The third paper in our Briefing Series, ‘Biodegradable plastics: how do we engage with consumers and society?’ is available now

This briefing paper summarises key themes and ideas discussed at our ‘Biodegradable plastics: how do we engage with consumers and society?’ webinar, held on 21st May 2021. This briefing paper presents the views expressed by our panellists who were members of the SAPEA Working Group and other experts.

The webinar is part of a series of events drawing on the SAPEA Evidence Review Report Biodegradability of plastics in the open environment and the associated Scientific Opinion by the European Commission’s Group of Chief Scientific Advisors. This webinar, a partnership event between SAPEA and the Royal Irish Academy, was attended by an international audience of over 200 people from 37 countries.

About our Briefing Series

The AE Cardiff Briefing Series has been developed to complement AE Cardiff’s webinar series. Each paper will summarise key points of discussion at each of our webinars, with the aim of providing a useful resource on the topic.

Other papers in the series

‘Research integrity: how can we support and protect early-career researchers in cases of alleged scientific misconduct?’

This briefing paper summarises main points of discussion at our ‘Research Integrity: supporting early-career researchers in cases of alleged scientific misconduct’ webinar, held on 22^nd March 2021. At the webinar, our panel of experts explored what happens when an early-career researcher observes a more senior colleague apparently engaging in possible malpractice and what processes are in place to address potential problems and protect those involved. The backdrop to the discussion was a paper by four of the panellists, outlining one possible mechanism for investigating reported cases of possible misconduct. This event was a partnership between the Academia Europaea Cardiff Knowledge Hub, the Young Academy of Europe (YAE), SAPEA and the European Group on Ethics (EGE).

Digital Media in crisis situations: Rethinking their role and function’

This briefing paper encapsulates the key points of our ‘Digital Media in crisis situations‘ webinar, held on 1st March 2021. A panel of experts discussed the role of the digital media on our public debate, attitudes and behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic. The event was a partnership between Academia Europaea, University of Bremen, Cardiff University, SAPEA (Science Advice for Policy by European Academies) and in support of the Welsh Government’s Wales in Germany 2021 initiative.

The information and opinions expressed in all of our briefing documents do not represent the views and opinions of Academia Europaea and its board of trustees. This document is a summary of ideas discussed at the webinar.

Posted 18^th June 2021. For further information please contact AECardiffHub@cardiff.ac.uk

#ChasingPellets: Good Karma Projects and Surfrider Europe in pursuit of plastic pellets in the Mediterranean

Join the NOAA Marine Debris Program as we celebrate National Ocean Month. This week’s theme is Ocean Science. Do we know if animals snack on plastic? Dive into the science of plastic ingestion to learn more.

Millions of tons of debris enter the marine environment each year, including our trash and damaged fishing gear, and can be found at the surface of the water, down to the deepest parts of the ocean. Many marine debris items, especially plastics, are small enough to be ingested, or eaten, by wildlife, an issue of growing concern for the health of hundreds of marine animals. Animals may directly eat marine debris, or it may be consumed with prey that already has a belly full of marine debris. 

Some marine animals are more likely to eat plastic than others. The characteristics of plastic debris, such as color, size, or shape, can attract certain types of wildlife. The amount of marine debris in a certain area and the feeding behaviors of different animals can play a large role in which animals are more likely to eat marine debris. Some animals filter water to consume their food (e.g., baleen whales, mussels, oysters), and can easily eat plastic, most commonly in the form of microplastics, or plastic pieces smaller than 5 mm. Other animals (e.g., birds, fish, turtles, toothed whales) actively search for and capture their food and may accidentally ingest plastic marine debris while eating their prey, which may have also eaten plastic. 

Some species, such as sea cucumbers, even prefer to eat plastics and will choose to feed on them over their regular food. Invertebrates, or animals without a backbone, not only ingest microscopic plastic pieces, but they can also increase the breakdown of plastic marine debris. For example, some invertebrates dig into foam floats, which may cause tiny pieces of plastic to break apart and produce enormous amounts of microplastic debris!

