Author Archives: David Evans

Airborne microplastic sampling under way at Kaitorete Spit in Canterbury, New Zealand. Credit: Alex AvesAdvertisement
Microplastics—minuscule bits of bottles, bags, synthetic fibers and other plastic waste that have broken up in the environment—are influencing Earth’s climate as they circulate through the atmosphere. Like other aerosol particles, both natural and synthetic, microplastics seem to have an overall cooling effect (albeit a small one), according to the first study to look at the possible climate effects of airborne microplastics. The study’s authors and other researchers say the findings, published on Wednesday in Nature, show the urgent need to get a better handle on how much plastic debris is in the air, where it is and what it is made of in order to better pin down its climatic influence.

Microplastics are yet another kind of particle that humans are adding to the atmosphere “that has a climate impact. And that is big, and that is important, and we need to start accounting for that” when examining factors that affect Earth’s climate, says Deonie Allen, a microplastics researcher at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland. “This is the paper that opens that door,” adds Allen, who was not involved in the new study but has worked with the authors on other research.

All kinds of plastic waste crumble into smaller and smaller pieces when exposed to sunlight, wind, rain and other environmental conditions. Plastic’s generally low density means these fragments can easily be picked up by winds and blown around the world. In recent years, scientists have even found microplastics on remote mountain peaks and in the Arctic.

It occurred to researchers—including Laura Revell, an atmospheric scientist at New Zealand’s University of Canterbury and one of the new study’s authors—that all those particles swirling around the globe would intercept sunlight, as do other aerosols such as dust, sulfates and black carbon. This ultimately influences temperatures on Earth’s surface. Sulfates, for example, scatter radiation, exerting a cooling effect. Black carbon, on the other hand, absorbs visible and infrared radiation, warming the atmosphere.

But unlike sulfates or black carbon, plastic is not one material but hundreds. It encompasses a multitude of different polymers, as well as the chemicals and pigments that are added to them. Microplastic particles also come in a wide array of sizes and shapes. “That makes them particularly tricky,” Revell says. Her team’s study only considered noncolored fragments and fibers shed by synthetic fabric because they were the only materials for which the researchers had information on radiative properties. These particles scatter ultraviolet and visible light and absorb infrared light. When the scientists included these interactions in global climate models, they could estimate the particles’ net impact on Earth’s energy balance—which was a very slight cooling. The study estimated so-called effective radiative forcing (ERF), a measure of changes in Earth’s energy balance. Microplastics had an ERF of about –0.75 milliwatt per square meter, whereas all other aerosols have an ERF between –0.71 and –0.14 watt per square meter. (There are 1,000 milliwatts in one watt.) At the global level, warming from greenhouse gases in the atmosphere overwhelms these cooling influences.

But microplastics could have localized cooling or warming effects depending on how they vary from place to place: there are higher concentrations over some cities, for example. “The regional effects of aerosols can be significant” even when the overall global effect is low, says climate scientist Bjørn Samset, who studies aerosols at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo and was not involved with the new study.

The exact effect on temperature can vary depending on how many particles are involved, how high in the atmosphere they are and numerous other variables. Because Revell and her co-authors wanted to take a first stab at addressing the question of climate influence, they assumed a uniform concentration of one microplastic particle per cubic meter of air throughout the lowest layer of the atmosphere. Even the limited concentration studies done to date show huge variations, however, from as low as 0.01 particle per cubic meter over parts of the Pacific Ocean to as high as 5,550 particles per cubic meter over Beijing. Studies have used different methods of sampling and detection, some of which miss the smallest plastic particles. In the studies that have used more sensitive methods, the tiniest particles made up half of what was found. And scientists do not yet know how many microplastics may be present at higher levels of the atmosphere, where their effects could be different.

Factoring in pigments and other additives could also change the effect they have. Pigments, for example, would generally increase light absorption, which would tend to warm the atmosphere. Revell says there is simply not yet enough information available to draw such conclusions. And then there are organic materials that could alter things by glomming on to plastic particles, as well as the ways these particles may interact with other atmospheric chemicals or influence cloud formation. “We still don’t know much about how they actually behave in the atmosphere,” Revell says.

Though the overall effect she and her colleagues have calculated is small, compared with that of other aerosols, “it is big enough to be quantified,” Allen says, adding that this shows the need to fund more and better monitoring of atmospheric microplastics. Rather than microplastics being a separate problem, she says, the results “securely cement [them] in the climate change argument.”

