Category Archives: Plastic Pollution Articles & News

March 15, 2023 For centuries, it’s been treasured in kitchens in Asia and neglected almost everywhere else: Those glistening ribbons of seaweed that bend and bloom in cold ocean waves. Today, seaweed is suddenly a hot global commodity. It’s attracting new money and new purpose in all kinds of new places because of its potential …

Continue reading “Ocean farming: Seaweed is having its moment in the sun”

New environmental protections might restrict the use of a few long-lived, harmful chemicals known as PFAS, but these are only the tip of a very persistent iceberg.They are in the water we drink, the packaging of the food we eat, the utensils we cook with, the beds we sleep in, the clothes we wear and even within our own bodies. There is no escaping so-called “forever chemicals”, a set of long-lasting and potentially harmful human-made substances that infuse almost every environment on the planet.
The US government is now proposing its first-ever restrictions on six of these chemicals, known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says the restrictions could, over time, prevent thousands of deaths, if they are implemented. The European Commission is also preparing to ban a set of PFAS compounds in fire-fighting foams.
Some companies have already begun phasing out the most closely-studied PFAS chemicals – PFOS and PFOA. These are hazardous to the human immune system, and have been linked to negative effects on fertility, childhood development and metabolism. 
But there are more than 9,000 PFAS compounds, which have hundreds of different uses, including in non-stick coatings, fabric protectors, and plastics. And some, including PFOS and PFOA, can persist in the environment for decades.
How long do forever chemicals actually last?
This long list of chemicals earned their nickname for a reason – they are persistent. They not only survive for a very long time without breaking down, they have the worrying ability to accumulate within living organisms. This means that even low levels of exposure can gradually build over time to a point where they become harmful.
Their persistence depends on the molecular structure and make-up of the individual substances. Not all of these infamous chemicals are equal. 
All PFAS compounds have a backbone built of carbon – those with fewer than six carbon atoms are “short-chained”, while the rest are “long-chained”. Long-chain PFAS compounds may remain in the body for far longer than short-chain ones, according to one small study of workers at Arvidsjaur airport in northern Sweden. They had been drinking water containing PFAS compounds from firefighting foams, following an accident. Their blood samples contained long-chained PFOS with a half-life of 2.93 years, and PFOA with a half-life of 1.77 years. A short molecule called PFBS, by contrast, had a half-life of just 44 days. One reason for this is that the kidneys seem to be better at eliminating the short chain molecules from the body.Elevated levels of PFAS in public water supplies can mean residents need to drink bottled water instead of from the tap (Credit: Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe/Getty Images)It’s worth remembering that the half-life doesn’t mean the chemical is eliminated in that time. Rather it is the time it takes for the levels in the blood to fall to half their original value. The chemicals can remain in the body for far longer, especially if continually topped by drinking contaminated water or other sources.
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Another study of a far longer-term exposure to PFAS among people living in Ronneby, southern Sweden, found that the half-life for another chemical called PFHxS was 5.3 years, while PFOS was 3.4 years and PFOA was 2.7 years. Some PFOS compounds that contain additional branches from their main carbon backbone have a half-life that stretch into decades within the human body.
In water, however, they can linger even longer. Some studies have suggested that PFOA has a half-life of more than 90 years, while for PFOS it is more than 41 years.
Read more about the chemicals that can linger in our blood for decades in this piece by environmental journalist Anna Turns.
Where do forever chemicals come from?
Some of the most commonly reported sources of PFAS contamination is from the use of fire-fighting foams, particularly in those for extinguishing flammable liquid blazes. Here the PFAS act as “surfactants”, to decrease the surface tension in the foam to allow it to spread across an area more easily and so starve the flames of oxygen.
Unfortunately, the foam can be washed away, leading the PFAS to pollute nearby water courses and soil.
They are also often used as a treatment in waterproof clothing or food packaging, such as paper bags used in takeaway food, and pizza boxes, to help resist grease stains seeping through. Similarly they can be used to treat carpets and soft-furnishings, and one study found them in 60% of bedding and clothing marketed for children. But it’s not yet known if this kind of exposure represents a health risk.
It currently isn’t clear what levels of PFAS can transfer into our bodies through our skin and food, but scientists do warn that there is a risk of contamination through the inhalation of PFAS-laden household dust. Children, in particular, might also put treated soft furnishings into their mouths directly. But exactly how much of these chemicals enter the body in that way has not been well studied, and they do tend to have a shorter half-life in the air than they do in water.
The other place where PFAS are commonly used is in plastic, such as food containers. They are used to help make plastics more chemically resistant to staining, but here too scientists have found the PFAS can leach out into our food.
And in 2022, the Environmental Working Group, an environmental non-profit found another source – sewage sludge. It estimated that almost 20 million acres (80,937sq km) of US cropland has been contaminated with PFAS through the use of sewage sludge. This sludge can contain microplastics and also the long-lived chemicals themselves that our kidneys have worked so hard to remove and excrete from the body. Once in the soil, they can then find its way back into our food system.
Read more about how forever chemicals and microplastics are getting into our food in this detailed article by environmental journalist Isabelle Gerretsen.
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It looked like a potential boon for New Hampshire’s North Country: a start-up company, Prima America Corp., that aimed to convert plastics into diesel fuel. 

