In India, the large mammals see trash in village dumps as a buffet, but researchers found they are inadvertently consuming packaging and utensils.Some Asian elephants are a little shy about their eating habits. They sneak into dumps near human settlements at the edges of their forest habitats and quickly gobble up garbage — plastic utensils, packaging and all. But their guilty pleasure for fast food is traveling with them — elephants are transporting plastic and other human garbage deep into forests in parts of India.“When they defecate, the plastic comes out of the dung and gets deposited in the forest,” said Gitanjali Katlam, an ecological researcher in India.While a lot of research has been conducted on the spread of plastics from human pollution into the world’s oceans and seas, considerably less is known about how such waste moves with wildlife on land. But elephants are important seed dispersers, and research published this month in the Journal for Nature Conservation shows that the same process that keeps ecosystems functioning might carry human-made pollutants into national parks and other wild areas. This plastic could have negative effects on the health of elephants and other species that have consumed the material once it has passed through the large mammals’ digestive systems.Dr. Katlam first noticed elephants feeding on garbage on trail cameras during her Ph.D. work at Jawaharlal Nehru University. She was studying which animals visited garbage dumps at the edge of villages in northern India. At the time, she and her colleagues also noticed plastic in the elephants’ dung. With the Nature Science Initiative, a nonprofit focused on ecological research in northern India, Dr. Katlam and her colleagues collected elephant dung in Uttarakhand state.The researchers found plastic in all of the dung near village dumps and in the forest near the town of Kotdwar. They walked only a mile or two into the forest in their search for dung, but the elephants probably carried the plastic much farther, Dr. Katlam said. Asian elephants take about 50 hours to pass food and can walk six miles to 12 miles in a day. In the case of Kotdwar, this is concerning because the town is only a few miles from a national park.“This adds evidence to the fact that plastic pollution is ubiquitous,” said Agustina Malizia, an independent researcher with the National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina who was not involved in this research but studied the effects of plastic on land ecosystems. She says the study is “extremely necessary,” as it might be one of the first reports of a very large land animal ingesting plastic.Plastic comprised 85 percent of the waste found in the elephant dung from Kotdwar. The bulk of this came from food containers and cutlery, followed by plastic bags and packaging. But the researchers also found glass, rubber, fabric and other waste. Dr. Katlam said the elephants were likely to have been seeking out containers and plastic bags because they still had leftover food inside. The utensils probably were eaten in the process.While trash passes through their digestive systems, the elephants may be ingesting chemicals like polystyrene, polyethylene, bisphenol A and phthalates. It is uncertain what damage these substances can cause, but Dr. Katlam worries that they may contribute to declines in elephant population numbers and survival rates.“It is known from other animals that their stomachs may get filled with plastics, causing mechanical damage,” said Carolina Monmany Garzia, who works with Dr. Malizia in Argentina and was not involved in Dr. Katlam’s study.Other animals may consume the plastic again once it is transported into the forest through the elephants’ dung. “It has a cascading effect,” Dr. Katlam said.Dr. Katlam said that governments in India should take steps to manage their solid waste to avoid these kinds of issues. But individuals can help, too, by separating their food waste from the containers so that plastic does not end up getting eaten so much by accident.“This is a very simple step, but a very important step,” she said.“We need to realize and understand how the overuse of plastics is affecting the environment and the organisms that inhabit them,” Dr. Mealizia said.
Author Archives: David Evans
Plastic pollution is a big threat to Galápagos Islands
May 23, 2022 11:32 5 min read Visiting the Galápagos Islands — the Ecuadorian archipelago made famous by British geologist and naturalist Charles Darwin, and known for its giant tortoises — is no easy task. If the exorbitant airfares (an average of USD 400 for a round-trip from Guayaquil, Ecuador’s most populous city) do not deter visitors, the entry fees (USD 100 for most tourists aged over 12), multiple forms, and airport security might. The Galápagos slap hefty fees on tourists as a way of financing biodiversity conservation services and controlling the influx of people to the ecologically-sensitive islands. Since 1998, the Galápagos have been run under a… Access all of The Brazilian Report Already a subscriber? Log In
Plastic pollution: European farmland could be largest global reservoir of microplastics
Plastic particles smaller than 5mm (known as microplastics) are well-documented pollutants in ocean and freshwater habitats. The discovery of microplastics in the most remote rivers of the Himalayas and the deepest trenches of the Pacific Ocean has sparked widespread concern. But how much microplastic lies closer to home – buried in the soil where food is grown?
Our latest study estimated that between 31,000 and 42,000 tonnes of microplastics (or 86 trillion – 710 trillion microplastic particles) are spread on European farmland soils each year, mirroring the concentration of microplastics in ocean surface waters.
The cause is microplastic-laden fertilisers derived from sewage sludge diverted from wastewater treatment plants. These are commonly spread on farmland as a renewable source of fertiliser throughout European countries, in part due to EU directives that aim to promote a circular waste economy.
As well as creating a massive reservoir of environmental microplastics, this practice is effectively undoing the benefit of removing these particles from wastewater. Spreading microplastics onto farmland will eventually return them to natural watercourses, as rain washes water on the surface of soil into rivers, or it eventually infiltrates groundwater.