Rights & Permissions

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)Andrea Thompson, an associate editor at Scientific American, covers sustainability. Follow Andrea Thompson on TwitterCredit: Nick HigginsRecent Articles by Andrea ThompsonRisk of Dangerous Heat Exposure Is Growing Quickly in CitiesHow Climate Change Helped Fires Cross the Sierra Nevada for the First TimeHere’s How Much Food Contributes to Climate Change

A disturbing image has exposed a huge hidden issue with Australia’s vaccine rollout amid a desperate push to find a solution.Doctors and nurses are joining the war on waste after disturbing images reveal a grim plastic waste problem that has made worse by the Covid pandemic.The scale of the problem – about 70 million pieces of plastic in landfill – is more evident now than ever with the healthcare system relying on single-use plastic during the Covid vaccine rollout.Images shared by NSW Circular, a government funded organisation that promotes recycling, have given a grim insight into the mammoth amount of syringe caps being discarded.Each jab involves a range of single-use plastics, including syringe caps and the syringe itself which add up to hundreds of kilos.And NSW Circular is desperate to do something about it.The organisation is working with St Vincents for a recycling trial, during which, they collected 80,000 pieces of plastic waste that weighed 205kgs – equivalent to 41,000 plastic bags.The scheme has since expanded to include a vaccine hub in Newcastle, where 170kg of plastic caps from Covid jabs have been collected in just a few weeks.NSW Circular said collecting waste produced from the vaccine rollout across NSW’s public health system could save nearly 70 million pieces of plastic from landfill – this would total about 150 tonnes.But the challenge is figuring out what to do with it.While the group flagged that clinical waste cannot be recycled, between 40 and 60 per cent of non-clinical waste was being thrown away. If that was recovered, NSW Health could save between $2-3 million a year which could be spent elsewhere.“If the estimated recyclable waste currently going into clinical waste streams was recovered, NSW hospitals could create annual savings equivalent to the cost of hiring 40 nurses,” NSW Circular said.One of the solutions is turning plastic parts into roller doors.NSW Circular joined forces with AllMoulds Plastic’s founder Scott Cantrill who has turned the 80,000 pieces of plastic from St Vincent’s Hospital into parts for roller doors and plastic caps that go on bolts.The plastic caps are then being purchased Ocycut – a Sydney company that makes parts for wind turbines. NSW Circular said it set out to prove it was possible for the healthcare sector to recycle without compromising health or safety.

