COP26: Plastic pollution trackers released off Scotland

COP26: Plastic pollution trackers released off Scotland
Credit: OneOcean

On the penultimate day of COP26, scientists have deployed plastic pollution tracking devices into the ocean around Scotland.

The devices will help scientists understand how move in the and their interaction with , wildlife and weather patterns.

The “Message in a Bottle” tracking project is being run by the Arribada Initiative, the University of Exeter, the University of Plymouth and ZSL (the Zoological Society of London), with support from #OneLess and OneOcean.

Designed to mimic a single-use plastic drinks bottle, the devices will respond to currents and winds as real bottles do.

Stage one of the project launched on World Ocean Day (8 June) during the G7 in Cornwall, and has already seen seven devices travel hundreds of miles over the past five months.

In stage two, the four new tracking devices could pass over deep ocean trenches, across major migratory routes for marine mammals and birds, possibly beaching on distant shores.

A recent study released by ZSL and Bangor University revealed links between the global climate crisis and plastic pollution, including the impact of extreme weather worsening the distribution of microplastics into pristine and remote areas.

With all eyes on COP26 nearing its completion in Glasgow, the four devices have been named “Heat,” “Acidity” “Deoxygenation” and “Pollution” to draw attention to the need to adequately address these ocean crises in tandem and to ensure that a recurring ocean climate dialog is fundamental to future COPs.

Professor Heather Koldewey, of ZSL and the University of Exeter, lead scientist on the project and Director of the #OneLess campaign, said: “Through our research we’ve seen that plastic and climate change are fundamentally and intrinsically linked.

“Plastic is made from fossil fuels, generating greenhouse gasses at every step of its life cycle and the impact of both plastic pollution and climate change are both prevalent around the world.

“These crises are truly interconnected. There is only one ocean and by tracking the flow of plastics we are trying to demonstrate the connectedness and the wide-reaching impact that humans are having on our planet.

“There is an urgency to acknowledge that the climate crisis is the ocean crisis.”

Mirella von Lindenfels, Director of the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO), said: “The ocean regulates our climate and buffers us from the full force of climate change by absorbing our excess heat and over a third of our CO2 emissions.

“Any irreversible and significant changes to the ocean could have profound economic and ecological consequences.

“We have named our new bottles “Heat, Acidity, Deoxygenation and Pollution’ to highlight how these climate-driven impacts on the ocean will affect life on Earth.

“As new research reveals, climate change cannot be treated independently of the marine plastic crisis, so must be tackled in tandem to synergistically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Dr. Phil Hosegood, Associate Professor in Physical Oceanography at the University of Plymouth, said: “The bottles released during the G7 have already shown how plastics released offshore readily find their way back to our coastlines.

“Released off the coasts of Cornwall, they washed up on beaches not just nearby but also in the Channel Islands and France.

“It demonstrates a strong connectivity between currents in the open ocean and those flowing along our shores and beaches.

“However, it also shows this isn’t an issue one nation can tackle alone, but that actions taken locally to prevent waste flowing from land to ocean could have a positive impact on our planet as a whole.”

Over 359 million tons of plastic is produced annually and production has been predicted to double in the next 20 years.

With more than 40% of this amount allocated for single-use applications some groups, such as London’s #OneLess campaign, have decided to start tackling the plastic pollution problem close to home.

Over the past six years #OneLess has catalyzed a change in the way Londoners drink water, from single-use plastic water bottles to refilling and reusing.

“Through our to this issue we’ve managed to bring together individuals, businesses, local authorities and the Mayor of London to identify the barriers to reducing plastic pollution and strategically choose actions that are turning the tide on single-use plastic water bottles in London,” said Professor Koldewey.

“We’ve shown that that there are very tangible and immediate steps we can all take to reducing the amount of plastic that ends up in our waterways and eventually the ocean.”

The launch of the latest group of devices also coincides with COP26’s Cities Day.

The group hopes that this latest data on the movement of ocean plastic will inspire other cities across the globe to take steps to curb single-use for the sake of our ocean.

The #OneLess campaign works with scientists, businesses, visitor attractions and governments to reduce the reliance on and numbers of single use water bottles.

