Author Archives: David Evans

What comes around goes around: Your discarded plastic water bottle may soon become part of your next car.Automakers are racing to make their vehicles more sustainable — the industry’s favorite buzzword — by turning environmentally unfriendly materials into seat cushions, floors, door panels and dashboard trims. First it was reclaimed wood. Then “vegan” leather. Now, plastic waste from the ocean, rice hulls, flaxseeds and agave are transforming the manufacturing process.”Everyone is awakening to the problems of plastic and waste,” Deborah Mielewski, a technical fellow of sustainability at Ford, told ABC News.Ford in particular has been championing the use of renewable materials in its vehicles. In 2008 it replaced the petroleum-based polyol foam in its Mustang sports car with seat cushions made from soy, an industry first. More recently Mielewski and her team started examining how to transform some of the 13 million metric tons of ocean plastic, which threaten marine life and pollute shorelines, into parts for future Ford vehicles. The result? Wiring harness clips in the new Ford Bronco Sport that were once nylon fishing nets.”Two years ago there was a lot of publicity around ocean pollution and we felt an obligation to do something,” Mielewski said.The wiring harness clip in the Ford Bronco Sport, made from recycled ocean plastic, is as durable as petroleum-based clips, Ford says.Ford acquires the recycled plastic from its supplier DSM, which collects the nets from fishermen who are paid to return them. The nets are harvested, sorted, washed and dried before they’re cut into small pellets and injection-molded into harness clips, which weigh about 5 grams and guide wires that power side-curtain airbags in the Bronco Sport.Mielewski said Ford is currently testing the recycled plastic’s durability for the Bronco Sport’s wire shields, floor side rails and transmission brackets.”My hope is we can replace many parts with this material,” she said, adding that more than half of Ford customers “care deeply about the environment and want to understand what companies are trying to minimize their footprint.”Brian Moody, executive editor of Autotrader, said automakers like Ford have been attempting to produce environmentally responsible vehicles for years. He recalled Ford’s Model U concept which premiered on Jan. 5, 2003, at Detroit’s North American International Auto Show. It had a hybrid engine and its door panels were built with a natural fiber-filled composite material.Ford Motor Company shows off the Model U concept car during a press conference at the North America International Auto Show, in Detroit, Jan. 5, 2003.”This is not just a passing trend. Sustainability is here to stay,” Moody told ABC News. “Environmental regulations are likely to become more strict in the years to come [and it’s] another incentive for automakers to start looking for a solution right now.”Automakers deliberately added plastics to reduce the weight and cost of vehicles and increase performance and fuel economy, according to Gregory Keoleian, director of the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan.”About 40 different types of basic plastics and polymers are commonly used to make cars today and state-of-the-art separation technologies are very capital intensive,” he told ABC News. “The majority of plastics are derived from petroleum and natural gas feedstocks and when vehicles are retired these materials are generally disposed of in landfills.”For German automaker Audi, sustainable materials are a launching point to becoming net CO2 neutral by 2050. Recycled PET bottles are ground up and transformed into a polyester yarn, accounting for 89% of the seat material in Audi’s fourth-generation A3 car. An additional 62 PET bottles were recycled for the carpet in the A3. The carpet and floor mats in the all-electric e-tron GT are made from Econyl, a recycled nylon fiber constructed from fishing nets. The e-tron GT’s 20-inch wheels are also assembled from low-CO2 emission aluminum.In August, the company showed off its skysphere electric roadster concept, which featured sustainably produced microfiber seat fabric, environmentally certified eucalyptus wood and synthetically produced imitation leather.The Audi skysphere concept features sustainably produced microfiber fabric in the seats, environmentally certified eucalyptus wood and synthetically produced imitation leather.”Audi is committed to sustainable materials and we’re implementing these changes in new vehicles,” Spencer Reeder, director of government affairs at Audi, told ABC News. “We have very high standards and fully vet these products.”Reeder, however, said