In 2020, U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster, D-N.H., talked up the Groveton plant’s potential on a tour of the facility with a television news team. A company representative said the plan was to bring in enough plastic from throughout the region to produce thousands of gallons of sulfur-free diesel fuel a week. 

But three years later, Prima America is still in what Richard Perry, a company manager, calls “the test phase.” While they can make fuel, he said, “we’re still trying to refine it for diesel engines and to make it a lot cheaper. It’s so expensive right now it wouldn’t be economical.”

At the same time, the company has a history of non-compliance with state environmental regulatory rules. For example, an inspection of above-ground petroleum storage tanks at the facility found numerous deficiencies, and in at least one year, the company failed to file the required emissions report on time, according to state Department of Environmental Services records.

Skeptics of the chemical conversion of plastic waste point to Prima America’s rocky start as an example of why New Hampshire ought to be more cautious about welcoming so-called “advanced recycling” facilities into the state. The relatively new practice generates hazardous waste and air pollutants, and remains unproven at scale, critics say.

Last year, at the behest of the American Chemistry Council, an industry trade association, New Hampshire became the only state in New England to classify so-called “advanced recycling” facilities for plastics as manufacturing operations, rather than as more tightly regulated solid waste management operations. Connecticut and Rhode Island rejected similar proposals.

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The American Chemistry Council maintains that advanced recycling is a form of manufacturing, one that is “a game-changer.” 

“By taking hard-to-recycle used plastics and remaking them into virgin-quality new plastics, advanced recycling decreases the need to make plastics from virgin feedstocks while reducing waste sent to landfills and incinerators,” said Joshua Baca, the council’s vice president of plastics, in an emailed statement.

Environmental advocates want more regulation. This year, a bill that drew support from nearly 200 individuals calls for the state Department of Environmental Services to write rules for the permitting of advanced recycling facilities. The department would also be required to consider the cumulative impacts of such a facility on public health and the environment in combination with pollution from other sources.

“The Conservation Law Foundation’s concern is that with the exemption established last session, New Hampshire is essentially rolling out the welcome mat for these technologies,” said Tom Irwin, vice president and director of the foundation’s New Hampshire office. “We want to ensure that New Hampshire has all the rules it needs to protect the public health if, in fact, a facility is proposed.”

But last week the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee amended the bill to instead ask the department to hire someone to explore the subject of cumulative impact analyses and whether they ought to be included in all of their permitting practices. 

“It’s small-bore — it’s not sufficient, but it’s a good start,” said Roger W. Stephenson, Northeast regional advocacy director for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Critics say advanced recycling boosters overlook toxic byproducts

Advanced recycling is an umbrella term that refers to a range of technologies that employ chemicals to convert plastic waste back into its molecular building blocks. Pyrolysis and gasification use high temperatures and low-oxygen conditions to produce an oil or gas that can be refined into fuels. Solvents and chemicals are also used to dissolve plastic waste and process them into new plastics. 

There are currently seven plastic-to-plastic advanced recycling facilities operating in the U.S., according to Baca. Others are in the works: ExxonMobil has announced plans to build up to 500,000 metric tons of advanced recycling capacity in the U.S. and abroad by the end of 2026.

The American Chemistry Council touts the technology as a sustainable solution to dealing with the 90% of plastic waste that is not mechanically recycled but is instead incinerated, landfilled or dumped in the environment. 

