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The Plastic Wars and Beyond...
While plastic has many valuable uses, we have become addicted to single-use or disposable plastic — with severe environmental consequences. Around the world, one million plastic drinking bottles are purchased every minute, while 5 trillion single-use plastic bags are used worldwide every year. In total, half of all plastic produced is designed to be used only once — and then thrown away (UNEP, 2022).
Facing increased public concern about ever-increasing amounts of garbage, the image of plastics is falling dramatically. State and local officials across the USA have and are considering banning some kinds of plastics in an effort to reduce waste and pollution. But the industry had a plan; a way to fend off plastic bans and keep its sales growing. It would publicly promote recycling as the solution to the waste crisis — despite internal industry doubts, from almost the beginning, that widespread plastic recycling could ever be economically viable.
The strategy — and doubts — are revealed in “Plastic Wars,” an investigative documentary. With the plastic industry expanding like never before and the crisis of ocean pollution growing, FRONTLINE and NPR investigate the fight over the future of plastics (PBS, 2020).
Facing a growing public outcry over the plastic pollution crisis, some of the world’s biggest consumer brand companies have promised to dramatically boost recycling. Yet some of those same companies have made — and failed to deliver on — similar promises in the past. A review of corporate commitments by FRONTLINE has found that three major brand companies and an association of plastic bag makers — all of which have recently pledged to increase the recycled content of their plastic packaging and bags — have fallen short of ambitious recycling-related goals in the past (PBS, 2020). ___ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/plastic-wars/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-plastic-industry-is-grow… https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/companies-new-pledges-to-boo… https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/plastics-industry-insiders-r… https://www.unep.org/interactive/beat-plastic-pollution/ https://plasticsrecycling.org/library https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycli… https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/plastic-trash-in-sea…
Garbage Patch Update...
Garbage patches are large areas of the ocean where litter, fishing gear, and other debris - known as marine debris - collects. They are formed by rotating ocean currents called “gyres.” One can think of them as big whirlpools that pull objects in.
The gyres pull debris into one location, often the gyre’s center, forming “patches.” Debris ranges in size, from large abandoned fishing nets to tiny microplastics, which are plastic pieces smaller than 5mm in size (NOAA, 2021).
There are five gyres in the ocean. One in the Indian Ocean, two in the Atlantic Ocean, and two in the Pacific Ocean. Garbage patches of varying sizes are located in each gyre. The most famous of these patches is often called the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” located in the North Pacific Gyre.
It may not be possible to entirely get rid of garbage patches. Some of the material will take a very long time to break down in the environment, while other materials, like plastics, may never fully degrade and disperse without harming marine ecosystems.
Large debris, like fishing nets, can be removed by people, but debris in the garbage patches is also mostly made up (by count) of plastic pieces smaller than 5mm in size. The debris is also continuously mixed by wind and wave action and is spread from the surface all the way to the ocean floor.
Finding cost effective technologies that can take on these challenges is extremely challenging. The NOAA Marine Debris Program focuses on marine debris prevention and removal from shorelines and coastal areas where debris is easier to pick up. Prevention is key to solving the marine debris problem over time. By acting to prevent marine debris, we can stop this problem from growing (NOAA, 2021). ___ https://marinedebris.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/publications-files/gp… www.MarineDebris.noaa.gov https://marinedebris.noaa.gov/info/patch.html https://marinedebris.noaa.gov/what-we-know-about-garbage-patches https://marinedebris.noaa.gov/discover-marine-debris https://marinedebris.noaa.gov/our-work/education https://marinedebris.noaa.gov/resources/funding-opportunities https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4174 https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/149163/mapping-marine-micropla… https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/gyre.html https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9449485 https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/currentdata.html https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/CYGNSS_L3_MICROPLASTIC_V1.0 https://www.nasa.gov/feature/esnt2021/scientists-use-nasa-satellite-dat… https://impactunofficial.medium.com/marine-debris-finding-the-plastic-n… https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/CYGNSS_L2_V2.1 https://earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/articles/ocean-plastic
"Everyone’s Looking for Plastic."
The New York Times looks at Senegal's growing industry built around recycling plastic waste.
“We’re the people protecting the environment,” said 76-year-old waste picker, Pape Ndiaye. “Everything that pollutes it, we take to industries, and they transform it.”