From start to finish, making alcoholic beverages asks a lot from the environment. It takes about 20 gallons of water to produce a single eight-ounce serving of beer and 30 gallons per five-ounce serving of wine. Then there’s the glass and aluminum production for alcohol containers, the plastic and cardboard for packaging, and energy consumption for home and retail refrigeration. Many types of alcohol are only made in one or a few places—tequila in Mexico, scotch in Scotland, bourbon in Kentucky—requiring long-distance transportation to reach consumers.The most common ingredients in alcohol production—grapes, wheat, barley, hops, sugar—are some of the most water- and energy-intensive crops on the planet. Brewing and fermenting also require huge amounts of energy. While specific estimates of the alcoholic beverage industry’s carbon footprint are not available, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine says the wider food and beverage industry is one of the most unsustainable in the world, contributing to an estimated 60 percent of biodiversity loss and 30 percent of emissions-driven climate change worldwide. Alcohol makes up about 16 percent of the U.S. beverage industry by volume, according to Park Street, a Florida-based firm that provides logistical support to alcohol companies.As climate change closes in, affecting every part of beverage producing, from agriculture to trucking, could these long-enduring practices spell an end to cheap beer on tap? Not necessarily; help is on the way. Innovations and technologies are emerging to reduce the environmental footprint of the alcoholic beverage industry, while some large manufacturers are taking steps to make production more sustainable. Here are a few examples.Tackling transportationIn 2010, after hiking to the top of a mountain in Utah’s Canyonlands National Park, Patrick Tatera really wanted a beer. Knowing that it’s about 95 percent water, Tatera, whose background is in chemical engineering and mathematics, started to ponder how he could dehydrate beer for easier transport and then rehydrate it when he was ready to drink it.Tatera began experimenting and realized that a technology that could do this on a large scale could impact the entire beer industry, which is plagued by an inefficient distribution chain, according to Gary Tickle, the CEO of Sustainable Beverage Technologies, or SBT, the company Tatera went on to form.Global transportation accounts for an estimated 20 percent of beer’s carbon footprint. Beer, wine, and other alcoholic beverages are generally shipped in climate-controlled vehicles to prevent spoiling. “There’s a lot of stainless steel, water, and air being shipped around the country and around the world by virtue of the technology that’s being used today,” Tickle says. Tatera developed a process called BrewVo, which creates highly concentrated beer that can be transported at one-sixth the weight and volume of traditional beer. The BrewVo process is similar to traditional brewing except that the beer goes through multiple rounds of it. The final product of each brew cycle is sent through a BrewVo unit, which separates out the water and alcohol. “Everything else, all the good stuff that we typically find in the body of the beer,” such as the flavor from the hops and grain is shipped in plastic bags instead of cans, bottles, or kegs, according to Tickle.At its destination—a bar or local brewery—it’s mixed at a ratio of one part bulk beer, six parts water, alcohol if desired, and then carbonated. It can then be sold as beer. BrewVo’s beer products are available at several bars in Denver, Colorado; the company is working to open a bar in South America, and soon will partner with Sleeping Giant, a brewer in Colorado, to scale up production.Hoppiness from yeastAnother sustainable solution for the beer industry came to life in 2013. Charles Denby was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley studying how to genetically engineer yeast to make biofuels. In his spare time, he was brewing beer. He learned something in the process: Hops, which give beer its distinctive aroma and flavor, are one of the most expensive parts of the process. A pound of hops, which can make anywhere from about 10 to 25 gallons of beer depending on the recipe, can cost upwards of $15. Hop production is also a water hog. Growing one pound takes about 300 to 450 gallons of water depending on local weather and soil conditions, according to studies in Washington and Oregon, two of the largest hop-producing states. Denby applied his expertise in yeast genetics and synthetic biology to making beer.He thought, “What if I just got the yeast to do it; we can cut out all of that agriculture and all that cost,” Denby says.Denby and his Berkley colleague, Rachel Li, set to work engineering a strain of yeast that would produce terpenes, the chemical compounds in hops responsible for the “hoppy” flavor. In 2018, Denby and Li reported their success in Nature. In fact, beers brewed with the strains of yeast they developed tasted even hoppier than traditional beers, according to results of a double-blind taste test reported in the study.The pair went on to create Berkeley Yeast. But despite the promise of their innovation, the hops substitute wasn’t immediately taken up in the industry, according to Denby.“When you have an application that can replace or reduce the reliance on agriculture, but people have been using agriculture for centuries to do the job that you are replacing or improving, it takes a little while. In the beer industry in particular, a lot of these breweries already have contracts where they have hops on contract for the next five years,” Denby says. To overcome that stumbling block, the company instead promoted its yeast-derived flavors as a lower-cost, dependable alternative to hops. Today, Berkeley Yeast supplies brewer’s yeast to hundreds of breweries, Denby says, and has expanded into the wine industry.  Carbon-neutral productionWhile start-ups such as Tatera’s SBT and Denby’s Berkeley Yeast look to create innovative solutions, other beverage companies are shifting their entire production processes to be more environmentally friendly.Diageo, one of the largest multinational beer and spirit producers in the world, owns over 200 well-known alcoholic beverage brands, including Guinness, Don Julio, Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, and Crown Royal, and has pledged to eliminate its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.To do that, says Kirstie McIntyre, the company’s Global Sustainability Director, Diageo is taking a multi-pronged approach. Increasing efficiency is one way—upgrading equipment, improving building insulation, and speeding up the production process. The company captures and reuses heat energy, which is required in several stages of production. Diageo also uses renewable energy sources such as biomass generators fueled by byproducts from the brewing and distilling processes and waste products from farming hops, barley, and other ingredients to generate energy and electricity on site.So far, Diageo has three carbon-neutral distilleries and is working to make their other 150 production sites worldwide carbon-neutral in the coming years. “It’s not a one size fits all. You can’t do the same thing in every single site,” McIntyre says. “We will go through that same hierarchy within each site, no matter how big or small, no matter how new or old, and we will work through all of that. ” In early September, Diageo’s strategy to reach net zero emissions was certified by the Science Based Targets initiative, a joint effort by CDP Worldwide, the United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute, and the World Wide Fund for Nature, which helps the private sector lower its emissions. Net-zero is achieved when a company eliminates its emissions, or offsets them by planting trees, for instance, so that it doesn’t add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and contribute to climate change. Momentum for sustainability in the alcoholic beverage industry seems to be growing as emerging innovations take hold and well-known brands work to reduce their environmental footprint. “This truly is a global opportunity, says Tickle. If you think about this industry, it really hasn’t changed a lot in many hundreds of years. We think that this really is the first unique opportunity to truly upend an industry.”