But there’s a problem, said Cynthia Walter, a retired biologist in Dover who used to teach toxicology and has studied advanced recycling. 

“The methods have not been carefully reviewed for the toxicity of the inputs, of the emissions, or of the final products that get sold,” Walter said.

For example, she said, dioxin, a highly toxic carcinogen, is a well-known product of heating plastic waste material. 

“I think toxic substances could be in the fuels that these folks are looking to sell, and dioxins could be unknowingly released in the burning of those fuels,” she said. 

A recent study by the Natural Resources Defense Council concluded that most of the existing advanced recycling facilities are not actually recycling plastic but are turning plastic into fuel that is then burned, and generating air pollutants and large quantities of hazardous waste in the process.

The Environmental Protection Agency has opened a docket to study whether it ought to develop regulations specific to pyrolysis and gasification units.  

In the meantime, 21 states, including Virginia, have adopted laws to classify advanced recycling facilities as manufacturing operations. Classifying them that way “helps ensure the most appropriate regulations” for human health and environmental protection are applied, and helps provide the regulatory certainty the industry needs to confidently invest in the technology, Baca said. 

But the industry has struggled to successfully deploy the technology at a commercial scale. Last year, for example, Brightmark Energy canceled plans to build a $680 million chemical recycling facility in Macon, Georgia. The deal collapsed after Brightmark failed to demonstrate to Macon authorities that it was shipping products from its Indiana facility to any downstream customers. 

Rhode Island legislation would prohibit new plastics recycling facilities

Rhode Island is considering banning the facilities altogether. Legislation proposed by state Rep. Michelle McGaw, a Democrat representing Little Compton, Tiverton and Portsmouth, would prohibit any type of new high-heat processing facility in the state. 

“Pyrolysis requires a lot of fuel to keep temperatures high, and it doesn’t make toxic, polluting chemicals disappear,” McGaw said in a press release. “It’s not the panacea that the plastic industry wants us to think it is, and I doubt there are many Rhode Islanders who would welcome this type of facility in their town.”

New Hampshire’s law classifying the facilities as manufacturers is a little more stringent than most. It prohibits any new advanced recycling facility from making fuels to be offered for sale. Prima America doesn’t qualify as advanced recycling under that definition.

The amendment was added after representatives from the paper industry, which has made “enormous strides in the percent of post-consumer product they recycle,” argued that turning plastics into fuel for resale isn’t really recycling, said Rep. Peter Bixby, D-Dover, who sits on the House Environment and Agriculture Committee.

“That aspect puts us in a stronger position than do the laws in some other states,” Bixby said. 

When this year’s legislation, as amended by the Senate, comes before his committee, Bixby said he hopes to increase its scope beyond the subject of cumulative impacts to ask the department to also look at the types of contaminants that are released from advanced recycling plants — as opposed to the industry itself — and assess whether the state’s current regulations “are up to the task.”

Irwin, of the Conservation Law Foundation, said they are concerned that the promotion of advanced recycling by fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil is another way to mislead the public into believing that most plastics are being recycled. He noted that the California attorney general is conducting an investigation into what the office says is a longstanding “campaign of deception” by the plastics industry to convince the public that “we could recycle our way out of the plastic waste problem.”

Still, Bixby said, given the scope of the plastics waste problem, he is hopeful that backers of advanced recycling will be able to demonstrate that it can be safe and effective. 

“It’s complicated,” he said. “The American Chemical Council will tell you advanced recycling is going to save the world, and the Conservation Law Foundation is going to tell you it’s the devil incarnate. I think the truth is somewhere in between.”

High-income countries have long sent their waste abroad to be thrown away or recycled — and an independent team of experts says they’re inundating the developing world with much more plastic than previously estimated.

According to a new analysis published last week, United Nations data on the global waste trade fails to account for “hidden” plastics in textiles, contaminated paper bales, and other categories, leading to a dramatic, 1.8-million-metric-ton annual underestimate of the amount of plastic that makes its way from the European Union, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States to poor countries. The authors highlight the public health and environmental risks that plastic exports pose in the developing world, where importers often dump or incinerate an unmanageable glut of plastic waste.