Audi’s top priority is expanding its lineup of electrified vehicles. By 2025, 30% of Audi vehicles in the U.S. will be full battery electric or plug-in hybrid.”We’re delivering on things that really truly matter to the environment,” he said. “The focus right now in the industry is on battery materials — nickel, lithium, magnesium — and sustainably sourcing those materials.”Keoleian pointed out that 17% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are from automobiles.”Automakers leading in sustainability are companies accelerating their launch of EV models,” he said.Stephanie Brinley, an analyst at IHS Markit, said automakers are promoting these green efforts aggressively because consumers are more curious and aware of the manufacturing process. These eco-friendly materials “have to look good and be durable and work” to win over consumers, she told ABC News.”If the material performs just as well, consumers will be happy,” she noted, adding, “You’d be hard-pressed to find a consumer who is against sustainable materials.”Volvo, the Swedish automaker, said it’s addressing all areas of sustainability — not just carbon emissions — in its vehicles. The company said it will go leather-free by 2030 and use a material it developed called Nordico that consists of textiles made from recycled material such as PET bottles, bio-attributed material from sustainable forests in Sweden and Finland and corks recycled from the wine industry.The carpet in the Volvo C40 Recharge EV is made of 100% recycled PET plastic bottles.The automaker has even been “looking to reduce the use of residual products from livestock production which are commonly used within or in the production of plastics, rubber, lubricants and adhesives, either as part of the material or as a process chemical in the material’s production or treatment,” according to Rekha Meena, Volvo’s senior design manager for color and material.”We see a growing trend in consumer demands for more sustainable materials, particularly alternatives to leather, in most of our key markets due to concern over animal welfare and the negative environmental impacts of cattle farming, including deforestation,” she told ABC News. “We share these concerns and are choosing to transition away from leather and focus on high-quality sustainable alternatives, like Nordico, to meet this customer need.”Polestar, Volvo’s electric performance brand, cut plastic from its car interiors by choosing a composite made from flax.The Polestar 2 EV. features seats made from recycled plastic and the plastic panels inside the cabin have been replaced with natural materials.The instrument panel in BMW’s all-electric iX SUV is treated with a natural olive leaf extract to avoid any production residue that is harmful to the environment, according to the company. BMW also chose FSC-certified wood and a large chunk of the iX’s door panels, seats, center console and floor are manufactured from recycled plastics.Each BMW iX contains some 132 pounds of recycled plastic in total.For its all-new MX-30 EV, Mazda wanted to use materials that “show an even greater respect for environmental conservation,” a spokesperson told ABC News. The center console and door grips in the MX-30 EV are made of cork and the seats feature leatherette and a fabric that uses 20% recycled threads. The door trims also use recycled PET bottles.The center console and door grips in the all-electric Mazda MX-30 are made of cork, and the seats feature leatherette and recycled threads.Environmental aesthetics will certainly attract a discerning segment of drivers, according to Brinley.”Some consumers will feel much better about their vehicles,” she said. “But we’re still pretty far away from having a car made entirely from renewable materials.”Geoffrey Heal, a Columbia Business School professor, said automakers could make an even greater impact by powering their factories with renewable electricity and building cars that are easily recyclable at the end of their life cycle. Reusing plastic and biodegradable materials is laudable but would have to be done at a significant scale to truly be effective, he argued.”Automakers are doing this because they feel pressure both by consumers and the government. But there is genuinely some concern [by automakers] to make the world a better place,” Heal told ABC News. “These are small steps but every little step helps.”Ford’s Mielewski said the company will continue experimenting with innovative and earth-friendly materials — agave, potato peels, coffee chaff — to try to reduce Ford’s impact on the planet.”We’ve been doing this for quite a long time. I hope everyone will join us,” she said.