They have recently launched a practical guide aimed at organizations, campaigns and cities around the world that are interested in #OneLess as a systems change approach to environmental conservation.

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Catastrophic consequences for oceans when climate change and plastic pollution crises combine

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Scotland to ban plastic straws and polystyrene food boxes from June

Plastics

Scotland to ban plastic straws and polystyrene food boxes from June

Scottish ministers fear raft of measures could be undermined by delay to parallel action in England

Discarded polystyrene food containers.

Scotland editor
@severincarrell

Last modified on Thu 11 Nov 2021 11.01 EST

The sale of plastic straws, cutlery and polystyrene cups and food boxes is to be banned in Scotland next year as part of measures to reduce waste and pollution.

The Scottish government said the ban would cover all single-use polystyrene food containers and their lids, as well as plastic stirrers, balloon sticks, plates and coffee stirrers, and would come into force on 1 June.

The measures parallel similar bans in force or planned around the UK, and it expected to lead to a boom in compostable and paper-based packaging. However, there are doubts about how effective it will be.

Single-use plastic straws, cotton buds and drink stirrers were banned in England in 2020. The UK government is consulting on banning single-use plates, cutlery and polystyrene food packaging for England in several years’ time, but no target date has been given.

Because of the delay, Scottish ministers fear their measures could be undermined by the UK government’s internal market rules, which are intended to harmonise the movement and sale of goods within Britain post-Brexit.

Lorna Slater, a Scottish Green party minister, said that because there was no similar action in England, Scotland’s ban could be sidestepped by people buying or moving single-use plastics from England. Slater is writing to ministers in Westminster to see whether the UK-wide measures would be changed to ensure Scotland is able to enforce its policies.

The internal trade rules have already forced the Welsh government to delay its plans to ban single-use plastics, first announced last year, because of the extent of cross-border travel, trading and recreation with England.

Cardiff is now planning to charge for single-use plastic items until UK ministers clarify the internal market rules.

Although charges for plastic bags and a ban on microplastic in washing products are in force UK-wide, and a new tax on plastic packaging will be introduced next year,, anti-waste campaigners say all four of the UK’s governments are taking“snail’s pace” action on single-use plastics. The EU banned single-use plastics in July across all 27 member states.

It is estimated the average person uses 18 throwaway plastic plates and 37 single-use knives, forks and spoons each year. A study last year found businesses and consumers in the UK and US produced more plastic waste per head than any other major economies.

“Every year, hundreds of millions of pieces of single-use plastic are wasted in this country,” Slater said. “They litter our coasts, pollute our oceans and contribute to the climate emergency. That has to end and this ban will be another step forward in the fight against plastic waste and throwaway culture.”

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Report casts doubts on petrochemical growth in Appalachia

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — A report released Wednesday by the Ohio River Valley Institute says that changing market forces are likely to impede the growth of the petrochemicals industry across Appalachia.

The report, “Poor Economics for Virgin Plastics: Petrochemicals Will Not Provide Sustainable Business Opportunities in Appalachia,” points to several factors that will hamper the expansion and development of new petrochemical complexes across the region.

Among these are environmental concerns from consumers and investors over pollution caused by petrochemicals such as polyethylene – the core feedstock produced by ethane “cracker” plants.


Royal Dutch Shell is in the process of constructing a $6 billion petrochemicals facility along the Ohio River near Monaca, Pa. A second plant along the river in Belmont County, Ohio, is under consideration by Thailand-based PTT Global, but plans for that project have not moved forward.

The Shell project has created nearly 10,000 construction jobs since work began four years ago. Once completed, the petrochemicals complex is likely to employ more than 500. The ethane cracker produces plastic polyethylene pellets that are used in countless consumer products.

Yet, “the long-term financial future for virgin plastics is poor,” said Kathy Hipple, one of the study’s authors. “The oil and gas industry, particularly natural-gas producers in Appalachia that have struggled for a decade, have ample reasons to support a petrochemical build out. But that should not dictate what is best for the region and its citizens.”

Others refute the report.