“Toxic chemicals from these plastics are poisoning communities,” said Therese Karlsson, a science and technical adviser for the nonprofit International Pollutant Elimination Network, or IPEN. IPEN helped coordinate the analysis along with an international team of researchers from Sweden, Turkey, and the U.S.

Many estimates of the scale of the plastic waste trade make use of a U.N. database that tracks different types of products through a “harmonized commodity description and coding system,” which assigns each product category a code starting with the letters HS. HS 3915 — “waste, parings, and scrap” of plastics — is often assumed by researchers and policymakers to describe the total volume of plastic that’s traded globally. But the new analysis argues this is only “the tip of the plastic waste iceberg,” since HS 3915 misses large quantities of plastic that are included in other product categories.

Discarded clothing, for example, may be tracked as HS 5505 and not counted as plastic waste, even though 60 to 70 percent of all textiles are made of some kind of plastic. And another category called HS 6309 — used clothing and accessories — is assumed by the U.N. to be reused or recycled and is therefore not considered waste at all, even though an estimated 40 percent of these exported clothes are deemed unsalvageable and end up dumped in landfills.

Plastic contamination in paper bales — the huge stacks of unsorted paper that are shipped abroad to be recycled — also tends to be overlooked in estimates of the international plastic waste trade, even though these bales may contain 5 to 30 percent plastic that must be removed and discarded.

Accounting for plastic from just these two product categories increases plastic waste exports from all the regions analyzed by as much as 1.8 million metric tons per year — 1.3 million from paper bales and half a million from textiles. That’s more than double the plastic that’s counted when only plastic “waste, parings, and scrap” are analyzed.

Additional product categories like electronics and rubber add even more to the global plastic waste trade, although Karlsson said a lack of data makes it hard to quantify their exact contribution. All this plastic strains developing countries’ waste management infrastructure, leading to large quantities of plastic waste ending up in dumps, landfills, or incinerators. Burning this waste causes hazardous air pollution for nearby communities, and dumps and landfills can leach chemicals like PCBs — a group of compounds that can cause cancer in humans — into soil and water supplies.

More than 10,000 chemicals are used in the production of plastic, and one-fourth of them have been flagged by researchers for their toxicity and potential to build up in the environment and in people’s bodies. The report calls for greater transparency from plastic and petrochemical industries about the chemicals they put in their plastic products, and for regulators to require them to use fewer, nontoxic chemicals.

Karlsson also called for a total ban on the global plastic waste trade, along with enforceable limits on the amount of plastics the world makes in the first place. “Regardless of what way we’re handling plastic waste, we need to decrease the amount of plastics that we generate,” she told Grist, “because the amount of plastic waste being produced today will never be sustainable.”

Without aggressive action to phase down plastic production, the world is on track to have produced a cumulative 26 billion metric tons of plastic waste by 2050, most of which will be incinerated, dumped, or sent to landfills.