Research highlighted in a NOAA report reviewing marine debris ingestion by wildlife, showed that birds, marine mammals, and turtles are more likely to ingest marine debris over fishes, including sharks. Fishes and sharks are less likely to ingest debris as they become older and larger and become more efficient at capturing their prey, which makes them less likely to accidentally consume debris while hunting for food. Research has confirmed that all seven species of sea turtles have eaten debris, as well as an estimated one-third of all sea bird species. Many marine mammals are also known to eat debris, ranging from microplastics to plastic sheets and bags, but are harder to study because of laws protecting these species.  

When an animal eats plastic marine debris, it can be difficult to see the damage it does to their bodies. Debris can block or tear the digestive system of an animal, as well as cause problems for the way their body functions by affecting their nutrition and development, or even cause infections. Research has shown that sharp objects and sheet plastic, such as single-use plastic bags and plastic packaging, appear to cause the most damage to larger marine wildlife in the shortest amount of time. After an animal swallows debris, it can feel full, which might keep them from eating and getting the nutrients they need from food. Marine debris and the chemicals in plastics can also impact the function of an animal’s immune or reproductive systems, but this is difficult to monitor on marine wildlife.

Unfortunately, the effects of marine debris ingestion are not very well understood. Scientists are working to better understand how often wildlife ingests marine debris, as well as the ways it impacts the health of animals and their communities. Luckily, you can do something to help! Since marine debris is created by humans, we are also the solution. Learn how you can help reduce marine debris in our ocean and Great Lakes by making meaningful changes to the amount of waste you produce, and cleaning up your local environment.

Balloons are pretty, festive, and fun, but released outdoors they can be lethal to birds, turtles, whales, and many others. Balloons released either on purpose or unintentionally are carried by winds to the ocean. Ultimately, balloons fall from the sky and litter beaches, waterways, estuaries, and the vast ocean. More than unsightly, these balloons harm wildlife by entanglement (especially balloons with ribbons and strings) or ingestion when animals mistake them for food.

Marine balloon litter is well-documented and is a growing problem in waterways worldwide. In fact, 70,055 balloons were collected by volunteers cleaning NJ’s beaches and shorelines on just 40 days during the 20-year period (1999-2019) of Clean Ocean Action’s biannual Beach Sweeps. Further, a recent study* in the leading ocean policy journal Marine Policy ranks balloons as #3 of the 20 deadliest trash items in the ocean (i.e., plastics bags, bottles). 

A bill, A4322, introduced by NJ Assembly Members Houghtaling (NJ-11) and Downey (NJ-11), prohibits the intentional outdoor release of balloons throughout the state, and requires better control of outdoor balloons. 

In signing this petition, I state that:  

• I am not anti-balloon, just anti-balloon litter, and I want to protect wildlife from this needless painful, harmful, and lethal threat;
• I personally pledge not to release, or cause to be released, any balloons outdoors; and,
• I support A4322 as an important step toward reducing the harmful impacts of balloons on marine life.  

* “Using expert elicitation to estimate the impacts of plastic pollution on marine wildlife,” Marine Policy, Volume 65, March 2016, Pages 107-114, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2015.10.014 

The owners of the controversial Carmichael mine in Queensland want to build a US$4bn plant in India that would use Australian coal to make plastic.

Adani Enterprises, which owns the Carmichael coalmine, said in submissions to Indian authorities the plant will use 3.1m tonnes of coal a year at the plant to make PVC.

Critics said the “toxic” project was an attempt to find a second life for thermal coal at a time when the world was moving away from fossil fuels.

The company is seeking environmental clearances to build the massive “coal-to-PVC” plant that will take up almost 3 sq km in Mundra, Gujarat..

Adani, which has rebranded in Australia to Bravus Mining and Resources, has begun construction on its Carmichael thermal coalmine in Queensland’s Galilee basin. The divisive mine has been one of the most controversial resources projects in Australian history.

In the submission, Adani Enterprises says the “coal to PVC project” will cost US$4bn (AU$5.2bn) and would use 3.1 Mt of coal imported “mainly from Australia, Russia and other countries”.

The plant would use a highly complex process to produce two million tonnes of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) a year.

Supporters of Adani’s Queensland coalmine have argued the exported coal would be used to produce electricity in power plants and would help lift people out of energy poverty in developing countries such as India and Bangladesh.

Until now, there has never been a suggestion that exported coal from the Galilee basin would be used for anything other than power generation.

Guardian asked Bravus about the proposal and if the coal for the project would be sourced from the Carmichael mine.