Microplastics filtered from sewage sludge at the wastewater treatment plant.
James Lofty, Author provided
Wastewater treatment plants remove solid contaminants (such as plastics and other large particles) from raw sewage and drain water using a series of settling tanks. This produces an effluent of clean water that can be released to the environment. The floating material and settled particles from these tanks are combined to form the sludge used as fertiliser.
We found that up to 650 million microplastic particles between 1mm and 5mm in size entered a wastewater treatment plant in south Wales, UK, every day. All of these particles were separated from the incoming sewage and diverted into the sludge rather than being released with the clean effluent. This demonstrates how effective default wastewater treatment can be for removing microplastics.
At this facility, each gram of sewage sludge contained up to 24 microplastic particles, which was roughly 1% of its weight. In Europe, an estimated 8 million to 10 million tonnes of sewage sludge is generated each year, with around 40% sent to farmland. The spreading of sewage sludge on agricultural soil is widely practised across Europe, owing to the nitrogen and phosphorus it offers crops.
UK farms also use sewage sludge as fertiliser. In our study, the UK had the highest amount of microplastic pollution within its soils across all European nations (followed by Spain, Portugal and Germany). Between 500 and 1,000 microplastic particles are applied to each square metre of agricultural land in the UK every year.
The relative microplastic burden on European farm soil from direct recycling of sewage sludge.
James Lofty, Author provided
A poisoned circular waste economy
At present, there are no adequate solutions to the release of microplastics into the environment from wastewater treatment plants.
Microplastics removed from wastewater are effectively transported to the land, where they reside until being returned to waterways. According to a study conducted in Ontario, Canada, 99% of microplastics in agricultural soil were transported away from where the sludge was initially applied.
Until then, they have the potential to harm life in the soil. As well as being easily consumed and absorbed by animals and plants, microplastics pose a serious threat to the soil ecosystem because they leach toxic chemicals and transport hazardous pathogens. Experiments have shown that the presence of microplastics can stunt earthworm growth and cause them to lose weight.
Microplastics can also change the acidity, water holding capacity and porosity of soil. This affects plant growth and performance by altering the way roots bury into the soil and take up nutrients.
There is currently no European legislation to limit the amount of microplastics embedded in sewage sludge used as fertiliser. Germany has set upper limits for impurities like glass and plastic, allowing up to 0.1% of wet fertiliser weight to constitute plastics larger than 2mm in size. According to the results from the wastewater treatment plant in south Wales, applying sewage sludge would be prohibited if similar legislation were in place in the UK.
For the time being, landowners are likely to continue recycling sewage sludge as sustainable fertiliser, despite the risk of contaminating soils and eventually rivers and the ocean with microplastics.
Plastic pollution: European farmland could be largest global reservoir of microplastics
Plastic particles smaller than 5mm (known as microplastics) are well-documented pollutants in ocean and freshwater habitats. The discovery of microplastics in the most remote rivers of the Himalayas and the deepest trenches of the Pacific Ocean has sparked widespread concern. But how much microplastic lies closer to home – buried in the soil where food is grown?
Our latest study estimated that between 31,000 and 42,000 tonnes of microplastics (or 86 trillion – 710 trillion microplastic particles) are spread on European farmland soils each year, mirroring the concentration of microplastics in ocean surface waters.
The cause is microplastic-laden fertilisers derived from sewage sludge diverted from wastewater treatment plants. These are commonly spread on farmland as a renewable source of fertiliser throughout European countries, in part due to EU directives that aim to promote a circular waste economy.
As well as creating a massive reservoir of environmental microplastics, this practice is effectively undoing the benefit of removing these particles from wastewater. Spreading microplastics onto farmland will eventually return them to natural watercourses, as rain washes water on the surface of soil into rivers, or it eventually infiltrates groundwater.
Microplastics filtered from sewage sludge at the wastewater treatment plant.
James Lofty, Author provided
Wastewater treatment plants remove solid contaminants (such as plastics and other large particles) from raw sewage and drain water using a series of settling tanks. This produces an effluent of clean water that can be released to the environment. The floating material and settled particles from these tanks are combined to form the sludge used as fertiliser.
We found that up to 650 million microplastic particles between 1mm and 5mm in size entered a wastewater treatment plant in south Wales, UK, every day. All of these particles were separated from the incoming sewage and diverted into the sludge rather than being released with the clean effluent. This demonstrates how effective default wastewater treatment can be for removing microplastics.
At this facility, each gram of sewage sludge contained up to 24 microplastic particles, which was roughly 1% of its weight. In Europe, an estimated 8 million to 10 million tonnes of sewage sludge is generated each year, with around 40% sent to farmland. The spreading of sewage sludge on agricultural soil is widely practised across Europe, owing to the nitrogen and phosphorus it offers crops.
UK farms also use sewage sludge as fertiliser. In our study, the UK had the highest amount of microplastic pollution within its soils across all European nations (followed by Spain, Portugal and Germany). Between 500 and 1,000 microplastic particles are applied to each square metre of agricultural land in the UK every year.
The relative microplastic burden on European farm soil from direct recycling of sewage sludge.
James Lofty, Author provided
A poisoned circular waste economy
At present, there are no adequate solutions to the release of microplastics into the environment from wastewater treatment plants.