New Zealand’s newest national park – and one of the most isolated spots in the country – is polluted with plastic trash. Andrea Vance and Iain McGregor investigate. This story is featured on Stuff’s The Long Read podcast. Check it out by hitting the play button below, or find it on podcast apps like Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Podcasts. There they were, rustling in the red tussock. A pair of Rakiura tokoeka, the elusive Stewart Island brown kiwi, oblivious to the gleeful trampers, watching their every move for close to half an hour. For Harry Pearson and Jan Jordan, this was the capstone of the perfect holiday. A long stretch of summer spent tramping through New Zealand’s wilderness; a joyous journey through forests, alps, even swimming with Hector’s dolphins in Southland’s vast Te Waewae Bay. The isolated West Coast of Stewart Island was the final leg, the Nelson couple drawn by dreams of spotting a kiwi in the wild. READ MORE:* Desert Island Dump, part three: “Stolen from Talley’s”* Desert Island Dump, part two: The big haul* Desert Island Dump, part one: Shipwrecked But the thrill was short-lived. In the heart of Rakiura National Park, the national icon shares its home with tonnes of plastic rubbish and man-made marine debris. “It’s just really upsetting,” Jordan says. “I had no idea we had so much waste coming up on to our seashores. It’s so sad. I can’t help thinking of all the wildlife we’ve seen.”Iain McGregor/StuffMason Bay is recognised as one of the best places to spot kiwi in their natural habitat. Mason Bay is a mecca for nature lovers and bird watchers, a 14km crescent of sand and an expansive swathe of dunes sweeping back from shore into the island’s forest and peatlands. Wild, extraordinary, and not permanently inhabited since the late 1980s, it is home to more kiwi than Kiwi. More than 40km from the nearest settlement – Oban has just 400 residents – it can be reached only by hiking, or by plane, a little Cessna 185 that bumps down on the sand at low tide. But its remoteness has afforded the beach no protection from humanity’s destructive, disposable culture.Iain McGregor/StuffPlastic junk is carried on powerful ocean currents, finally resting on Mason Bay’s enormous sand dunes. Wave after wave pummels the shore, washing up discarded plastic that has swirled into the Southern Ocean from all across the Pacific Rim. The ghosts of dead fishing gear crunch underfoot. Cracked craypots, frayed ropes entwined with seaweed and buoys wedged in wind-sculpted boulders lie bleached and parched by the sun. Luminous floats line the bush-sheltered track from the bay to a Department of Conservation hut, strung up like Christmas ornaments to mark the 15-minute route. Pale blue plastic tubs marked ‘Stolen from Talley’s’ are set at regular intervals on the shore line. The fish bins – used by inshore fishing vessels to transport a catch to processing factories – hold flotsam collected by visitors to the beach. Metres of blue ribbon laces through the dunes – it is plastic packing tape used to secure bait boxes. Known officially as abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) – between 500,000 and 1 million tons of marine waste tumbles into the seas from industrial fishing vessels each year.Iain McGregor/StuffA buoy, made by a Taiwanese plastics company, lies in granite boulders and drift wood. The soft sand is speckled with every kind of household item – a dust pan, sandals, a marker pen, toothbrushes, bottles, the ring from a barbecue, half a plastic rubbish bin. Torn sweet packets and sauce bottles come from as far away as Korea, Japan and California. The shoreline has also caught larger items – a car door, sun bed, and plastic drums – weathered and broken from ocean travel.Iain McGregor/StuffA hairbrush lies under sand and seaweed. Buried in the granules are lumpen blobs. At first glance they could be ambergris – valuable whale vomit used in the making of perfume. But these pebbles are worthless pyroplastics, likely the melted remnants of trash burnt at sea. Blue, green, purple and yellow shards are scattered as shells. Tiny dots of plastic are as ubiquitous as the island’s biting sandflies, littering each new high tide mark with a fresh rainbow of deadly pollution. Wet shopping bags – banned in New Zealand in 2019 – slump into the swash like deflated, dying jellyfish.Iain McGregor/StuffAn oystercatcher feeds near a newly washed-up plastic drum lid. This is what is visible. But the problem goes deeper – the bulk of pollution is disintegrating, unseen, into the sand. That’s because plastics don’t break down, they break up, finally becoming microplastics, defined as less than 5mm in diameter, and nanoplastics (less than 0.001mm). These are then ingested by organisms like plankton, sending the particles up the food chain. The detritus doesn’t surprise Canterbury University environmental chemist Sally Gaw: “The presence of macro and microplastics on remote beaches tells us that plastics are everywhere, that there isn’t anywhere that hasn’t been touched by our love affair with plastic.”Iain McGregor/StuffA pipit rests at the high tide mark, strewn with tiny pieces of plastic debris. The fragments are everywhere scientists have looked: from the bottom of the deepest ocean trench, to Antarctic ice, the air that we breathe, and even human blood. Alex Aves, also of Canterbury University, discovered plastic particles in fresh snow from the frozen continent – a moment she describes as “staggering”. She is now analysing samples from remote areas to better understand airborne microplastic. “Microplastics have been found all throughout human bodies, and we know that the smaller they get, the more damage they can do,” she says.Iain McGregor/StuffTrampers gather larger pieces of rubbish and leave them on the beach in the hope they’ll be collected. The problem with plastic Humans have been using plastics on a rapidly increasing scale since the 1950s. For at least half that time, we’ve known that our addiction to convenience has been fouling the ocean. The first study examining the amount of near-surface marine plastic debris was published in 2014. It estimated at least 5.25 trillion individual plastic particles weighing roughly 244,000 metric tons were floating in the world’s oceans. By 2018, microplastics had been found in more than 114 aquatic species, and in 2020, scientists estimated at least 14 million metric tons were resting on the floor of the ocean.Iain McGregor/StuffThe Sustainable Coastlines Charitable Trust says 75% of what they collect in beach clean-ups is plastic. Sustainable Coastlines is building a national litter database. They calculate that for every 1000m2 (quarter acre) of beach, there are 329 items. Three quarters of what the charity collects is plastic. Most of these