In a statement, Bravus said: “India will be a foundation customer for the Carmichael project and is the fourth-largest global user of electricity as well as the source of the biggest growth in global energy demand.

“We have already secured the market for the 10 million tonne per annum of coal produced at the Carmichael mine.

“The coal will be sold at index pricing and we will not be engaging in transfer pricing practices, which means that all of our taxes and royalties will be paid here in Australia.”

Pablo Brait, a campaigner at Market Forces that is pushing investors to pull money out of the Carmichael project, said: “The argument that Carmichael was going to help poor people was never valid in the first place.

“Renewable energy is cheaper and if you want to ensure affordability of electricity then you are better using renewables rather than imported coal.

“This is Adani creating new uses for thermal coal instead of transitioning out of thermal coal. That’s important for investors in the Adani group to know.

“This is a company that is not winding down its thermal coal use, but trying to find new ways to use a resource and avoid Carmichael turning into a stranded asset.”

In its submission, Adani enterprises said the coal will go through several stages of processing, creating calcium carbide and then acetylene, which is further processed to eventually produce PVC.

Adani said India’s demand for PVC is outgrowing supply and is dependant on imports.

Simon Nicholas, an energy finance analyst at the pro-renewables Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said there were some projects proposed in China and Pakistan that were looking to find alternative uses for coal, in particular coal-to-diesel and coal-to-fertilisers.

But he said these used cheaper domestic coal, not imported coal, and were government subsidised.

“It’s very expensive to use domestic coal. This does seem to look like a project that’s being proposed to prop up their Carmichael mine.”

Environmental campaign group SumOfUs has launched a petition to pressure Adani’s financial backers to withdraw from the group over the coal-to-plastics project.

The group claimed the coal-to-plastics process was emissions intensive, and described the plans as toxic.

Plastic bottles have been converted into vanilla flavouring using genetically engineered bacteria, the first time a valuable chemical has been brewed from waste plastic.

Upcycling plastic bottles into more lucrative materials could make the recycling process far more attractive and effective. Currently plastics lose about 95% of their value as a material after a single use. Encouraging better collection and use of such waste is key to tackling the global plastic pollution problem.

Researchers have already developed mutant enzymes to break down the polyethylene terephthalate polymer used for drinks bottles into its basic units, terephthalic acid (TA). Scientists have now used bugs to convert TA into vanillin.

Vanillin is used widely in the food and cosmetics industries and is an important bulk chemical used to make pharmaceuticals, cleaning products and herbicides. Global demand is growing and in 2018 was 37,000 tonnes, far exceeding the supply from natural vanilla beans. About 85% of vanillin is currently synthesised from chemicals derived from fossil fuels.

Joanna Sadler, of the University of Edinburgh, who conducted the new work, said: “This is the first example of using a biological system to upcycle plastic waste into a valuable industrial chemical and it has very exciting implications for the circular economy.”

Stephen Wallace, also of the University of Edinburgh, said: “Our work challenges the perception of plastic being a problematic waste and instead demonstrates its use as a new carbon resource from which high value products can be made.”

About 1m plastic bottles are sold every minute around the world and just 14% are recycled. Currently even those bottles that are recycled can only be turned into opaque fibres for clothing or carpets.

The research, published in the journal Green Chemistry, used engineered E coli bacteria to transform TA into vanillin. The scientists warmed a microbial broth to 37C for a day, the same conditions as for brewing beer, Wallace said. This converted 79% of the TA into vanillin.

Next the scientists will further tweak the bacteria to increase the conversion rate further, he said: “We think we can do that pretty quickly. We have an amazing roboticised DNA assembly facility here.” They will also work on scaling up the process to convert larger amounts of plastic. Other valuable molecules could also be brewed from TA, such as some used in perfumes.

Ellis Crawford, of the Royal Society of Chemistry, said: “This is a really interesting use of microbial science to improve sustainability. Using microbes to turn waste plastics, which are harmful to the environment, into an important commodity is a beautiful demonstration of green chemistry.”

Recent research showed bottles are the second most common type of plastic pollution in the oceans, after plastic bags. In 2018, scientists accidentally created a mutant enzyme that breaks down plastic bottles, and subsequent work produced a super-enzyme that eats plastic bottles even faster.