“No one is surprised that this anti-oil and gas industry group released yet another so called report saying disparaging things about the industry,” Mike Chadsey, spokesman for the Ohio Oil and Gas Association said in a statement. “While flipping through their document, it is clear that they only say no, no to oil and gas and no to petrochemicals and no to plastics, yet do not offer another alternative. No is not an energy policy. On the other hand, the oil and gas industry continues to take a more positive approach to the valley, yes to jobs, yes to investments and yes to continuing to make this a great place to live, work and raise a family.” 

According to a study from JobsOhio, Ohio ranks No. 1 in plastics and polymer output and the top consumer of polyolefin in the Midwest.


The report emphasizes that the Appalachian feedstock pool is limited, and a tighter ethane market and producers’ ability to access export markets via expanded capacity at Marcus Hook will likely push regional ethane prices too high to for new ethane crackers to be competitive.

Moreover, the report noted that China, once the primary importer of U.S. ethylene, is now leveraging tariffs and making it difficult for producers to export to that country. Instead, China is racing toward supply self-sufficiency. “Accelerating overseas capacity additions and lower-than-expected Asian import demand could create a significant overhang of U.S. capacity,” the report notes.

As such, the report states that prospective investors have been hesitant to fund major new projects, since expansion in the Ohio River Valley and Appalachia could result in stranded assets.

“Over the past decade, it might have made economic sense to build out the domestic petrochemical industry,” the report states. “This is no longer the case. Between China’s 2017 ban on imports of plastic waste and intensifying pressure to replace difficult-to-recycle plastics with environmentally friendly alternatives, the economic rationale for expanding the virgin plastics industry no longer exists.”

Pictured: Royal Dutch Shell is in the process of constructing a $6 billion petrochemicals facility along the Ohio River near Monaca, Pa.

Copyright 2021 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.

The future of food shopping might be plastic-free

Two years ago, efforts to kick the country’s plastic addiction were on fire. Municipalities around the country were implementing plastic bag taxes, while mainstream shoppers embraced reusable grocery bags and flocked to the bulk aisles for foods like beans and nuts.

However, all that came to a halt when stopping the spread of COVID-19 became the country’s top priority. Almost overnight, grocery stores closed their bulk-shopping sections, coffee shops stopped filling reusable coffee mugs, and individually wrapped everything took center stage.

Now, signs are emerging that the fight against plastic is getting back on track. One of the most notable of those signs came from Kroger last month, when the nation’s largest grocery chain announced it was expanding an online trial with Loop, an online platform for refillable packaging, to 25 Fred Meyer store locations in Portland, Oregon.

While consumer reuse models “got punched in the face” by the pandemic, Loop’s Tom Szaky said the demand is still there, and mainstream grocery stores are going to need to find a way to meet it.

Kroger plans to offer a separate Loop aisle in these stores. The products, which will include a mix of items in food and other categories, can be bought in glass containers or aluminum boxes. When they’re empty, customers return the containers to the store to be cleaned and used again. Originally scheduled for this fall, the launch has been postponed to early 2022 because of supply chain challenges, but a spokesperson said they will continue to work with their brand partners to consider items that can be added to expand the program over time.

The partnership is a heartening sign after a tough year, said Tom Szaky, CEO and founder of TerraCycle, the company behind the Loop initiative. “Overall, I was very worried that the pandemic would shift the conversation away from waste,” Szaky told Civil Eats. “It didn’t slow down. In fact, the environmental movement’s only gotten stronger.” While consumer reuse models—reusable grocery bags, refillable coffee mugs—“got punched in the face,” he said, it was mainly because retailers stopped allowing them for safety reasons.

And while Loop’s growth was slowed by the pandemic, it was for the same factors that upended many companies’ plans—not because interest was drying out, said Szaky. The demand is still there, he adds, and he’s bullish on the idea that mainstream grocery stores are going to need to find a way to meet it.