Microplastics removed from wastewater are effectively transported to the land, where they reside until being returned to waterways. According to a study conducted in Ontario, Canada, 99% of microplastics in agricultural soil were transported away from where the sludge was initially applied.
Until then, they have the potential to harm life in the soil. As well as being easily consumed and absorbed by animals and plants, microplastics pose a serious threat to the soil ecosystem because they leach toxic chemicals and transport hazardous pathogens. Experiments have shown that the presence of microplastics can stunt earthworm growth and cause them to lose weight.
Microplastics can also change the acidity, water holding capacity and porosity of soil. This affects plant growth and performance by altering the way roots bury into the soil and take up nutrients.
There is currently no European legislation to limit the amount of microplastics embedded in sewage sludge used as fertiliser. Germany has set upper limits for impurities like glass and plastic, allowing up to 0.1% of wet fertiliser weight to constitute plastics larger than 2mm in size. According to the results from the wastewater treatment plant in south Wales, applying sewage sludge would be prohibited if similar legislation were in place in the UK.
For the time being, landowners are likely to continue recycling sewage sludge as sustainable fertiliser, despite the risk of contaminating soils and eventually rivers and the ocean with microplastics.
Plastics industry, facing crackdown, targets Democrats with mailers deemed deceptive
Cheryl Auger was stunned this month when one of her Pasadena neighbors and friends received a flier in the mail featuring her state assemblyman, with a line stating, “Higher taxes on plastic products will enrich corporate interests with no guarantee of reducing plastic waste.” Although she didn’t know it at the time, Auger’s friend was on the receiving end of a plastics industry campaign to pressure state lawmakers into weakening proposed restrictions on single-use containers, which legislators are mulling in bill form and which could become a November ballot measure. “What is surprising to me is a lack of culpability ,” said Auger, a plastic waste activist.The mailers, sent by a group calling itself the Environmental Solutions Coalition, assert without attribution that bans on single-use plastics “will have a devastating impact on working families” by driving up costs for consumers. Unmentioned in the mailings are that plastics manufacturers and other industries are financing the coalition. The fliers are all aimed at Democrats, largely in Southern California, possibly an attempt to pressure them into derailing the November ballot measure by enacting watered-down legislation the industry can accept.“I interpret it as a message, as a warning to members of the Legislature,” said Assembly Member Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), whose constituents received one of the mailers. “If that’s the intent, it’s backfired because it’s made us even more committed to trying to pass meaningful legislation to crack down on plastic pollution.”In the current legislative session, lawmakers are working on a bill designed to reduce plastic waste. If they are unable to draft legislation by June 30, the issue will go straight to voters as a ballot measure.The initiative, the California Recycling and Plastic Pollution Reduction Act, would require all single-use plastic packaging and food ware used in California to be recyclable, reusable, refillable or compostable by 2030. Single-use plastic production would have to be reduced by 25% by 2030. The costs of the program are to be borne by the producers and distributors of single-use plastics, and the language explicitly states the costs cannot be passed on to the consumer. Climate & Environment Big fight brewing over California ballot measure to reduce single-use plastics Environmentalists and industry are at odds over a November ballot initiative that would reduce single-use plastics and polystyrene food containers. U.S. industries for decades have formed seeming “grass-roots groups” to push agendas such as lower taxes and fewer restrictions on tobacco and pollution. The groups behind the Environmental Solutions Coalition include the California Business Roundtable and the American Chemistry Council, which includes plastics manufacturers and oil companies. Members of the coalition have stated they’d prefer to see the issue settled in the Legislature. The coalition’s mailers targeted constituents of at least five lawmakers — Assembly Members Gabriel, Chris Holden (D-Pasadena), Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella), Jacqui Irwin (D-Thousand Oaks) and Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda). None were consulted before their images were included in the mailers, according to Michael Bustamante, a spokesman for the coalition. Holden could not be reached for comment, and Garcia’s office said it was unaware of the fliers.Irwin sent a statement saying she preferred a legislative solution to the problem of plastic waste, and as yet has not “taken a position on the single use plastics initiative.” Bauer-Kahan said she had never heard of the Environmental Solutions Coalition, “nor have I had any conversations with them regarding any initiative.” She said she supported a reduction of single-use plastics and she has consistently supported legislation to “curb plastic pollution.”Like his colleagues, Gabriel said he wants the Legislature to solve the issue, but described the mailers and intimidation campaign as “unsettling” and “confusing.”“As a pure matter of politics, I think it’s a very poorly done piece,” he said about the flier’s messaging. “I don’t know anyone who can figure out exactly what it’s trying to communicate.”In California and some other states, plastics restrictions are gaining momentum because of evolving research into their health and environmental impacts. Plastics never fully degrade. They just break down into smaller and smaller pieces called microplastics. These particles often contain harmful chemical additives such as flame retardants or plasticizers. Reports suggest that humans consume roughly a credit card’s worth of microplastic each week.Over the last year, research has shown the presence of these particles in human blood, healthy lung tissue and meconium — the first bowel movement of a newborn. They are also found in marine organisms, ocean water, air and soil.Some researchers project that by 2050, there may be more plastic by weight in the world’s oceans than there are fish. Climate & Environment State accuses Exxon Mobil of deceiving public, perpetuating ‘myth’ of plastics recycling
Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta claims Exxon Mobil and other corporations have perpetuated the ‘myth’ that recycling will solve the plastics crisis. Nick Lapis, director of advocacy for Californians Against Waste, said he found it revealing that the plastics industry decided to hide behind layers of trade associations and front groups, instead of making its pitch directly to voters. “This kind of deceptive action is exactly the issue that the attorney general raised a couple weeks ago,” said Lapis, whose nonprofit group has advocated on waste and recycling issues since 1977.Last month, California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, announced a first-of-its kind investigation into the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries for their alleged role in causing and exacerbating a global crisis in plastic waste pollution. Bonta accused them of “perpetuating a myth that recycling can solve the plastics crisis.”Bustamante, the spokesman for the Environmental Solutions Coalition, also was unable to succinctly sum up the message of the fliers, but said they targeted legislators in the Los Angeles area who he considered “part of a common-sense coalition.” He said the mailer was sent to the constituents of lawmakers who “have historically been on the record as paying very close attention to the kinds of things and issues that could increase costs to their constituents.” The fliers do not explicitly mention the pending legislation or the initiative, but stated that “adding billions of dollars in higher costs on the backs of working families is the wrong way to do it.”Auger, a cybersecurity specialist who co-founded a refill store in Pasadena to help consumers reduce plastic waste, said she was not completely surprised by the front group’s scare tactics. The industry, she said, has “stymied anything significant on plastics since the 1990s.”
