Category Archives: Ocean

In March, the United Nations’ Environment Assembly adopted a landmark resolution, supported by 175 countries, to end plastic pollution with a legally binding treaty. Negotiations, expected to take two years, began this week. As a group of nine international experts on plastic pollution from eight countries, we’ve recently argued in a letter to the journal Science that this treaty must cap plastic production and regulate the chemicals they contain. Here’s why.

Plastic impacts on future generations

In the past 100 years, humanity has introduced an immense amount and variety of new chemicals and plastics to the planet. The current global plastic production is roughly 450 million tons per year. If we add up all the plastics produced so far, their weight would surpass the mass of all land and marine animals. Annual production is predicted to double by 2045, when today’s preschoolers are adults. They will likely live in a world of fragile ecosystems and a changing climate. If plastic pollution continues unabated, it will exacerbate these problems.

Plastics are now found in oceans, rivers, lakes, air, ice and soil. Scientists have identified tiny pieces of plastics in the human digestive system, blood stream, lungs and even the placenta. While we do not fully understand the impacts of this exposure, these findings are highly concerning. Chemical additives used in plastics include BPA, flame retardants, phthalates and thousands of other chemicals, many of which are toxic and have been linked to cancer, infertility, brain damage and other serious human health conditions.
Plastics and chemicals have already altered vital Earth’s system processes to an extent that exceeds the threshold under which humanity can safely develop and thrive in the future. Plastics contain tens of thousands of chemical additives, as well as non-intentionally added substances. It’s impossible to ensure the safety of this large variety of substances, mixed in a myriad of different ways.

Plastic’s climate change impacts 

The life cycle of plastic also has serious climate impacts. It accounts for 4.5% of the annual greenhouse gas emissions and could consume 10% to 13% of our remaining carbon dioxide budget by 2050. This is in part because single-use plastics are heavily produced in countries dependent on coal.As the world shifts to renewable energy sources, the fossil fuel industry is looking to increase plastics production. Plastic producers have been expanding their capacities by up to 40%, with $180 billion invested in fracking (which produces ethylene, a critical ingredient in various plastics), and in plastic production.There are many other, yet largely unexplored ways in which plastics could impact the Earth’s system. They could affect the amount of sunlight reflected back to space in the Arctic. Or they could change the carbon dioxide sequestration by phytoplankton and the marine carbon pump, which is part of the ocean carbon cycle responsible for cycling of organic matter formed by phytoplankton during photosynthesis. Plastics could also alter essential nutrient cycling functions of soils on land.

“Wish cycling” 

It is clear that we need to reduce plastics now. We cannot afford to become yet more dependent on historically flawed and insufficient strategies of downstream waste management.Even high-income countries are ill-equipped to keep pace with the growing amount of waste. Recycling is often just “wish-cycling,” as environmental sociologist Rebecca Altman puts it. Recycling rates are as low as 5% in the United States and average only 9% globally. Sometimes recycling is simply a global redistribution of waste. Millions of tons of plastic waste are still exported from the Global North to the Global South. The toxic waste of these exports frequently ends up disposed of by vulnerable communities, who carry the burden of pollution. Scholars have identified this as a form of colonialism.The idea of a circular economy hasn’t worked in practice and would be difficult to implement on the large scale needed. Yet the steep increase in plastic production isn’t challenged enough. As a result, more and more plastics and toxic compounds are leaking into all corners of the environment and into our bodies.Unfortunately, this isn’t a mess we can clean up later. Breaking down into micro and nanoparticles, it’s a form of pollution that is irretrievable and irreversible. Trying to sift it up is a Sisyphean task that might endanger crucial ecosystems, such as the neuston – tiny organisms floating with ocean currents to areas where plastic waste accumulates.