The Kroger–Loop partnership could be the first true test of this theory. It’s the latest in a steady string of new partnerships for Loop, but until now all of the company’s U.S. packaging partners have been in other categories, such as cosmetics and cleaning products. Loop does work with a number of food companies outside the country, including Woolworths in New Zealand, Tesco in the U.K., Aeon in Japan, and Carrefour in France. Szaky says they’re also working with a grocery store in France to bring reusable packaging to fish and meat. Loop, which also works with Walgreens in the U.S. and fast food chains McDonald’s, Burger King, and Canada-based Tim Hortons, expects nearly 200 stores and restaurants worldwide to be selling products in reusable packages by the first quarter of 2022, according to the Associated Press, up from a dozen stores in Paris at the end of last year. Some experts in the space are convinced that more will follow.

“It’s just a matter of time before other companies come on board,” says Colleen Henn, founder of All Good Goods, a plastic-free pantry subscription business based in San Clemente, California that sells food in reusable glass jars and paper bags. “Once somebody does it, people start to see, ‘Oh, avoiding single-use plastic is] not that complicated.’ Because it’s really not.”

She would know. Henn didn’t spend the last year adapting her business; she first launched her seemingly improbable business model during—and really because of—the pandemic. She had grown frustrated that the country’s waste-reduction initiatives were falling by the wayside. “I went online and tried to find a store that shipped food to your door without plastic, and I couldn’t find it. So I created it,” said Henn.

All Good Goods specializes in pantry goods like beans and pasta, nuts and dried fruit, and growth has been strong and steady since the launch. She increasingly fields phone calls from other stores looking for advice on how to avoid plastic in their operations, and as she engages with more companies, she’s optimistic that she will have a trickle-up effect within the industry. “I reach out to brands [we’re considering carrying] and see what their wholesale options are; if they’re not paper-based, if they’re not backyard-biodegradable, we move on,” said Henn.

26,000 tons of plastic waste, PPE from COVID pandemic pollute ocean

Some 8 million metric tons of pandemic-related plastic waste have been created by 193 countries, about 26,000 tons of which are now in the world’s oceans, where they threaten to disrupt marine life and further pollute beaches, a recent study found.

The findings, by a group of researchers based in China and the United States, were published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. Concerns had been raised since the start of the coronavirus pandemic that there would be a boom in plastic pollution amid heightened use of personal protective equipment and rapid growth in online commerce. The study is among the first to quantify the scale of plastic waste linked to the health crisis.

The cost of the increase in plastic waste has been keenly felt by wildlife. As of July, there were 61 recorded instances of animals being killed or disrupted by pandemic-linked plastic waste, according to a Dutch scientist-founded tracking project. Among the widely publicized examples are an American robin that was found wrapped up in a face mask in Canada and the body of a perch wrapped in the thumb of a disposable medical glove that was found by Dutch volunteers; National Geographic called the latter the first documented instance of a fish being killed by a glove.

Although only about 30 percent of all covid cases were detected in Asia as of late August, the region was responsible for 72 percent of global plastic discharge, the study found. The researchers said this was due to higher use of disposable protective equipment, as well as lower levels of waste treatment in countries such as China and India. By contrast, developed economies in North America and Europe that were badly hit by the coronavirus produced relatively little pandemic plastic waste.

The situation was worsened by the suspension or relaxation of restrictions on single-use plastic products globally. New York state’s ban on single-use plastic bags, which took effect in spring 2020, was only enforced that fall.

“Better management of medical waste in epicenters, especially in developing countries, is necessary,” the researchers wrote, while also calling for the development of more environmentally friendly materials.

“Governments should also mount public information campaigns not only regarding the proper collection and management of pandemic-related plastic waste , but also their judicial use,” said Von Hernandez, global coordinator of Break Free From Plastic, an advocacy group. “This includes advocating the use of reusable masks and PPEs for the general public … especially if one is not working in the front lines.”

Much plastic waste enters the world’s oceans via major rivers, according to the researchers, who found that the three waterways most polluted by pandemic-associated plastic were all in Asia: The Shatt al-Arab feeds into the Persian Gulf; the Indus River empties into the Arabian Sea; and the Yangtze River flows to the East China Sea.

“Given that the world is still grappling with COVID 19, we expect that the environmental and public health threats associated with pandemic related plastic waste would likely increase,

The study said that the leading contributor of plastic discharged into oceans was medical waste generated by hospitals, which accounted for over 70 percent of such pollution. Scraps of online shopping packaging were particularly high in Asia, though it had a relatively small impact on global discharge.