Recent studies show that fertility in both male and female has decreased over the past few decades. According to research, this is linked to the effects of toxic chemicals in plastics that have gone unregulated. Plastics contain hazardous chemicals, including endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) that threaten human health.

In most African countries, a majority of the people use plastic products daily. Most used plastic items include plates, cups, toys, shampoo bottles, food packaging tins, and office equipment.

Unbeknownst to many, some of the products contain harmful chemicals and additives that negatively impact their health and the environment. It’s hard to control the exposure of some of the additives in plastic for they occur during the entire life span of the products, from the manufacturing process to the consumer contact, recycling, to waste management and disposal. This makes it even harder for circular economy to thrive for it turns toxic if the plastics recycled contain toxic chemicals.

Waste recycling

Many of these additives are known to interfere with hormone functioning thus are commonly referred to as endocrine disrupting chemicals. These chemicals are deadly and life threatening. The can cause cancer, diabetes, liver, metabolic disorders, alterations to both male and female reproductive development, infertility and neurological impacts.

According to research, young women today at 25 are less fertile than their grandmothers were when they were 45. The number of sperms per milliliter of semen has dropped more than 50 per cent among men in western countries in just under 40 years. Some of the known chemicals that leach from plastic and threaten general health include the phthalates, PFAS, flame retardants, dioxins and UV-stabilisers.

Children spend a significant amount of time on the ground in indoor areas having hand-to-mouth contact and playing with contaminated toys. Regulations are needed in ensuring some of the additives are not used for they are costing the lives of many children.

Although waste recycling is a good practice, it should not apply to waste containing toxic chemicals and additives. The burden of plastics needs to be addressed from the source as many African countries have turned into dumping sites. 

The amount of plastic traded between countries has the carbon footprint of a mid-sized European country, according to a new study from the University of Pittsburgh.
Almost half of all plastics are traded across international borders – usually from oil- and gas-producing countries to those with big manufacturing sectors, like China.
Oil and gas are harvested and refined to make that plastic. The study found that internationally-traded plastics created 350 million metric tons of carbon dioxide – about the same footprint as France or Italy.
“This is a huge problem,” said Vikas Khanna, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, and the study’s lead author.  “But at the same time, it’s a huge opportunity.”
Better recycling could lower that footprint, to promote a “circular” economy, Khanna said. Only around 9 percent of all plastics are recycled.

Opportunities to reduce plastic
By 2050, plastics are on track to account for 15 percent of all global greenhouse gases. Scientists say lowering our greenhouse gas emissions is imperative to limiting the worst effects of climate change.
Khanna said most recycling now is a form of  “downcycling,” where materials like plastic bottles are repurposed as lower-grade materials.
“Maybe you shred it into smaller particles and it may become fillers for something else,” Khanna said.
He said chemical recycling, where plastics are broken down into their building blocks, is one way to keep more virgin plastics out of landfills and the environment. A plastic bottle can then become…another plastic bottle.
“That way, we’re not losing the value, we’re recovering the building blocks” of the material, Khanna said.
Khanna said for that to happen, there will need to be government action to fund research and offer incentives for companies to improve recycling techniques.
“Right now, I think there’s a lack of incentives and there’s no policies, at least in the U.S.,” Khanna said. Those policies are starting to take hold in Europe in other countries, he said.
In addition to greenhouse gases, plastics pose other problems. Scientists estimate around 10 million metric tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year, and microplastics – tiny particles that escape into the environment as materials degrade–have been found in Arctic ice, the Mariana Trench, and in baby feces.
Video: As the World Grapples with Plastic Pollution, Pa.’s Ethane Cracker Promises More Plastic

The study found that since a handful of countries, like the U.S., China, Saudi Arabia and Germany are responsible for the majority of plastics trade, policies in just a few countries could have a big impact on reducing plastic waste. Improving worldwide recycling practices “may only require interventions in a few key countries,” the authors state.
Make producers responsible for plastic waste
Daniel Posen, assistant professor in civil and mineral engineering at the University of Toronto, who was not involved in the study, said there’s no silver bullet to solving the world’s plastics problem.
He said one potential part of the solution is to cut down on the circulation of plastics by banning some single-use plastics – like shopping bags and utensils – as many countries around the world have begun doing.
Another possible solution is a regulatory concept, also gaining popularity in Europe, of “extended producer responsibility,” which places the onus on companies – rather than local governments and consumers – on ensuring plastics are properly disposed of.
“As soon as you flip the responsibility, it’s no longer on the consumer or on governments to deal with it but on you as a company,” Posen said. “If you are responsible as a company for proper disposal, you are going to design a product that is much easier to be disposed of.”
Following Pennsylvania Gas to Scotland

This story is produced in partnership with StateImpact Pennsylvania, a collaboration among The Allegheny Front, WPSU, WITF and WHYY to cover the commonwealth’s energy economy.