Phasing out virgin plastics

Recycling rates are as low as 5% in the United States and average only 9% globally. (Credit: Lisa Risager/flickr) Even when applying all political and technological solutions available today — including substitution, improved recycling, waste management and circularity — annual plastic emissions to the environment can only be cut by 79% over 20 years, a study of scenarios in the journal Science found. It also suggests that, even with these actions, after 2040 17.3 million tons of plastic waste will still be released to the environment yearly. The path forward must include a phase-out of virgin plastic production by 2040.In calling for a production cap, we do not discount the benefits that plastics present in healthcare or transportation. We are mindful of the possibilities that plastics engender in low-income countries or for disability communities. We do not envision a future without plastics, but one with much less of it, just for the applications that are necessary or vital for vulnerable populations. For all remaining plastics we need a robust circular economy that regulates toxic plastic chemicals as well, keeping them out of the loop to ensure human and environmental safety. A reduced production of new plastics would likely boost the value of recycled feedstock, incentivizing recycling. If justly regulated, this would secure socioeconomic benefits and operational safety for millions of workers across the world, who draw a living removing and renewing plastic waste. The new plastic treaty could create opportunities for innovation in technology, society, science and policy-making — bringing together citizens, scientists, industry and governments alike. We hope that it will be strong, binding and creative, bravely tackling the true roots of the issue.This article is a collaborative work of the authors together, find their bios here.Banner photo: Celebrating the UN resolution on plastic, which passed in March 2022. (Credit: UNEP)From Your Site ArticlesRelated Articles Around the Web