Modeling by the scientists indicates that the vast majority of plastic waste produced as a result of the pandemic will end up either on sea beds or beaches by the end of the century. In addition to becoming possible death traps for coastal animals, plastic buildup on beaches can increase the surrounding temperature, making the environment less hospitable to wildlife. And as plastic degrades over time, toxic chemicals may be released and moved up the food chain.

Most of us think supermarkets are responsible for plastic pollution

Garbage pile in trash dump or landfill. Pollution concept.

A pile of household waste at a landfill.

Most people believe supermarkets and manufacturers are to blame for plastic pollution, a survey has found. 

In 2019, UK supermarkets produced 896,853 tonnes of plastic packaging – a slight decrease of less than 2% from 2018, according to Greenpeace.

Supermarkets such as Waitrose have reduced plastic use and committed to increasing reusable packaging and unpacked ranges.

But a survey by retail app Ubamarket found that most British shoppers think not enough is being done.

Researchers found that 82% of shoppers believe the level of plastic packaging on food and drink products needs to be changed drastically.

Read more: A 1988 warning about climate change was mostly right

Meanwhile, 77% believe that it is supermarkets and manufacturers that are causing the most plastic pollution, while 57% think that plastic pollution is the greatest threat to the environment.

Will Broome, CEO and founder of Ubamarket, said: “While supermarkets have a long way to go, it is encouraging to see the use of single-use plastics beginning to be reduced in the UK.

“This is helping us as a society take major steps towards creating a more sustainable future for the food retail sector, and retail across the board.

“It is imperative that other retailers take heed of this and work quickly to establish their own sustainability goals and action plan.

“Implementing mobile technology is one effective way for retailers to get ahead of the curve – not only can it improve in-store efficiency and provide access to useful data for the retailer.”

Read more
Why economists worry that reversing climate change is hopeless
Melting snow in Himalayas drives growth of green sea slime visible from space

Broome said Ubamarket’s Plastic Alerts feature allows users to shop “according to the recyclability and environmental footprint of different products, and enables the customer to scan packaging for information on whether it can be widely recycled or not”.

Research published earlier this year found that thousands of rivers, including smaller ones, are responsible for 80% of plastic pollution worldwide.

Previously, researchers believed that 10 large rivers – such as the Yangtze in China – were responsible for the bulk of plastic pollution. 

In fact, 1,000 rivers, or 1% of all rivers worldwide, carry most plastic to the sea.

Therefore, areas such tropical islands are likely to be among the worst polluters, the researchers said.

Watch: Philippine recyclers turn plastic into sheds

About 26,000 tonnes of plastic Covid waste pollutes world’s oceans – study

Pollution

About 26,000 tonnes of plastic Covid waste pollutes world’s oceans – study

plastic gloves float in water

Increased demand for PPE has put pressure on an already out-of-control global problem, report finds

Mon 8 Nov 2021 15.00 EST

Plastic waste from the Covid-19 pandemic weighing 25,900 tonnes, equivalent to more than 2,000 double decker buses, has leaked into the ocean, research has revealed.

The mismanaged plastic waste, consisting of personal protective equipment such as masks and gloves, vastly exceeded the capability of countries to process it properly, researchers said.

Covid has made us use even more plastic – but we can reset | Christian Dunn
Read more

Since the beginning of the pandemic, an estimated 8.4m tonnes of plastic waste has been generated from 193 countries, according to the report, published on Monday.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has led to an increased demand for single-use plastics that intensifies pressure on an already out-of-control global plastic waste problem,” said Yiming Peng and Peipei Wu from Nanjing University, the authors of Magnitude and impact of pandemic-associated plastic waste published in the online journal PNAS.

“The released plastics can be transported over long distances in the ocean, encounter marine wildlife, and potentially lead to injury or even death,” they added.

A study in March presented the first case of a fish entrapped in a medical glove, encountered during a canal cleanup in Leiden, the Netherlands. In Brazil a PFF-2 protective mask was found in the stomach of a dead Magellanic penguin.