Microplastics travelled thousands of kilometres across oceans and continents in a fast-moving layer of the atmosphere before being captured on a mountain in the French Pyrenees

Environment

21 December 2021

By Carissa Wong
Capturing microplastics at the Pic du Midi ObservatoryJeroen Sonke
Microplastics found at a mountain top in the French Pyrenees may have crossed continents and oceans, travelling around 4500 kilometres in a fast-moving region of the troposphere, which is the lowest layer of the atmosphere. The finding suggests the particles can circulate the world and reach even the most remote regions.
Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic, each less than 5 millimetres in diameter. They have been previously discovered in a lower region of the troposphere called the boundary layer, where friction between the air and Earth’s surface occurs and wind speeds are relatively low.
Now, for the first time, we have evidence that microplastics can travel at a higher altitude in the troposphere in a layer that doesn’t feel the effects of friction with Earth’s surface. In this layer – called the free troposphere – higher wind speeds give microplastics a greater potential for long-distance travel than was previously known.Advertisement
“Once microplastics hit the free troposphere it’s the super highway for pollution movement. There’s high wind speed and very little rain up there, so the pollution doesn’t get rained out and it just travels much faster [than in the planetary boundary layer below],” says Steve Allen at the University of Strathclyde in the UK, a member of the research team.
“We’re not surprised that it’s up there but we’re sad that it is. These tiny particles are excellent transporters of pollution, they act as little balls of Velcro, collecting viruses and other pollutants on the outside of the particle as it moves,” says team member Deonie Allen, also at the University of Strathclyde.
The researchers captured 15 samples of microplastic particles over several months at the Pic du Midi Observatory in the Pyrenees in south-west France, which sits at nearly 3000 metres above sea level and provides access to the free troposphere.
The team used computational models to map the likely routes taken by the microplastics in the week leading up to their capture. The models were fed with data on the movement of airflow around the globe and took account of the sizes and densities of the microplastics to find that particles travelled around 4500 kilometres on average in the free troposphere. Potential sources included the US, Canada, North Africa, the UK, and the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean.