Baca dalam bahasa IndonesiaOcean diving began as a hobby for Swietenia Puspa Lestari.Key points:A climate activist says an increasing number of young Indonesians feel “eco-anxiety” “Eco-anxiety” is a source of stress caused by concern over the impacts of climate change Young Indonesians are taking action to tackle climate change as a way to manage this anxietyBut after a decade, she saw more rubbish than colourful fish underwater so started to feel anxious.”I found so much plastic waste, mainly from single-use plastics such as packaging and straws,” she said.Ms Lestari, an environmental engineer, decided to tackle the pollution problem so founded Divers Clean Action six years ago.Now, the organisation has more than 1,000 volunteers across Indonesia.

This year, each of us will throw out, recycle, or shove into a desk drawer an average of 16.8 pounds of old phones, laptops, toasters, and other electronics and appliances, according to the UN — a whopping total of 63.3 million tons of electronic waste worldwide.That waste can end up in massive digital dumps in the Global South, exposing children who pick out valuable metals from the trash to more than 1,000 toxic substances.With just more than 17% of that e-waste recycled, advocates are urging producers and consumers to make sure those defunct electronics don’t end up in landfills or collecting dust in the basement. As we transition to more renewable forms of electricity and transportation, which require metals like lithium and copper, experts say it’s more important than ever that we recycle smartphones and batteries.”It’s a call on consumers to return their electronics because without that, the alternative is the need to mine the materials, which is a lot more environmentally damaging,” said Pascal Leroy, director general of the nonprofit WEEE Forum, during a press conference held Wednesday to promote International E-waste Day.

Toxics from handling e-waste

Electronic waste, or “e-waste,” is not a new challenge — picture discarded rusted washing machines and refrigerators.But the amount of e-waste we’re creating each year has been on the rise. In 2019, 59 million tons of e-waste were created around the world, up more than 20% in just five years, according to the United Nations.Some countries — especially in Europe — have relatively successful e-waste takeback programs. But “the amount of e-waste is growing so rapidly that even the growth (of recycling) that we are experiencing at a global scale is being outpaced,” said Kees Baldé, a senior program officer at the United Nations University’s Sustainable Cycles Program, during the press conference.The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that Americans throw out more than 151 million cellphones a year. The agency says that recycling a million of those phones would recover 35,000 pounds of copper and 772 pounds of silver. Large appliances like fridges and stoves still make up the bulk of e-waste by weight, according to the WEEE Forum.Related: E-waste grew 8 percent in just 2 years. Just one-fifth was recycled.Improper e-waste disposal brings with it a host of environmental and human health concerns.Because of their small hands, kids often work to recover valuable materials from digital dumpsites in Asia and Africa, exposing them to heavy metals like lead and mercury and other toxic chemicals, according to the WHO. Meanwhile, pregnant people who sift through e-waste at these sites are at greater risk of having a stillbirth or premature birth, and of having babies born with neurodevelopmental issues linked to lead exposure. The U.S. has not signed the Basel Convention, which prohibits countries from sending hazardous waste abroad unless recipients have agreed to accept it.

Policies to deal with e-waste  

Like with many environmental issues, Europe is ahead of the United States in addressing e-waste. The EU requires electronic product manufacturers to design products so that they can be repaired, and to put in place electronics takeback and recycling programs. EU citizens also have guaranteed access to free e-waste recycling programs — something not guaranteed in the U.S. These efforts have led to 55% of e-waste in Europe being properly recycled, Leroy said at the press conference.While it’s been illegal to dump e-waste in the United States since the 1970s, states have largely been left on their own to figure out what to do about mounting electronic waste. 25 states and the District of Columbia have put e-waste laws in place, but experts say a more comprehensive approach is needed.Recently, the “right to repair” movement has gained momentum to ensure that customers have access to the software and other tools needed to repair their own cars and electronics, or to seek out independent, and typically cheaper, mechanics and repair shops to do so for them. Elizabeth O’Reilly, head of environmental compliance at WEEE Ireland, said a focus of e-waste reduction efforts where she lives has been training a new generation of appliance repair technicians.For individuals wanting to recycle e-waste, the Consumer Technology Association has an interactive map that you can use to find out where to drop off your e-waste. Banner photo: Women sorting Plastics for melting on the outskirts of Guangzhou, China. (Credit: baselactionnetwork/flickr)