The scientists predicted that by the end of the century almost all pandemic-associated plastics will end up on either the seabed or on beaches.

The Chinese study found that 46% of the mismanaged plastic waste came from Asia, due to the high level of mask-wearing by individuals there, followed by Europe, 24%, and North and South America, 22%.

Graphic

Peng and Wu said their research suggested 87.4% of the excess waste was from hospitals, rather than from individual use. PPE usage by individuals contributed only 7.6% of the total, while packaging and test kits accounted for 4.7% and 0.3% respectively.

“Most of the plastic is from medical waste generated by hospitals that dwarfs the contribution from personal protection equipment and online-shopping package material,” they wrote.

“This poses a long-lasting problem for the ocean environment and is mainly accumulated on beaches and coastal sediments.”

The thousands of tonnes of masks, gloves, testing kits and face visors which leached into the oceans from the start of the pandemic up to August this year, were transported in 369 major rivers.

Graphic

Chief among these were Shatt al-Arab in south-eastern Iraq, which carried 5,200 tonnes of PPE waste to the ocean; the Indus river, which arises in western Tibet, carried 4,000 tonnes and the Yangtze river in China 3,700 tonnes. In Europe, the Danube carried the most plastic pandemic waste into the ocean: 1,700 tonnes.

The top 10 rivers accounted for 79% of pandemic plastic discharge, the top 20 for 91%, and the top 100 for 99%. About 73% of the discharge was from Asian rivers followed by European watercourses (11%), with minor contributions from other continents, the report said.

“These findings highlight the hotspot rivers and watersheds that require special attention in plastic waste management,” the authors said.

“We find a long-lasting impact of the pandemic-associated waste release in the global ocean. At the end of this century, the model suggests that almost all the pandemic-associated plastics end up in either the seabed (28.8%) or beaches (70.5%).”

The authors said the findings showed better medical waste management was needed in pandemic epicenters, especially in developing countries.

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Provocative eco-art exhibition in S.F. forces confrontations with climate change

Sea levels may be rising, but Ana Teresa Fernández and her bucket brigade are doing what they can to combat it.

Forming a 200-yard human chain on Ocean Beach, they drew 170 gallons out of the surf, hauled the sloshing saltwater off the beach and up to the old Cliff House restaurant, where it was carried into the dining room and muscled up a ladder to be poured into seven clear cylinders, all six-feet tall.

“It was a lot of fricking work. For the next three days I couldn’t lift my arms,” said Fernández, at the opening of “Lands End,” a provocative environmental art installation curated by the For-Site Foundation. Fernández’s contribution to the group show is called “On the Horizon. ” The seawater cylinders are intended to show exactly what a sea-level rise of six feet will look like.

“Kids on my crew were complaining about their arms being tired,” said Fernández, who had gathered 30 volunteers to wade into the cold water ahead of the free exhibition’s opening Saturday. “I told them sometimes art is painful.”

Not as painful as heat waves and hurricanes, however — and that is the point of “Lands End,” which involves 27 artists from around the world.

“We want to bring visitors’ attention to the very complex conversation around climate change,” said For-Site founder Cheryl Haines, noting that the show opened during COP26, the international climate conference in Glasgow. “We shouldn’t just leave this to government and industry to solve. There is also an individual responsibility to affect change in our own lives.”

“Lands End” is the first For-Site exhibition in four years and came about on offer from the National Park Service to activate public space that is available to lease to a long-term restaurant tenant. The agency offered up the entire building at Lands End, formerly called the Cliff House — 75,000 square feet on two levels including the kitchen, walk-in store rooms and the dining rooms with their spectacular view of Seal Rock and the crashing waves.

The space is free and open-ended until a lease is signed. For-Site jumped on it, greatly reducing its own prep time. Its installations are complex and usually take a year minimum to mount.

“We pulled this off in five months. Unprecedented,” announced Haines while standing atop a bench at the ribbon cutting for “Lands End.” A brass quartet from the Golden Gate Park Band provided atmospheric accompaniment.