The sinking a year ago of the cargo vessel the X-Press Pearl was responsible for the single worst incident of plastic marine pollution in the world, according to a committee assessing the damages from the disaster.The ship caught fire off Colombo and eventually sank, leaking its cargo that contained 25 metric tons of nitric acid and some 50 billion plastic pellets.A year later, pellets are still washing up on shore and being cleared away by volunteers, while Sri Lanka tries to claim damages from the ship’s Singapore-based operators.It has received $3.7 million as initial compensation, but experts say the full compensation for the environmental damage could be as high as $7 billion — a figure that would be a lifeline for Sri Lanka as it experiences the worst economic crisis in its history. COLOMBO — A year since the sinking of the cargo ship the X-Press Pearl, Sri Lanka continues to clean its beaches of the plastic pellets that the vessel was carrying, and still trying to claim compensation for the environmental damage wrought.
An expert committee investigating the extent of damage to the country’s marine and coastal environment has now concluded the disaster to be the worst in terms of chemical and plastic pollution of the sea. That’s according to Ajith de Alwis, co-chair of the X-Press Pearl damage assessment committee and a professor of chemical and process engineering at the University of Moratuwa.
The committee has submitted its assessment report to the Attorney General’s Office for use in claiming compensation from the Singapore-based operators of the ship.
“However, the report is only the first edition of the damage assessment, and further assessments would continue based on the monitoring,” De Alwis told Mongabay.
Maritime law expert Dan Malika Gunasekera said Sri Lankan authorities have taken a long time to file for compensation and are reluctant to go through years of strenuous legal battles in international courts. Sri Lanka has obtained an interim payment of $3.7 million in damages, but the country could claim as much as $5 billion to $7 billion, according to Gunasekera.
With Sri Lanka currently mired in the worst economic crisis in the country’s history, those higher numbers would prove a much-needed injection of foreign currency. But further delays would diminish the cash-strapped island’s chance of getting sufficient compensation for the environmental damage, Gunasekera told Mongabay.
Salvation work is underway to raise the wreck of the X-Press Pearl and dismantle it. Image courtesy of X-Press Feeders.
Worst plastic marine pollution event
X-Press Pearl was carrying 1,486 containers when it caught fire off Colombo on May 20, 2021, and began sinking. Eighty-one of the containers were labeled hazardous, and the cargo included 25 metric tons of nitric acid — a key ingredient in the production of explosives, and touted as a possible factor for the fire. There were several explosions, and it took more than a week to bring the fire under control. Attempts to tow the vessel to deeper waters failed, and the freighter finally sank on June 2, 2021, a few kilometers off Sri Lanka’s western coast.
The ship was also carrying 400 containers of nurdles, the plastic pellets from which all manufactured plastic goods are made. The spill of the more than 50 billion pellets made this the worst plastic marine pollution event in the world, with the pellets quickly spreading along the beaches of Sri Lanka’s western coast.
The sinking of the X-Press Pearl cargo ship has resulted in the world’s single worst incident of plastic marine pollution. Image courtesy of the U.N. Advisory Mission Report.
The government carried out an initial cleanup of the beaches, but subsequent cleaning was done by volunteers like the Pearl Protectors, a youth organization.
“We had 28 major cleaning operations on main beaches and could collect as much as 1,500 kilograms [3,300 pounds] of nurdles,” said Muditha Katuwawala, coordinator of the Pearl Protectors.
But more nurdles keep washing up on the beaches, and with the island currently experiencing the southwest monsoon, nurdles that had initially sunk to the seabed or were trapped in underwater structures such as corals have been washed free and are making landfall.
“So it needs to be continuous work” cleaning up the beaches, Katuwawala said.
The Pearl Protectors, like other volunteer organizations around the program, are suffering from the economic crisis. The cost of organizing has doubled in the span of the last few months, with inflation hitting a record 39% in May. The country has defaulted on loan payments for the first time, while the local currency, the rupee, has nosedived against the U.S. dollar.
A container from the X-Press Pearl floating in the sea. Image courtesy of the Sri Lankan Marine Environment Protection Agency (MEPA).
Salvage operation
As for the wreck of the X-Press Pearl, it’s now being salvaged by the Shanghai Salvage Company (SSC), which was handed the task by the ship’s owners, Singapore-based X-Press Feeders. In a statement, X-Press Feeders said the salvage operation includes round-the-clock monitoring to deal with debris or other pollutants that may get dislodged during the operation. It also said regular water sampling will be carried out at the site, and that any oil spills will be responded to immediately.
According to SSC, the X-Press Pearl’s hull has essentially broken in half, so the wreck will be recovered as two separate sections. Operations were suspended at the end of April due to rough seas caused by the southwest monsoon.
Cleanly separating the two halves of the hull is due to start in November, after the monsoon, while the actual lifting is expected to begin in February 2023. The final phase, to be completed by September 2023, will see the wreck completely dismantled, recycled, and disposed of.
Nurdle displacement after the X-Press Pearl marine disaster. Image courtesy of the U.N. Advisory Mission Report.
Lack of baseline studies
Terney Pradeep Kumara, a marine biologist who previously headed Sri Lanka’s Marine Environment Protection Agency (MEPA), said it’s important to collect data during the salvation operation that can serve as evidence linking the environmental pollution to the X-Press Pearl. In the aftermath of the ship accident, marine biologists noted an unusually high number of sea turtle mortalities, which they suspect was the result of the pollution, but for which they currently lack definitive evidence.
‘Not having a baseline of the environmental conditions has been one of the biggest challenges in doing this environmental assessment,” said Prasanthi Gunawardene, the other co-chair of the X-Press Pearl damage assessment committee. There were about 30 different subcommittees with members from different fields, and getting input from different government agencies in the monitoring process was a challenge, Gunawardene told Mongabay.

Banner image of a cluster of nurdles found on Sri Lanka’s southern coast. Seabirds and crows often mistake these nurdles for food, because they resemble fish eggs. Image courtesy of the Pearl Protectors.
 