A new biomaterial created by methane-munching marine organisms can be molded into eyeglass frames or formed into leather-like sheets.Leather is a controversial material, and not just because cows have to die to produce it. Or because tanning leather requires toxic chemicals like chromium, which is sometimes dumped straight into local waterways. No, the worst part about leather, according to environmental activists, is that it’s a major contributor to climate change.Animal agriculture is estimated to be responsible for 14.5 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Kering, the luxury fashion conglomerate that owns such storied leather-loving brands as Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, said in its 2020 environmental report that the production and processing of leather is by far the biggest contributor to its carbon footprint. And when the Amazon was on fire in 2019, the blazes were blamed at least partially on cattle ranching operations, and several large brands including H&M and Timberland vowed to stop sourcing leather from the region.The alternatives available to the fashion industry, however—fossil-fuel-based polyurethane and PVC—leave something to be desired. All of the buzzy plant-based vegan leathers, whose manufacturers claim emit fewer greenhouse gases during production, are also mixed with synthetic petroleum products, making them more harmful than their “cruelty-free” marketing implies. With all the press around prototype products from Adidas and Stella McCartney, you would be forgiven for thinking you could already buy a lab-grown leather wallet or mushroom leather Stan Smith sneakers, but those materials are still struggling toward commercial viability.

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Practical Solutions for the Ocean’s Ailments

As scooters zip across a brick-walled bridge, about five kilometers from the Indian Ocean beaches of Bali, Indonesia, Made Bagiasa scythes young bamboo from the riverbank while Gary Bencheghib loops steel cable around a sturdy mango tree. In the river that divides the pair, hangs a metal grid topped with tubular PVC floats, a low-tech answer to the island’s very modern problem: plastic trash.
Bali’s tropical beaches and warm blue waters have drawn travelers since the 1920s. Even in the midst of the pandemic, nomads and expats still frequent the island’s surf camps, restaurants, and yoga studios; elsewhere, desolate budget hotels, desperate beach vendors, and deserted swimming pools, now breeding grounds for mosquitoes, pay testimony to COVID-19’s impact. Yet the Island of the Gods’ resilient brand of Hinduism endures. The rituals that set the rhythms of the year and the offerings that decorate almost every corner express devotion to harmony with god, nature, and humankind.
Despite the island’s profusion of sacred springs and water temples, and although river water is used to cleanse bodies before cremation, the waterways which have defined Bali’s landscapes for over 1,000 years are dumping grounds for trash. A 2021 New Year’s cleanup removed over 30 tonnes of marine litter from sweeping Kuta Beach and neighboring beaches. In 2018, a sperm whale washed ashore in an Indonesian national park, its stomach clogged with nearly six kilograms of plastic waste. Although the tourism ministry funds regular beach cleaning, plastic trash still pollutes both rivers and ocean.
Bali’s government has banned styrofoam, plastic straws, and single-use plastic bags, but the regulations are often ignored. In Indonesia, as in many lower-income countries, people often buy products such as shampoo in non-recyclable single-dose sachets, which strain budgets less than better value but more costly bottles; and no office or social gathering is complete without trays of Danone’s Aqua water, sold in single-serving plastic cups. (One hundred and fifteen plastic cups were found in the stomach of the beached sperm whale.)
Although some of the trash on Bali’s western beaches likely comes from the neighboring island of Java—barely two kilometers away at its closest point—the island’s rivers are a major contributor.