products – like food wrappers – are used for just minutes or hours by humans. But they will persist in the environment for hundreds of years. The scale of the problem captured the attention of the media and made their way into popular culture, with horrifying images of wildlife distressed or killed by debris, footage of five immense, floating trash vortexes, and influencers who disavow consumerism for a zero-waste lifestyle.Iain McGregor/StuffFishing rope snagged on the beach. Many items commonly used in commercial fishing contain plastics. These include nylon lines, ropes, nets, traps, floats, tubs and safety and wet weather gear. But remarkably, global production is accelerating. On current trends, plastic use will nearly double from 2019 across G20 countries by 2050, reaching 451m tonnes each year. “As we become more aware, so too do polluting industries – around how to find loopholes. For example, they will say: ‘we’re increasing our recycling rates, we are light-weighting’,” says environmental anthropologist and campaigner Trisia Farrelly, of Massey University. “But all that does is give an excuse to allow for not only continued plastic production, but increased plastic production.”Iain McGregor/StuffA pipit forages among plastic litter. New Zealand is phasing out some single-use plastics from July, including produce bags, most straws, plates, bowls and cutlery. By 2025, this will also include polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polystyrene food and drink packaging. Last year, 175 nations agreed to end plastic pollution with a binding UN treaty, which could see a global ban on single-use plastic items, a “polluter pays” scheme, and a tax on new production. Still under negotiation, it could come into being by the end of 2024.Iain McGregor/StuffStrong Pacific and Southern Ocean currents, combined with complex westerly winds drag plastic and other debris up onto the beach. Ellie Hooper, Greenpeace Aotearoa oceans campaigner, says the treaty – and a separate agreement struck last week to protect the high seas – could make a difference. But Farrelly warns that industry influence is still at play in the negotiations. “Countries recently submitted ideas about core elements that could be in the text of the treaty. Some commitments are still too low, and some countries are not particularly interested in ambitious policy like caps on plastic production or removing petro-chem subsidies, or for fossil fuel extraction.”Iain McGregor/StuffHarry Pearson abandoned his search for kiwi to pick up litter from the beach and dunes. There is also a growing awareness that plastic pollutes without being littered, through the release of contaminants used in manufacture. These chemicals leach into the environment, air and water, and possibly the food chain. Gaw points to phthalates, additives that make plastics more flexible and so commonplace in household cleaners, food packaging and cosmetics that they are known as ‘the everywhere chemical’. Researchers have linked them to asthma, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, breast cancer, obesity and diabetes, low IQ, neurodevelopmental issues, behavioural issues, autism spectrum disorders, and fertility and reproductive issues. The European Union and the United States are beginning to restrict and regulate chemicals in this class –and the EU is under particular pressure to phase out PVC and PVC additives.Iain McGregor/StuffHarry Pearson and Jan Jordan collect armfuls of plastic rubbish. Now what for the bay? For close to thirty years, Mike Hilton has nursed the sand dunes of Mason Bay back to health. The screaming, complex westerly winds that bring plastic on the ocean currents too carry an invasive pest. Marram grass – also planted on the island by farmers to tame the dunes – was smothering native vegetation, like the fiery orange pīngao, until Hilton pioneered a multimillion-dollar eradication programme for the University of Otago and DOC. He’s also gathered a “rich collection” of glass bottles from the beach. As the ancient ecology – it is the largest dune system in the Southern Hemisphere – restores, the fore dunes will break down and blow away.Iain McGregor/StuffDune systems are one of New Zealand’s most damaged and endangered ecosystems. The Rakiura Dune Restoration Programme began in 1999, and is the world’s largest and longest-running. But the retreating sand will uncover a fresh environmental problem. For years, regular beach clean-ups were happening on Mason Bay. But sources have told Stuff that up until about 2000 some of the collected trash was buried in the fingers of sand that stretch deep into the mānuka forest. Although it is aesthetically troubling, Hilton says the debris won’t have an impact on the restoration work. However, it leaves a headache for DOC – already stretched thin by competing tourism and biodiversity needs on the end-of-the-earth island.Iain McGregor/StuffPlastic pollution on the beach at Mason Bay. Hikers gather larger pieces of rubbish and leave them at the start of tracks in the hope they’ll be collected. Rakiura operations manager Jennifer Ross says it’s a longstanding issue. “The way the oceanic currents work in the area means it’s constantly in line for all sorts of debris from the Tasman Sea. “In recent years we’re seeing more smaller pieces of plastic too – the kind that mixes in with the sand is very difficult to collect. “No-one likes seeing rubbish in our wild places and unfortunately there’s no one simple solution – it’s a global problem.”Iain McGregor/StuffTalley’s Group has funded clean-ups in the Southland region since 2011, and for more than a decade staff have helped shift the rubbish. DOC also supports clean-ups by the Southern Coastal Charitable Trust, which involve boats and a helicopter to uplift the trash. For more than a decade these have been funded by Talley’s. They’ll contribute $10,000 to the next collection in July, and staff from the Bluff plant will take part. Mike Black, Talley’s depot supervisor, says rubbish on Southern beaches comes from as far afield as the Netherlands and even fish cases from South America. Iain McGregor/StuffTalley’s Group says fish bins that are returned are repaired, recycled and reused by the fishing community. It also funds clean-ups on southern beaches. In recent years crews have found “a huge amount” of domestic rubbish, and believe some may have come from an old landfill, exposed at Fox River in 2019 floods. Fishers don’t discard waste on purpose and bins are tied or securely stored, he said. “But occasionally while on deck, an empty case about to be used might be washed off by a rogue wave. It is not what anyone wants, but it can happen while out in rough sea.” Around 70% are returned to the companies who own them, and Talley’s repairs or recycles them.