This story is a collaboration between VICE World News and The Fuller Project.DANDORA, Kenya– As Winnie Wanjira rifles through mountains of waste at the Dandora dump in Nairobi, it’s not the discarded needles that most bother her. Nor the metal scraps that could shred her skin like paper. It’s not even the hot sun that beats down on the rancid rubbish, making the 36-year-old feel so dizzy she struggles to fill her sack with plastic bottles. Today, the mother of six is anxious about her period. It’s heavy, she says. So heavy she spent the last two days lying down in her windowless, single-bedroom home, unable to move. “The bleeding… is no joke,” she tells The Fuller Project and VICE World News. “I cannot come to work, I cannot go anywhere.” Joyce Wangari (left) and Winnie Wanjira are fighting to protect waste pickers’ rights. Now, on the third day, she’s back, hoping the jumper tied around her waist will cover any stains. “And it’s, like, black, not even the normal colour of periods,” she says. “That place… It kills. It really kills.”As far back as 2007, the United Nations Environment Program warned that Dandora posed a serious health threat to those working and living nearby. Yet while it is understood that exposure to the toxic chemicals found on dumpsites can result in cancer, respiratory problems and skin infections, scientists and environmental campaigners say relatively little attention has been paid to their impact on the reproductive health of waste pickers, who are often women. Materials such as plastic and e-waste contain a cocktail of chemicals that studies show can disturb the body’s hormone systems. As ever-higher volumes of trash continue to end up in landfills, informal workers like Wanjira will be on the front lines of what scientists are calling an emerging issue of global concern.Most waste pickers handle trash without gloves or masks and often live near or on the dumpsites, which intensifies their exposure to health risks.For years, acrid smoke has billowed across this sprawling dumpsite, which covers an area of the Kenyan capital the size of 22 football pitches. On windy days, clouds of smoke engulf the nearby neighbourhoods. “You can’t breathe,” a woman who works in a nearby pharmacy tells The Fuller Project and VICE World News. It’s not just an issue at Dandora. Across Kenya’s dumpsites, a potentially toxic mix of everything from empty milk cartons to old tyres are being destroyed through open burning, according to a 2017 report by the government and the United Nations. Around the world, many of the estimated 20 million waste pickers in countries such as India, Ghana and Vietnam likely face similar health concerns. Estimates vary, but studies show this informal workforce is often mostly women.“This is a global problem,” says Griffins Ochieng, executive director for the Centre for Environmental Justice and Development (CEJAD), a Nairobi-based nonprofit focusing on the problem of plastic waste. “Any dumpsite – anywhere there is plastic pollution – women will be impacted.” This is because many materials that end up as waste contain toxic substances. Plastics and e-waste are known to contain and leach hazardous chemicals into the environment, including endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), which have been linked to reduced fertility, pregnancy loss and irregular menstrual cycles, among many other conditions. Burning them releases or generates a number of highly toxic chemicals and heavy metals, with reported similar effects. The toxins are not only in the air but also in the soil and water, and for the many waste pickers who eat from the landfills, in their food, too.While men frequently take on more supervisory roles, women often spend the entire day rummaging, says Ochieng. “They’re in the thick of things… but the environment is a threat to their human health.”For years, acrid smoke has billowed across Dandora, often engulfing the surrounding neighbourhood on windy days.Globally, the amount of trash we produce – and where to put it – is a growing problem. Each year, the world generates 2.01 billion tonnes of household waste, the equivalent of more than 6,000 Empire State Buildings being collectively chucked out every 12 months. By 2050, the number is set to rise by more than 70 percent. In low-income countries, over 90 percent of waste is either dumped in the open or burned. It’s why waste pickers, like Wanjira, are often described as the backbone of waste and recycling industries. They’ve stepped in, an informal, often invisible workforce relied upon by governments in parts of Latin America and Asia and across Africa. Spending long days bent over, picking up and sorting waste discarded in streets and dumpsites, they recover more recyclable materials than formal waste management systems yet represent some of society’s most marginalised populations. In Kenya, roughly 3,000 to 5,000 waste pickers scatter across Dandora’s hills every day. Around the country, local organisations estimate the numbers reach nearly 50,000, although there is no official total.If Wanjira’s heavy, painful period had been a one-off, she might have been a little less worried. But she’s faced the same issue – often twice a month – for roughly 20 years, she says. When Wanjira was about 13 and her family could no longer afford school fees, she dropped out and started working with her mother, Jane, who was also a waste picker. Within several years, Wanjira’s problems with her menstruation started, she says. She’s not alone. In interviews with 32 women across Dandora and Gioto, another vast dumpsite in Nakuru, a three-hour drive from Nairobi, 21 women said their periods are irregular. Many, like Wanjira, face very heavy, painful periods once or twice a month. Others wait eight months for theirs. One in three say they have suffered serious issues when pregnant, including miscarriage, stillbirth and premature birth. About 10 to 15 percent of pregnancies worldwide end in miscarriage, according to March of Dimes, an organisation that works on pregnancy and postpartum health, while stillbirth and premature birth are much rarer.One 59-year-old woman who has worked at Dandora for nearly three decades is being treated for uterine cancer. “We hear these issues all the time,” says Joyce Wangari, a 23-year-old waste picker who has worked at Dandora since she was 12. She only gets her periods every two to three months. “It’s so common.”