On the riverbank, Bagiasa hammers a steel stake into the cleared ground, anchoring the barrier. As we watch, a drifting Aqua bottle wends its way to the floats and spins, trapped, the first in an apparently never-ending flow of garbage down this sluggish, slender stream. Bencheghib’s organization, Sungai Watch, has now installed 100 such barriers on Bali’s rivers to trap waste before it reaches the ocean. (The word sungai means “river” in Indonesian.) Between November 2019 and July 2021, the barriers intercepted 650 tonnes of waste.
Bencheghib grew up on Bali after his family relocated from Paris, France. Horrified by the experience of surfing surrounded by floating plastic, he and his two siblings organized their first beach cleanup as teenagers in 2009 under the banner Make A Change.
In Bali, Indonesia, a team from the nonprofit organization Sungai Watch installs its 101st trash barrier. Photo courtesy of Sungai Watch
Bencheghib left the island to study filmmaking in New York City and began using this skill to raise awareness of the role of rivers in ocean pollution. In 2016, he and some friends sailed the Mississippi River on a raft made from 800 plastic bottles. The next year, alongside younger brother Sam, he paddled a kayak crafted from plastic waste down the Citarum, a waterway on Indonesia’s most populous island, Java, that some claim is the most polluted river in the world.
The stinking journey, through waters fetid with dead animals, effluent from textile factories, and plastic waste, intensified Bencheghib’s loathing of pollution. “That expedition changed our lives forever,” he says. “Instead of icebergs, you call them plastic bergs—and we were stuck in a bunch of plastic bergs. We couldn’t move. … We had to literally lift the kayaks up and walk along the side.”
Sungai Watch evolved from Make A Change’s organized beach and river cleanups, and Bencheghib worked with river barrier designers Plastic Fischer to place his first installation in November 2019. Although he had permission from the authorities, local villagers were initially suspicious, wanting to know who would take responsibility for clearing the trash the barrier collected.
Gary Bencheghib founded Sungai Watch, which installed its first river barrier in 2019. Here, Bencheghib holds up one element of a barrier—a float that holds a grid vertically in the water—at the installation of the organization’s 100th barrier. Photo courtesy of Sungai Watch
Bencheghib collected the waste himself at first, sorting it in his parents’ garage and sending it to a local recycler, but sponsorship from the World Wildlife Fund for Nature enabled him to secure a base for the project and hire his first team members. In August 2020, in the teeth of the pandemic, he began to source sponsorships from businesses, including Indonesia’s bestselling beer brand, Bintang. For an annual commitment starting from three million rupiah (US $210), organizations can have sections of a river barrier branded in their name.
Since then, the team has expanded rapidly, and now has 40 employees, all paid above the legal minimum wage for the area (around $205 per month). Five dedicated teams make daily rounds of the barriers to remove the waste. And that’s no small task: the first Sungai Watch installation intercepted 2,200 kilograms of plastic waste and 585 kilograms of organic waste in just 230 days. Sungai Watch barriers allow fish to pass through and can withstand rainy season floods that could raise the height of a river by three meters or more. For wider, deeper rivers, the team repurposes secondhand 19-liter plastic water drums to create a floating platform that collectors can walk along.
At their headquarters, down a sleepy road surrounded by rice fields, not far from the surfing beaches of Canggu, Sungai Watch employees process around two tonnes of river trash each day. Beside a traditional Indonesian wooden joglo house, screeching angle grinders flood the air with sparks as men assemble trash barriers and women clean, sort, and audit plastic waste, some destined for resale to recyclers. Murky water churns in homemade machines that wash the river mud off plastic bags for resale. Organic material, which spans the gamut from driftwood, Hindu offerings, and green coconut shells to rotten produce from the markets, is processed into compost in neat piles and baskets.
A Walker Barrier made of plastic drums holds back one day’s worth of trash. Photo courtesy of Sungai Watch
Despite the best efforts to reuse and recycle, some trash, including the noxious plastic bags of disposable diapers found on every single cleanup, still ends up in a landfill.
Besides handling river trash, Sungai Watch also works alongside volunteers and pays members of the local community to clean up illegal waste dumps: a 22-hectare mangrove site on a river estuary yielded 80 tonnes of plastic, some embedded a full meter deep in the soil. Increasingly, Bencheghib’s team is engaged in working with local authorities to help them manage their own waste.
Most of Sungai Watch’s staff originally worked in Bali’s tourist industry, which has been decimated since Indonesia closed its doors to foreign tourists in April 2020. Women who had worked laundering sheets and towels now sift through trash; Bagiasa, Sungai Watch’s head of cleanups, used to manage hordes of taxis at the island’s airport, which welcomed over six million foreign tourists in 2019. With Indonesia still mired in the COVID-19 crisis and Bali’s largest tourist markets, Australia and China, still effectively closed to overseas travel, it’s unlikely the island will see such numbers any time soon.
Nola Monica leads education and outreach projects for Sungai Watch. Photo courtesy of Sungai Watch
Nyoman Muditha, a slender, sinewy man with a gentle smile, worked as a cleaner on Kuta Beach from 1975 to 1998, rising before dawn to pick trash from the sands. Today he is a priest, performing Bali’s timeless rituals, and leads a local waste management project for Sungai Watch.
In his neat compound above a pristine river bend with a trash-free Sungai Watch barrier, chickens and cockerels scratch behind a wire fence while orchids and frangipani grow as gifts for friends. Muditha proudly displays water bottles crammed full of candy wrappers, rescued from the river: he is planning a campaign against these candies, which sit alongside flowers, snacks, incense, and, often, cigarettes in Bali’s handwoven offerings, and whose wrappers, like other street garbage, are swept into the rivers when rain falls.
In his neat garden, he is growing reedy shoots of vetiver grass in bamboo tubes, part of a Sungai Watch project to strengthen riverbanks and help purify the water. “The river should be sacred: it comes from Wisnu,” Muditha says, using the Balinese name for the Hindu deity Vishnu. “The flow of the water brings life for families and farmers. … In Bali, we need to keep the rivers clean and sacred.”
Faced with the paradox of a deeply religious society that nonetheless mistreats an environment theoretically held sacred, Muditha believes that older generations have failed to educate the youth. Older Balinese grew up when the population was both smaller and poorer, and used organic wrappings such as banana leaves that could be thrown into rivers without consequence, unlike today’s plastic packaging.
Yet waste management is also a structural problem, especially as collapsing local government budgets divert funds to the COVID-19 crisis and household incomes tumble. Waste collection is usually a paid service on Bali and, while freelance scavengers pick through household garbage for items that can be resold or reused, formal recycling options are relatively costly.
Sungai Watch relies on teams of community volunteers, such as these two men sorting plastic bottles retrieved from a trash barrier. Photo courtesy of Sungai Watch
Because there is little awareness of the damage that river trash can work on the ocean, education forms an ever-increasing part of Sungai Watch’s work. Nola Monica, who worked in villa rentals before joining the group, now leads education and outreach programs, presenting to village leaders and influential members of the community.
As an example of the need for education, she likes to tell the story of a woman who blithely returned to throwing trash in the river once she saw a barrier had been installed—she no longer felt guilty about disposing of her garbage, now that people were there to clean it up. The ultimate goal is not merely to intercept plastic trash before it hits the ocean but to change the mindset that put it there.
Bali’s main landfill is already at capacity and set to close, so waste management will be decentralized to the leaders of Bali’s 636 desa, an Indonesian word for “village” that also describes small local government units. Bencheghib aims to empower communities to manage their waste effectively, with solutions including composting, salvaging plastics for resale, and farming maggots on organic waste to be used (or sold) for chicken feed. The barriers, designed to be easy to move, will be transferred farther upstream as individual communities begin to manage their waste effectively.
Progress extends beyond the tonnes of trash saved from the ocean. Rivers, including Muditha’s, are visibly cleaner; the volumes of garbage caught by the barriers is decreasing, particularly in villages where Sungai Watch works closely with community leaders on education. In June 2021 alone, the team collected 506 kilograms of plastic cups and close to 10 times that weight in plastic bags. Volunteers are traveling from across the island to participate in cleanups.
But, even as he begins expanding his venture to Java, Bencheghib remains aware that hearts, minds, and habits take time to change. “Things go very slow here on Bali,” he says. “And that’s something that we tend to forget. In terms of changing mindsets, it’s not going to be one event, it’s going to be maybe 10 or 15 or 20 different events for that one person.”