CNN
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The world’s oceans are polluted by a “plastic smog” made up of an estimated 171 trillion plastic particles that if gathered would weigh around 2.3 million tons, according to a new study.

A team of international scientists analyzed global data collected between 1979 and 2019 from nearly 12,000 sampling points in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans and the Mediterranean Sea.

They found a “rapid and unprecedented” increase in ocean plastic pollution since 2005, according to the study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE.

“It is much higher than previous estimates,” Lisa Erdle, director of research and innovation at the 5 Gyres Institute and an author on the report, told CNN.

Without urgent policy action, the rate at which plastics enter the oceans could increase by around 2.6 times between now and 2040, the study found.

Plastic production has soared in the last few decades, especially single-use plastics, and waste management systems have not kept pace. Only around 9% of global plastics are recycled each year.

Huge amounts of that plastic waste end up in the oceans. The majority comes from land, swept into rivers – by rain, wind, overflowing storm drains and littering – and transported out to sea. A smaller but still significant amount, such as fishing gear, is lost or simply dumped into the ocean.

Once plastic gets into the ocean, it doesn’t decompose but instead tends to break down into tiny pieces. These particles “are really not easily cleaned up, we’re stuck with them,” Erdle said.

Marine life can get entangled in plastic or mistake it for food. Plastic can also leach toxic chemicals into the water.

And it isn’t just an environmental disaster; plastic is also a huge climate problem. Fossil fuels are the raw ingredient for most plastics, and they produce planet-heating pollution throughout their lifecycle – from production to disposal.

Figuring out exactly how much plastic is in the ocean is a hard exercise. “The ocean is a complex place. There are lots of ocean currents, there are changes over time due to weather and due to conditions on the ground,” Erdle said.

The researchers spent years poring over peer-reviewed papers as well as unpublished findings from other scientists to try to collate the most extensive record they could – both in terms of timeframe and geography.

Most of the study’s samples were collected in the North Pacific and North Atlantic, where the majority of data exists. The study authors say more data is still needed for areas including the Mediterranean Sea, Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic and South Pacific.

“This research opened my eyes to how challenging plastic in the ocean is to measure and characterize and underscores the need for real solutions to the problem,” Win Cowger, a research scientist at Moore Institute for Plastic Pollution Research in California and a study author, said in a statement.

Since the 1970s, there has been a slew of agreements aimed at stemming the tide of plastic pollution reaching the ocean, yet they are mostly voluntary, fragmented and rarely include measurable targets, the study noted.

The study authors call for urgent international policy intervention. “We clearly need some solutions that have teeth,” Erdle said.