“Some of the samples we got showed a marine source, coming out of the ocean and managing to get up into the free troposphere,” says Steve Allen. “That basically completes the cycle of what we think plastics are doing – it doesn’t stop anywhere, there’s never a sink, but a way station on to somewhere else.”
Most of the particles were between 5 and 20 micrometres in diameter. These are particles that can be inhaled and potentially cause breathing problems.
“This is the size of particle you breathe that causes respiratory disease – the stuff that makes you cough and gives you asthma,” says Deonie Allen.
Using a laser, the team determined that the most abundant type of plastic was polyethylene, which is commonly used in plastic packaging.
“Wealthy countries think that they’re getting rid of plastic waste when they ship it off to be burned or landfilled in other parts of the world – they’re not, it’s just coming back in a few weeks’ time. There’s no borders in nature,” says Steve Allen.
Journal reference: Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-27454-7
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While climate disasters unfold in Canada and around the planet, the federal government is entertaining false solutions from the fossil-fuel industry that risk making things worse instead of better. The federal government has committed to ending fossil fuel subsidies. But now they’re rolling out new policies, spending programs and tax breaks to incentivize carbon capture and storage, blue hydrogen and “advanced recycling.” The truth is, these are just new fossil fuel subsidies in disguise that will continue to lock us into dirty fuels. Take “carbon capture and storage” (CCS), touted by the industry as a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by capturing some of the gases from polluting facilities before they escape into the atmosphere. CCS does nothing to stop the emissions created from burning the fuel — most notably for heating and transportation — and yet the oil and gas lobby wants at least $50 billion from taxpayers to make it happen.But CCS is not a climate solution. In fact, CCS perversely increases emissions, since most of the captured carbon is actually used to get more oil out of the ground. And despite decades of research and tens of billions of dollars in subsidies globally, CCS is neither economically sound nor proven at scale. In fact, globally only 0.1 per cent of annual emissions from fossil fuels are being captured. And while the costs of renewables and real climate solutions have plummeted, carbon capture technologies remain very expensive.And then there’s “blue” hydrogen. Hydrogen, like electricity, can be used to store or transport energy, and when burned, it doesn’t create any greenhouse gas emissions. But the vast majority of hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels — with huge emissions. Industry promises to deal with those through unproven CCS.A recent study from Cornell and Stanford found that blue fossil hydrogen is even worse for the climate than burning coal or natural gas directly and concludes there is no role for fossil hydrogen in a carbon-free future. If hydrogen is to play a role in a future energy grid, it will be “green” hydrogen from renewable electricity.Not to be left behind, the petrochemical industry is touting a troubling technology to rid the world of plastic waste. We’re on track to see plastic outweigh fish in the world’s oceans by 2050, but the industry’s proposed strategy will allow them to continue producing more and more plastic. The industry has long used the promise of recycling to justify plastic, especially single-use products and packaging. But recycling has never worked. Only 9 per cent of all plastic is recycled in Canada. The rest ends up in landfills, incinerators or the natural environment. Now the industry is selling “advanced recycling,” which isn’t really recycling at all. There has been a flurry of announcements around the world in recent years about pilot projects to make a small amount of plastic waste “disappear” by turning it into fuel and chemicals. These projects burn a lot of energy to get a small amount of fuel, some of which might be sent back to refineries that make new plastic and untold byproducts, most of which will end up in landfills. Similar to CCS, “advanced recycling” also doesn’t reduce our need to extract and refine fossil fuels. All we get in the end is more and more plastic, more and more waste and more and more pollution.To stop the damage to our planet, the federal government must refuse false solutions and instead pave the way for a fair transition for workers and communities away from oil and gas. That means no tax breaks, spending or regulations that provide a benefit to CCS, blue hydrogen or advanced recycling.Julia Levin is senior program manager, climate and energy, at Environmental Defence and Karen Wirsig is plastics program manager at Environmental Defence.

Plastic and other garbage litters the beach on Pace Picnic Island in Miami. Credit: University of Georgia

A team of University of Georgia (UGA) researchers is hard at work in Miami to help leaders there tackle a problem that affects nearly every city in the world: Plastic pollution.

Bales of waste illegally imported from Portugal seized in Romania in 2019. Photo: National Environmental Guard of RomaniaRomania has limited the number of border crossing points through which recyclable waste can be broughg into the country to 15, and has adopted a decision to combat the illegal import of waste. “Romania cannot be Europe’s landfill,” Environment Minister Tanczos Barna said.
Barna added that as European legislation currently does not allow member states to refuse imported waste, Romania needed to adopt its own normative act to regulate such activities.
“Tracing these transports from the border to the place of recycling will be mandatory. The quantities of waste entering the country will also be correlated with the recycling capacity of the companies,” he added.
An environmental activist, Octavian Berceanu, told BIRN that the new measures were good, but still insufficient, as the 15 designated points are the same points where such waste is usually introduced, so not much would change.
“These checking points must be equipped with scanning devices, and the number of environmental commissioners must be tripled. Otherwise, Romania could be sued by these companies,” Berceanu told BIRN.
Barna said that the transport – often illegal – of waste to Romania and the management of the waste were some of the urgent problems “that we will solve through this normative act”.
According to the act, the 15 authorised crossing points for waste will be established by a joint order of the Environment and Interior Ministers.
An Environmental Fund will be administered by an institution that will monitor the incoming quantities of waste, and ensure that they match the recycling capacity of the companies that the waste should reach, also making available to users a free-of-charge computer system to ensure traceability.
This will help to monitor and verify the correctness of transactions of waste.
“We noticed an increasing trend of illegal waste shipments identified in the Romanian border crossing points and an increased pressure on the borders,” the environmental protection agency, ANPM, said.
In recent years, Romania and Bulgaria have become essential destinations for waste from Western Europe after China closed its doors in 2018 to such imports.
Much of the waste is brought to villages around Bucharest and burned illegally, causing air pollution, as the central and local authorities often look the other way.
The metal extracted from burning plastic, rubber and other materials is sold to scrap metal businesses.