Plastics industry, facing crackdown, targets Democrats with mailers deemed deceptive
Cheryl Auger was stunned this month when one of her Pasadena neighbors and friends received a flier in the mail featuring her state assemblyman, with a line stating, “Higher taxes on plastic products will enrich corporate interests with no guarantee of reducing plastic waste.” Although she didn’t know it at the time, Auger’s friend was on the receiving end of a plastics industry campaign to pressure state lawmakers into weakening proposed restrictions on single-use containers, which legislators are mulling in bill form and which could become a November ballot measure. “What is surprising to me is a lack of culpability ,” said Auger, a plastic waste activist.The mailers, sent by a group calling itself the Environmental Solutions Coalition, assert without attribution that bans on single-use plastics “will have a devastating impact on working families” by driving up costs for consumers. Unmentioned in the mailings are that plastics manufacturers and other industries are financing the coalition. The fliers are all aimed at Democrats, largely in Southern California, possibly an attempt to pressure them into derailing the November ballot measure by enacting watered-down legislation the industry can accept.“I interpret it as a message, as a warning to members of the Legislature,” said Assembly Member Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), whose constituents received one of the mailers. “If that’s the intent, it’s backfired because it’s made us even more committed to trying to pass meaningful legislation to crack down on plastic pollution.”In the current legislative session, lawmakers are working on a bill designed to reduce plastic waste. If they are unable to draft legislation by June 30, the issue will go straight to voters as a ballot measure.The initiative, the California Recycling and Plastic Pollution Reduction Act, would require all single-use plastic packaging and food ware used in California to be recyclable, reusable, refillable or compostable by 2030. Single-use plastic production would have to be reduced by 25% by 2030. The costs of the program are to be borne by the producers and distributors of single-use plastics, and the language explicitly states the costs cannot be passed on to the consumer. Climate & Environment Big fight brewing over California ballot measure to reduce single-use plastics Environmentalists and industry are at odds over a November ballot initiative that would reduce single-use plastics and polystyrene food containers. U.S. industries for decades have formed seeming “grass-roots groups” to push agendas such as lower taxes and fewer restrictions on tobacco and pollution. The groups behind the Environmental Solutions Coalition include the California Business Roundtable and the American Chemistry Council, which includes plastics manufacturers and oil companies. Members of the coalition have stated they’d prefer to see the issue settled in the Legislature. The coalition’s mailers targeted constituents of at least five lawmakers — Assembly Members Gabriel, Chris Holden (D-Pasadena), Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella), Jacqui Irwin (D-Thousand Oaks) and Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda). None were consulted before their images were included in the mailers, according to Michael Bustamante, a spokesman for the coalition. Holden could not be reached for comment, and Garcia’s office said it was unaware of the fliers.Irwin sent a statement saying she preferred a legislative solution to the problem of plastic waste, and as yet has not “taken a position on the single use plastics initiative.” Bauer-Kahan said she had never heard of the Environmental Solutions Coalition, “nor have I had any conversations with them regarding any initiative.” She said she supported a reduction of single-use plastics and she has consistently supported legislation to “curb plastic pollution.”Like his colleagues, Gabriel said he wants the Legislature to solve the issue, but described the mailers and intimidation campaign as “unsettling” and “confusing.”“As a pure matter of politics, I think it’s a very poorly done piece,” he said about the flier’s messaging. “I don’t know anyone who can figure out exactly what it’s trying to communicate.”In California and some other states, plastics restrictions are gaining momentum because of evolving research into their health and environmental impacts. Plastics never fully degrade. They just break down into smaller and smaller pieces called microplastics. These particles often contain harmful chemical additives such as flame retardants or plasticizers. Reports suggest that humans consume roughly a credit card’s worth of microplastic each week.Over the last year, research has shown the presence of these particles in human blood, healthy lung tissue and meconium — the first bowel movement of a newborn. They are also found in marine organisms, ocean water, air and soil.Some researchers project that by 2050, there may be more plastic by weight in the world’s oceans than there are fish. Climate & Environment State accuses Exxon Mobil of deceiving public, perpetuating ‘myth’ of plastics recycling
Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta claims Exxon Mobil and other corporations have perpetuated the ‘myth’ that recycling will solve the plastics crisis. Nick Lapis, director of advocacy for Californians Against Waste, said he found it revealing that the plastics industry decided to hide behind layers of trade associations and front groups, instead of making its pitch directly to voters. “This kind of deceptive action is exactly the issue that the attorney general raised a couple weeks ago,” said Lapis, whose nonprofit group has advocated on waste and recycling issues since 1977.Last month, California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, announced a first-of-its kind investigation into the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries for their alleged role in causing and exacerbating a global crisis in plastic waste pollution. Bonta accused them of “perpetuating a myth that recycling can solve the plastics crisis.”Bustamante, the spokesman for the Environmental Solutions Coalition, also was unable to succinctly sum up the message of the fliers, but said they targeted legislators in the Los Angeles area who he considered “part of a common-sense coalition.” He said the mailer was sent to the constituents of lawmakers who “have historically been on the record as paying very close attention to the kinds of things and issues that could increase costs to their constituents.” The fliers do not explicitly mention the pending legislation or the initiative, but stated that “adding billions of dollars in higher costs on the backs of working families is the wrong way to do it.”Auger, a cybersecurity specialist who co-founded a refill store in Pasadena to help consumers reduce plastic waste, said she was not completely surprised by the front group’s scare tactics. The industry, she said, has “stymied anything significant on plastics since the 1990s.”
FDA sparks anger with decision on ‘phthalates’ — a chemical in fast-food packaging
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Thursday that it will not impose a total ban on a set of dangerous chemicals commonly found in fast-food packaging, angering scientists and environmental groups who have long pressed for their removal.
The decision came in response to three separate petitions requesting that the FDA limit the use of compounds called phthalates, which are known to disrupt hormone function and have been linked to birth defects, infertility, learning disabilities and neurological disorders.
Despite proven negative health impacts, the compounds are still common ingredients in food packaging. Scientists have found that marginalized groups suffer disproportionately from the chemicals, partly because they consume more fast food.
The FDA on Thursday did institute a ban on the use of 23 phthalates for food contact applications, but it noted that those particular compounds had already “been abandoned” by manufacturers anyway. In taking its action, the FDA agreed to a July 2018 petition submitted by an industry group known as the Flexible Vinyl Alliance.
The FDA will still allow the use of nine other similar compounds in food contact applications. And it denied a separate petition on Thursday from several environmental groups that had asked it to ban the 23 phthalates and an additional five from having food contact.
It said the organizations that had brought the petition, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice and the Environmental Defense Fund, “did not demonstrate that the proposed class of phthalates is no longer safe for the approved food additive uses.”
The FDA also denied another related petition — from some of the same environmental groups — that requested a ban on food contact use for certain phthalates and the revocation of previously sanctioned authorizations for others.
The FDA said it rejected this petition because it failed to “demonstrate through scientific data or information” that such a ban on phthalates was warranted.
Several groups in a research consortium called Project TENDR — Targeting Environmental Neuro-Developmental Risks — condemned the FDA’s decision.
“These chemicals are approved for their use, they have the ability to leach out of these products into the food, they’re ending up in our food in our bodies and are leading to serious and irreversible health effects,” said Ami Zota, an associate professor at the George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health who is a member of Project TENDR.
“That can affect the basics of human condition — like our ability to learn, our ability to have safe and healthy families,” she added. “And marginalized communities are disproportionately being burdened.”
A statement from the consortium faulted the agency for leaving “numerous authorizations in place that perpetuate phthalate contamination of the food supply.”
Earthjustice, one of the organizations behind the rejected petitions, pointed out that although Congress deemed many phthalates too dangerous for use in children’s toys more than a decade ago, the FDA is enabling the continued “contamination of food and drinks.”
“FDA’s decision recklessly green-lights ongoing contamination of our food with phthalates,” Earthjustice attorney Katherine O’Brien said in a statement.
She accused the agency of “putting another generation of children at risk of life-altering harm” while “exacerbating health inequities experienced by Black and Latina women.”
“FDA’s announcement that it will now start reviewing new data on phthalate safety — six years after advocates sounded the alarm — is outrageous and seeks to sidestep FDA’s legal duty to address the current science in proceedings on the existing petitions,” O’Brien added.
In January, the House Oversight and Reform Committee sent a letter to the FDA demanding that the agency take immediate action to address this class of compounds, as The Hill previously reported.
The previous month, health and environmental advocates sued the FDA over its failure to rule on the 2016 petition that was rejected on Thursday. The FDA was required by law to respond to the principal petition within 180 days of filing, according to the suit.
Asked why the agency would have approved the industry petition, but rejected the two broader petitions from the environmental organizations, Zota said that she could not speak to the FDA’s rationale or motivation.