The United Nations has agreed to create a legally binding global plastics treaty by 2024, which would address the whole life of plastics from production to disposal. But big divisions remain over whether this should include cuts in plastic manufacturing, which is predicted to quadruple by 2050.

Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator and now-president of Beyond Plastics, a non-profit focused on research and consumer education, said that policies to reduce the amount of plastic produced in the first place are the only real solution, especially as companies are continuing to find new ways to pump more plastics into the market.

“The plastics and petrochemical industries are making it impossible to curb the amount of plastic contaminating our oceans,” Enck told CNN by email.

“New research is always helpful, but we don’t need to wait for new research to take action — the problem is already painfully clear, in the plastic accumulating in our oceans, air, soil, food, and bodies.” Enck said.

Humans have filled the world’s oceans with more than 170 trillion pieces of plastic, dramatically more than previously estimated, according to a major study released Wednesday.The trillions of plastic particles — a “plastic smog,” in the words of the researchers — weigh roughly 2.4 million metric tons and are doubling about every six years, according to the study conducted by a team of international researchers led by Marcus Eriksen of the 5 Gyres Institute, based in Santa Monica, Calif. That is more than 21,000 pieces of plastic for each of the Earth’s 8 billion residents. Most pieces are very small.The study, which was published in the PLOS One journal, draws on nearly 12,000 samples collected across 40 years of research in all the world’s major ocean basins. Starting in 2004, researchers observed a major rise in the material, which they say coincided with an explosion in plastics production.The findings pointed toward both the vast amount of plastic that is flowing into the world’s oceans and the degree to which it is journeying long distances once in the water. The study may deliver a jolt of energy to U.N. talks to reduce global plastics pollution that started last year.“This exponential rise in ocean surface plastic pollution might make you feel fatalistic. How can you fix this?” said Eriksen, a founder of the 5 Gyres Institute, a nonprofit group that works to study and fight ocean plastics pollution.“But at the same time, the world is negotiating a U.N. treaty on plastic pollution,” Eriksen said.Measuring plastic in the oceanThe weight of all that plastic is equivalent to about 28 Washington Monuments. The samples that were studied end in 2019, so several more Washington Monuments of plastic are likely to have dropped into the sea since then.Eriksen and the other researchers traveled the world’s oceans to collect samples, combed the archives of previous researchers for unpublished data and incorporated other peer-reviewed studies into their analysis. They used new models to estimate the quantity of plastic, leading to sharply revised, higher numbers compared with a 2014 study by Eriksen and some of the same researchers that used a much smaller set of data.Only 10 percent of the plastic ever made has been recycled. The material that doesn’t make it into landfills can get swept into rivers or directly into oceans. It slowly breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, known as microplastics, which are less than 5 millimeters in length and can be eaten by marine life. Plastic has been found near the summit of Mount Everest and inside the deepest point on Earth, the Mariana Trench — as well as in the human bloodstream.The study examined plastic samples over 40 years starting in 1979. The researchers found a fluctuating amount of plastic in the samples until 2004, when the numbers started to skyrocket. The increase in plastic particles in the oceans corresponds to a previously observed increase of plastic on global beaches over the same time period, they noted.“These parallel trends strongly suggest that plastic pollution in the world’s oceans during the past 15 years has reached unprecedented levels,” the study said.Preventing plastic pollution in the oceanThe data includes samples from the world’s five major gyres, or current systems, which sweep particles from inhabited areas to create large collections of refuse. The best known of these is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, where plastics float slightly below the surface.In looking at samples, the researchers concentrated on the North Atlantic and North Pacific ocean basins, partly because they have been studied more frequently over the decades and are where greater concentrations of the world’s population lives. But high concentrations of plastics were found everywhere.Global negotiators hope to complete the plastics treaty by 2024. It would regulate all aspects of the life cycle of plastic, including the kinds of chemicals that go into it and whether it’s easily recyclable. Anti-pollution campaigners say it is far easier to deal with plastic before it enters waterways than it is to clean it up afterward.Eriksen, the study’s lead author, said research into plastics pollution had in recent years started to shift away from oceans and move farther upstream, to rivers and other waterways, as advocates struggled to understand the issue at its origin.“The plastic pollution, it’s in every biome,” he said. “It’s not just in oceans anymore.”