deaths, the team are concerned this relatively rare variety of plastic may cause a disproportionate number of deaths, as birds confuse them with squid.  Plastic ingestion is now recognised as a major global threat to marine life, particularly seabirds, with 250 000 tonnes of marine debris currently floating in the world’s oceans.  Over a quarter of seabird populations are experiencing serious population declines and scientists think their habit of mistaking marine debris for food is a likely driver of this problem.  One study led by Dr Chris Wilcox from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation estimated 99 per cent of seabirds around the world would be eating plastic by the middle of the century.  Dr Wilcox, who also worked on the latest seabird study – published in the journal Scientific Reports – said the new approach for analysing the impact of plastic had previously been trialled in turtles.  “These two applications are the first time there has been a robust estimate of the impact of plastic ingestion on free living marine species,” he said. “This is a critical step in triggering action to address plastic pollution.”  Their results show conclusively that the more plastic a bird eats, the more likely it is to die.  Previous work has shown that besides the physical blockages of plastic in a bird’s gut, plastic can also leach potentially harmful chemicals into their bodies.  One recent study found traces of plastic-derived chemicals in the eggs of northern fulmars inhabiting the remote Arctic.  “The evidence is clear that if we want to stop seabirds from dying from plastic ingestion we need to reduce or remove marine debris from their environment, particularly balloons,” said Ms Roman.