She suggested, however, that the point of the industry petition may have been to “continue use of those phthalates that are most commonly used in plasticizers” — compounds that serve to soften plastics.
“Here is a way we can prevent impaired learning and reproduction in all Americans, but especially the most vulnerable,” she said. “Here’s a pathway to prevention. We do not need more science. The science is clear.”
In response, Flexible Vinyl Alliance’s executive director, Kevin Ott, said that members of the group requested that the FDA ban 25 phthalates as they are “simply no longer employed in food contact or packaging applications.”
To succeed with the petition, Ott explained, the group also worked across the industry to survey real-life use of phthalates in food packaging — determining that their removal would help assure consumers that unnecessary chemicals are no longer used in contact with food.
Alongside these decisions, the agency also issued a request for information on Thursday, with the goal of “seeking available use and safety information on the remaining phthalates authorized for use.”
“The FDA is generally aware of updated toxicological and use information on phthalates that is publicly available,” the agency said in a statement. “Nevertheless, stakeholders may have access to information that is not always made public.”
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Zota disputed the notion that the scientific information is insufficient, urging “the FDA to make evidence-based decisions to protect the health of Americans.”
“Given the ubiquity of the problem and its magnitude on health, we need upstream policy decisions, policy action, and this is in FDA’s regulatory authority,” she added.
— Updated at 6:35 p.m.
South Korea offers Davos a model for recycling
Ambitious goals, messaging and enforcement put the nation at the top of the sustainability pack, serving as a model as the World Economic Forum pushes to end plastic waste.HWASEONG, South Korea — At a sprawling recycling plant in this city of farmland and industry, the sound of sustainability is deafening.The Recycling Management Corporation plant, one of the country’s nerve centers of plastics recycling, runs around the clock, its maze of conveyor belts and sorters producing a din that could rival an airport runway.Yet places like this recycling plant helped South Korea reach the No. 10 spot in this year’s “Green Future Index” report by the M.I.T. Technology Review. The World Economic Forum has cited the report on its website, listing 10 countries that are models for a greener future.While attendees gather at the World Economic Forum summit in the bucolic mountains of Switzerland this month, factories like those run by Recycling Management tend to the daily grind of creating a greener planet.The factories help South Korea meet ambitious sustainability goals, which are reinforced with policies, messaging and enforcement.South Korea, which is the size of Portugal, but with a population of nearly 52 million — while surrounded by water on three sides and a hostile neighbor to the north — is like much of the rest of the planet: under pressure to better utilize existing resources, and to do so before it is too late.South Korea, which has a population of nearly 52 million, is surrounded by water on three sides and a hostile neighbor to the north. It reached the No. 10 spot in this year’s “Green Future Index” report. Woohae Cho for The New York TimesThat sense of urgency, and a United Nations effort to reach an international agreement by 2024 to eliminate plastic waste, may well be on many minds at the Davos summit this year as the ecological fallout from the pandemic becomes clear.“One of the things the pandemic revealed was a rise in the use of plastic for food deliveries and a sense of safety with extra packaging all over the world,” said Kristin Hughes, the director of resource circularity at the World Economic Forum. “Recycling was put on hold in many countries. It wasn’t deemed as essential.”Now that the crisis phase of the pandemic has passed, she said, it’s time to switch direction. “We need to move away from the take-use-dispose approach,” she said.The challenge of consumption and disposal is evident across South Korea. A train ride through this country reveals patches of crammed houses, businesses and farms. There’s little room for landfills. In fact, one of the largest in the country, which absorbs much of the waste from Seoul and its 10 million residents, is expected to be full by 2025.South Korea is also a major manufacturer, exporting electronics, cars and appliances at breakneck speed, which keeps it hovering in or near the top 10 countries for G.D.P. This has created the need for factories and shipyards, in an already crowded nation that has scant room to accommodate them.So recycling bins and food waste canisters are ubiquitous, and 32-gallon food-recycling containers line the curbs of Seoul much the way cars pack the roads in the capital’s notorious traffic.At the Recycling Management factory on a recent afternoon, dozens of workers in protective gear stood alongside jolting conveyor belts, sorting and positioning thousands of plastic bottles and sending them on to their second or third life.Searing temperatures in rattling machinery removed paper logos, then melted the plastic into small pieces known as PET, or polyethylene terephthalate, chips that were then bundled into 1,540-pound bags to be shipped around the world and repurposed into items such as bottles and synthetic clothing. Two hundred of these massive bags are produced daily (except on Sundays, when the factory is closed), accounting, along with a sister facility in nearby Osan, for 19 percent of South Korea’s total PET bottles recycling output.The Green Future Index found that Singapore and South Korea were “the world’s best-ranked recycling economies,” as they “routinely expand policy programs to encourage better waste management.”RM Corporation“We collect, recycle and repurpose,” said Im Sung-jin, the vice chairman of Recycling Management. “But the bigger picture for me is that we do this because we have an obligation to the planet.”That notion of responsibility was the focus of the Green Future Index, the second annual ranking of 76 economies “on their progress and commitment toward building a low-carbon future.” It also singled out nine other countries for their efforts at goals like curbing fossil fuel emissions, reaching carbon neutrality or increasing electric car sales.South Korea was spotlighted specifically for recycling. Its waste management system, known as jongnyangje, calls for food, garbage, recyclables and bulky items to be separated into color-coded bags. The policy is strict, and there are both penalties for noncompliance (up to 1,000,000 Korean won, or about $785) and rewards for those who report violators (up to $235).