Tips

Gather data. Sungai Watch uses a barcode scanner to identify and log plastic waste, a painstaking process which involves manually inputting 37,000 products from 10,000 brands. Bencheghib ultimately hopes the companies whose products are polluting the ocean will contribute to the cost of their disposal.
Highlight the economic benefits. Paying people fairly for their labor and generating both income and usable assets such as compost and maggots from trash shows the value of Sungai Watch’s work to communities.
Work with local community leaders on education. While most children go to school, the quality of education on Bali is low. Communicating that plastic trash harms marine ecosystems and does not degrade has been a key to success.

A new federal bill proposed last week by U.S. Representative Mike Quigley (D-IL), the Reducing Waste in National Parks Act, aims to curb plastic waste and pollution in the U.S. National Park system. If passed, the legislation would reduce the use of disposable plastic products—including single-use beverage bottles, plastic bags, and plastic foodware—in many national park facilities across the country. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) introduced a companion bill in the Senate. The United States is one of the largest plastic waste producers in the world. In 2018 alone, the country generated more than 35 million tons of plastic. While most of the plastic was sent to landfills, a significant amount ends up polluting our water and land—including our national parks.”National parks are bipartisan—everybody loves the national parks,” Quigley told EHN. As people continue to appreciate the beauty of national parks, he said, he hopes the bill educates and encourages them to reduce their plastic waste and protect the environment. Merkley told EHN, “Plastic pollution threatens our ability to live in healthy communities and to enjoy the beauty and majesty of our national parks, today and in the future.”Quigley said he hopes his bill will pass in the House this fall and advance to the Senate floor, adding, “we’re going to get very creative on how we move this thing forward.”