An Australian man who has circumnavigated the world 11 times in a yacht has used his most recent voyage to collect seawater samples, which scientists now say are proof that microplastics have polluted even the world’s most remote oceans.Key points:Researchers used 177 samples collected by lone sailor Jon Sanders on his 11th circumnavigation voyageThe scientists say microplastics were detected in places that had never been tested, including remote parts of the oceanCurtin University says previous studies had not tested for microplastics in southern oceansResearchers from Curtin University used samples collected by lone sailor Jon Sanders to develop what they described as the first accurate measure of the presence of microplastics in far-flung ocean environments.”The aim of the study was to target areas of the world’s oceans not previously sampled for microplastics and to produce a complete global snapshot of microplastic distribution,” Professor Kliti Grice, the lead researcher on the study, said.”Our analysis found microplastics were present in the vast majority of the waters sampled by Jon, even in very remote ocean areas of the Southern Hemisphere.”Mr Sanders collected hundreds of samples during his expedition, which he completed in January last year, spanning 46,100 kilometres of ocean, including areas that have never been tested for microplastics before.Project initiated by sailor

Amazon is facing vote from its shareholders and environmentalists this week over its use of plastic packaging.

Seattleites may have caught wind of the campaign around Amazon already, through billboards and yard signs featuring turtles caught in plastic. The message: stop using its flimsy plastic packaging that too easily ends up in marine ecosystems.Amazon began its annual investors meeting at 9 a.m. Wednesday. It was expected to advise shareholders to vote “no” on a resolution that would require the corporation to cut down plastic pollution. The resolution would require the company to take two steps it never has before on plastics. Those are: disclose how much plastic packaging it uses, and strategize how to move away from the thin, landfill bound packaging it uses now. The backers say there is hope for this to pass.

“In India, legislation was passed that required Amazon to move away from plastic packaging, and they’ve since done so,” says Sara Holzknecht with the group Oceana.Oceana has researched Amazon’s use of plastic packaging worldwide and is backing this resolution. They also helped run the public campaign that had Seattle homeowners placing yard signs with a plea to Amazon.Holzknecht says Amazon is one of the largest corporate users of flimsy plastics, which are hard (if not impossible) to recycle curbside. She says its partly a business case for the corporation. “Amazon, with its resources, is certainly an industry leader in a lot of ways and could be innovating away from plastics and away from paper mailers.” Again, she says, it has already made innovations in India when it was legally bound to.A report from Oceana estimates that up to 22 million pounds of Amazon’s plastic packaging ended up in marine ecosystems in 2019. Another way of putting it, says Holzknecht, is that in 2020 alone “the company used enough plastic to encircle our globe nearly 600 times in the form of plastic air pillows.”

Amazon executives argue the company is already committed to addressing plastic pollution. But, Amazon is lobbying shareholders to vote no.Amazon executives say, in a letter to investors, they share the concerns outlined in the resolution and are engaged in efforts to develop recycling infrastructure. In addition, the company says it plans to replace its mailing envelopes with a recyclable padded mailer by the end of this year in the U.S.The resolution, if passed, would require the company to strategize how it could reduce plastic use by at least one-third.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.