“We look at what a country has done but also what will be done, both actual and aspirational,” said Ross O’Brien, who led the research and writing of the Green Future Index, in a phone interview from his home in Hong Kong. “For example, no other country has as many new green patents per billion-dollar G.D.P. than South Korea. Based on that, we believe South Korea is the most productive green innovation economy in the world.”The report found that Singapore and South Korea were “the world’s best-ranked recycling economies,” as they “routinely expand policy programs to encourage better waste management.”The emphasis has had an impact: The average Korean citizen now throws out about 1.02 kilograms of household waste daily, about a third of the amount produced in 1991. Its recycling and composting rate is 60 percent, one of the highest in the world, according to the World Bank.By 2030, South Korea aims to reduce its plastic waste by 50 percent and recycle 70 percent of it. And a nationwide deposit-return policy charging 300 Korean won (about 25 cents) for all disposable coffee cups and other single-use beverage containers — and then reimbursing upon return — takes effect June 10.As for food waste, the World Economic Forum lauded South Korea as far back as 2019, pointing out that the country recycled 95 percent of its food waste then, up from 2 percent in 1995. Dumping most food into landfills was banned in South Korea in 2005, and compulsory food waste recycling was introduced in 2013 at a cost of about $6 a month for biodegradable bags.The Recycling Management Corporation plant, one of the country’s nerve centers of plastics recycling, runs around the clock, its maze of conveyor belts and sorters producing a din that could rival an airport runway.RM Corporation“This induced the public to be more active in waste separation since they had to pay for waste bags in proportion to their disposal,” said Kim Jong-min, the deputy director of the waste-to-energy division of the Ministry of Environment. “Before implementing the policy, food waste obviously created a foul odor and spawned a great amount of leachate in landfills.”Yet the approach to recycling has been shifting here and in other countries so that it is no longer viewed as solely a consumer responsibility, according to M.I.T.’s findings, which have been echoed by other environmental groups monitoring Asia.One example is South Korea’s E.P.R. (extended producer responsibility) system for packaging, which began in 2003. The Korea Packaging Recycling Cooperative, a nongovernment agency, monitors and charges fees to thousands of manufacturers.“Under the E.P.R. scheme, it’s all about the design of the products, as fees that the manufacturers pay vary,” said Ma Jae Jeong, the director of the resource recycling division at the South Korea Ministry of Environment. “The more recyclable the products are, the less the fee. The producer can pay a fee up to 50 percent less for products that have the highest recyclable rating. This gives companies enormous incentive to produce more recyclable products.”Still, South Korea has fallen short in other areas, such as electricity production.“What the M.I.T. report highlights is great because South Koreans have a high level of consciousness about climate change, and we don’t have two opposing political sides, such as in the U.S., arguing about its reality,” said Kim Joojin, the managing director and founder of Solutions for Our Climate, a Seoul-based advocacy group. “But, at the same time, South Korea is saddled with an antiquated power sector and is lagging other less wealthy nations. This is often at odds with its global image as a leader in so-called green technology.”At the World Economic Forum, one session will focus on plastics pollution, following up on a U.N. Environment Assembly meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, in March in which 175 countries, including South Korea, agreed to consider a binding resolution to eradicate plastic waste pollution at the end of 2024. The hope, Ms. Hughes said, is that Davos will spotlight the urgent need to produce sustainable practices worldwide.“It’s this whole idea of ‘take, use, reuse, refill, recycle,’ and how we keep using and reusing,” she said. “We’re looking more and more at resource circularity. We’re not just chucking it all into the landfill any more.”
Hydrogen powered ship aims to tackle marine plastic pollution
Microplastic pollution collected at a Key largo, Florida beach State Park by Ocean Blue Project a nonprofit, on November 15, 2019.
Credit – OceanBlueProject (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The oceans are littered with plastic waste and this is an ecological emergency, with plastic having entered the food chain, harming marine life and presenting a potential risk to humanity as well. Plastic debris is currently the most abundant type of litter in the ocean, making up 80 per cent of all marine debris found from surface waters to deep-sea sediments.
To give an idea of the scale of the problem, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) at least 14 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year.
A new approach has been put forwards to help clear a large quantity of plastic material and to produce clean fuel. This is based on an innovative ship design. This is the result of a partnership between H2-Industries and TECHNOLOG Services, a naval architecture company.
The innovation is based on 3D designs for a concept ship that will collect plastic waste and then convert it into clean hydrogen. The process will also enable surplus hydrogen to be shipped back to shore.
The ship is being designed to be more than 150 metres in length. The aim is for ship to travel at four knots with the waste plastic collected by two smaller vessels towing a two-mile net that funnels the waste from the surface and up to ten metres below it.
The plastic waste will then be collected and fed onto conveyors and into the storage hold.
This waste will then be converted into hydrogen by the same thermolysis process that the H2-Industries’ plants will be using on shore. For every 600 kg of waste collected, approximately 100 kg of hydrogen can be produced and, then, stored in liquid organic hydrogen carrier.