Reducing plastic sales and use

Representative Mike Quigley
The bill isn’t an outright ban on single-use plastic products. Instead, it directs the National Park Service to draft plans for reducing the sale and use of plastic products at the parks. To that end, the bill “is not one size fits all,” Quigley said, as each regional park director could tailor the waste-reduction effort for their region.
Scaling down plastic consumption and waste is not a new initiative for the National Park Service. In 2011, the Obama administration issued guidance that encouraged national parks across the country to stop selling plastic water bottles. Under the voluntary plastic ban, 23 out of 417 national parks—including Grand Canyon National Park and Zion National Park—restricted bottled water sales. As a result, Zion National Park in Utah saved 60,000 water bottles, or 5,000 pounds of plastic waste, by installing water stations and selling reusable water bottles, according to a statement from Quigley’s office following the announcement of the new bill.
The Trump administration overturned the Obama-era policy in 2017. The reversal came just weeks after the Senate confirmation of David Bernhardt, who was appointed the deputy secretary for the Department of Interior, the governing agency for the National Parks. A former lobbyist, Bernhardt had worked with Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, the law firm that has represented Deer Park’s distributor Nestlé Waters.
A few months before the policy was overturned, the National Park Service published a report stating that the Obama administration’s guidance at participating national parks helped save 1.3–2.01 million disposable water bottles every year, reducing 73,000–111,000 pounds of plastic waste annually.

 Politics of plastic 

Quigley hopes by solidifying the plastic reduction rules into law, the Reducing Waste in National Parks Act will have a better chance of survival regardless of which party holds the White House.
“Rather than rely on the whims of whichever president happens to be in office,” Quigley said, “[the bill] would codify this guidance and ensure that future administrations can’t reverse it.” Before this bill, Quigley tried to introduce similar versions of the act in 2017 and 2019, but both died in Congress.
The National Park Service declined to comment. “NPS does not comment on proposed legislation until we have testified on the legislation (if asked to do so),” the agency’s spokesperson told EHN. Meanwhile, environmental advocacy groups have so far applauded this bill.
“On average, the park service manages nearly 70 million pounds of waste annually, including plastics that pollute lands and waterways and harm our fragile ocean ecosystems,” John Garder of the National Parks Conservation Association, an environmental group for national parks throughout the country, told EHN. “The National Park Service and all of us must continue to examine ways to reduce waste, and we applaud the effort of Sen. Merkley and Rep. Quigley to address this important issue.”

Banner photo: Yellowstone National Park visitors wait for Old Faithful. (Credit: Nick Amoscato/flickr)

Exxon Mobil is set to build its first large-scale plastic waste advanced recycling facility in Baytown with initial capacity to recycle 30,000 metric tons per year, the company announced Monday.The Irving-based oil and gas giant said the facility is the first step in its plans to build around 500,000 metric tons of recycling capacity globally over the next five years. The facility in Baytown, located about 26 miles east of Houston, is expected to begin operations by the end of next year.Exxon didn’t indicate how much the new recycling plant will cost.A smaller, temporary facility is already working in Baytown, producing materials that can be used to make plastic and other products, Exxon said. The trial has recycled more than 1,000 metric tons of waste to date, equivalent to 200 million grocery bags.“We’ve proven our proprietary advanced recycling technology in Baytown, and we’re scaling up operations to supply certified circular polymers by year-end,” said Exxon Mobil Chemical Co. president Karen McKee. “Availability of reliable advanced recycling capacity will play an important role in helping address plastic waste in the environment, and we are evaluating wide-scale deployment in other locations around the world.”Global demand for consumer plastics is growing, pushing many in the plastics industry to consider the need for a circular plastics economy. By 2050, global waste plastics will increase by between 170 million and 190 million metric tons to more than 425 million metric tons, according to an analysis by research firm IHS Markit.Waste created in the plastics industry could be limited, the report said, if the more than $300 billion of capital spending set aside for new plastics production was instead redirected to recycling processing.“Our analysis indicates that the situation is likely to become urgent,” IHS Markit vice president Anthony Palmer said. “At the heart of the matter is that the widespread benefits associated with the use of plastics contrast sharply with the way the world manages its end-of-life disposal — the so-called ‘Plastics Dilemma.’ ”Just 20 petrochemical companies are responsible for over half of all single-use plastic waste, according to the Plastic Waste Makers Index published by the Minderoo Foundation. Exxon is the biggest offender, contributing 5.9 million metric tons to global plastic waste.The new Baytown facility is just one of Exxon’s plastic recycling endeavors.The company is working with London-based Plastic Energy to build an advanced recycling plant in France that’s expected to process 25,000 metric tons of plastic waste annually. The France facility, which has the potential to expand to up to 33,000 metric tons of capacity, will become operational in 2023.Exxon said it is also looking at recycling plant sites in the Netherlands, Canada, Singapore and the U.S. Gulf Coast.