This fluid has been dubbed “LOHC” (a special liquid that can carry hydrogen). The containers holding the liquid will be transferred to smaller vessels by onboard cranes for delivery to shore.
The LOHC carrier fluids bind hydrogen chemically and the stored hydrogen used for productive purposes. H2-Industries storage solutions work by charging (hydrogenation) and discharging (dehydrogenation) the LOHC. The ship itself will be powered by hydrogen.
A current constraining factor is the volume of plastic feedstock. One rotary kiln can handle 600 kgs of waste every hour and that will generate approximately.100 kgs of hydrogen. Each ship will be designed to be fitted with multiple kilns to match the speed of plastic collection.
As the technology develops, and should the pilot be successful, this will lead to further advancements, more ships, and greater scale to address the plastic pollution problem.
Cigarette butt recycling scheme aims to stub out waste in Catalonia
Cigarette butt recycling scheme aims to stub out waste in CataloniaMove could provide income for homeless and clean up Barcelona’s streets and beaches, says government In a move that could provide some income for homeless people and clean up the streets, the Catalan government is looking at paying €4 to anyone who hands in a pack’s-worth of cigarette ends at a recycling point.The cost of the proposal would be covered by a 20-cent levy on each cigarette, its proponents say, which would nearly double the price of a pack of Marlboro Red from about €5 (£4.25), compared with about £13 in the UK.A similar levy on plastic bottles and aluminium cans introduced in New York City in 1982 has provided the homeless with a small but steady income.“We want to put a stop to the present situation where around 70% of cigarette butts end up either on the ground or in the sea,” Isaac Peraire, the head of the Catalan waste agency, told El Periódico earlier this week.According to the EU, cigarette butts are the second-most common single-use plastic found on European beaches – and the environmental organisation Ocean Conservancy says that of all the rubbish thrown into the sea, butts are the most numerous.In an effort to limit marine pollution, smoking will be banned on all of Barcelona’s city beaches from July. Spain’s Socialist-led coalition government is also planning to overhaul the country’s smoking laws to make it illegal to light up on the outside terraces of bars and restaurants, on beaches, and at open-air sports venues.According to figures from 2019, 19.7% of Spaniards smoke on a daily basis, slightly above the EU average of 18.4%. The three EU countries with the highest rates of smoking are Bulgaria (28.7%), Greece (23.6%) and Latvia (22.1%).The details of the levy plan have yet to be confirmed but one proposal is that the butts could be returned to the tobacconist or kiosk where the cigarettes were bought.“The idea isn’t to generate income but to reduce the environmental impact of these products,” Peraire said. “It’s hoped that one day this measure will cease to be necessary because the problem will have disappeared.”Meanwhile, the Spanish government is proposing that cigarette manufacturers should pay the cost of sweeping up butts and should educate the public not to discard them because they contain an environmentally damaging cellulose acetate.Andrés Zamorano, the president of the National Committee for the Prevention of Tobacco Use, said he was in favour of the measure because “tobacco comes at a high cost, not just from an environmental point of view, but because it pollutes public spaces”.Zamorano conceded, however, that tobacco companies were likely to add the clean-up cost to the price of their products.Ismael Aznar Cano, director general for quality and assessment at Spain’s environment ministry, said the proposal came within the context of a law on waste due to take effect at the start of 2023.The law will prohibit the sale of plastic cotton buds, cutlery, plates, expanded polystyrene cups and plastic straws, although cigarette butts are not yet covered by the law.Spain is not the only country trying to address the issue. In 2016, Naman Gupta and Vishal Kanet, two Young Indian entrepreneurs, launched a project to recycle some of the estimated 100 billion butts that are dumped every year in the country.They devised a scheme to collect cigarette ends and a process that separates any remaining tobacco, which is recycled into compost, while the filters are treated and made into a substance used for stuffing soft toys and cushions.Another Indian scheme launched in Kolkata last year is ButtRush, which organises the collection of butts for recycling.On the island of Guernsey, authorities have introduced so-called ballot bins where the public can vote on local issues or the result of a football match by depositing their fag ends in a bin showing their preferred option.The bins are at the bus station and outside a chemist’s shop, where cigarette butt pollution is said to have fallen by 46%.In the United States, the recycling firm TerraCycle offers businesses a free collection service and will recycle not only cigarette ends but also the packaging and the foil lining. And in the French city of Bordeaux, a public-private partnership collects and recycles up to 200,000 butts a year and has so far collected more than 1.5 million. Similar action has been taken in nearby Toulouse.One study suggests that there are 4.5 trillion butts littering the environment. The plastic in the filters takes up to 10 years to biodegrade, releasing toxic arsenic and lead as they do so.According to the World Health Organization, tobacco waste contains up to 7,000 toxic chemicals.It is not uncommon to find cigarette ends in the bodies of dead fish and sea birds and they can be lethal to freshwater and marine species.There are no precise figures for the cost of cleaning up cigarette ends in Spain. However, a Catalan study estimates the cost at €12-21 each inhabitant a year, with the cost highest in coastal areas.TopicsBarcelonaCataloniaSpainEuropeTobacco industrySmokingPollutionnewsReuse this content