The budget was $1 million, all raised from For-Site’s benefactors, with only a small fraction dedicated to travel for the artists. To have them flying in from all over with the attendant use of jet fuel would be hypocritical, the organizers thought, so many artists either shipped existing work already constructed, or with directions for construction.

Andy Goldsworthy, perhaps the most famous artist in For-Site’s stable of contributors, sent instructions for his piece, “Geophagia”, from his studio in Penfont, Scotland. Staff was delegated to assemble white clay tabletops for the empty vinyl booths and unused dining tables in the upper dining room. Already the slabs are cracking and separating, with pieces falling onto the floor, a metaphor for the ongoing California drought.

In the adjacent kitchen, Point Reyes artists Richard Lang and Judith Selby Lang collected plastic debris on Kehoe Beach near Inverness and turned it into an assembly line of meals on plates awaiting delivery to Goldsworthy’s clay tables. The piece is titled “for here or to go” and it is so realistic, that some visitors to the opening mistook it for the lunch being served.

It was intentional: Fish eat the plastic and humans eat the fish, so we will end up eating the plastic one way or the other.

On the Horizon artist Fernández lives along the Great Highway and has previously mounted her water-filled pillars at Ocean Beach for one-day exhibits. Her piece at the Cliff House earned prime real estate in the lower dining room, where it seems suspended over the surf. A visitor can look through a glass cylinder and through the plate glass window behind it and see Seal Rock refracted in the water at eye-level. It’s the right place for contemplating the rising seas.

There will be plenty of space for doing it because only 49 visitors will be allowed at a time into the show, inside a facility that can hold hundreds. Timed-entry ticket reservations are recommended.

Fernández has not decided what to do with the sea water after the exhibition closes on March 27, 2022. She may call on her 30 volunteers to form a reverse bucket brigade.

“It is the people that make the piece,” she said. “They put the life into these pillars.”

Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com. Twitter:@samwhitingsf

Living on Earth: Beyond the Headlines

Air Date: Week of November 5, 2021


stream/download this segment as an MP3 file

Some cement factories are collecting plastic waste from consumer goods businesses and landfills to use as fuel to fire their kilns, posing the risk of polluting air with toxic chemicals. (Photo: Xopolino on Wikimedia Commons)

This week, Host Bobby Bascomb talks with Peter Dykstra, an editor at Environmental Health News, about the public health hazards of cement kilns burning plastic waste as a source of fuel. And in California, Scripps Institution of Oceanography is building a 32,000-gallon simulated ocean to study the effects of climate change. Also, a trip back in time to November 1492 when native peoples introduced Christopher Columbus and his expedition to maize, which became a major food staple across the globe.

Transcript

BASCOMB: It’s time for a trip now Beyond the Headlines with Peter Dykstra. Peter’s an editor with Environmental Health News, that’s ehn.org, and DailyClimate.org. Hey there, Peter, what do you have for us this week?

DYKSTRA: Hi, Bobby. There’s an investigative story from Reuters. They’ve looked into cement kilns, cement kilns are everywhere, especially in booming cities in the developing world. They’re responsible for 7% of all the greenhouse gases emitted. So that’s a huge chunk. And right now, those cement kilns are looking for a new source of fuel to fire up the kilns and they’ve hit upon plastic waste. And that can be a bigger problem than any problem they may be solving.

BASCOMB: Hmm. Well, that makes sense. I mean, plastic is made with fossil fuels. So it’s, you know, pretty energy rich and there’s so much plastic waste out there. It’s free, or maybe even in some places might pay to have it, you know, burned like that. But of course, you know, it’s not too good for air quality now, is it?

DYKSTRA: Right, and there are consumer firms that are funding projects to send their plastic trash to cement plants. It’s a dangerous idea, given the amount of carcinogenic fumes that exists in those plastics, now burning straight, from, in many cases, the developed world to the developing world, to all of our lungs.

Cement factories are burning plastic to fire up massive cement kilns like the one pictured here. (Photo: LinguisticDemographer on Wikimedia Commons)

BASCOMB: Yeah, I mean, looking at things like dioxins, heavy metals, carcinogens. I mean, it’s pretty, pretty toxic stuff.

DYKSTRA: And it’s been said that burning plastics in cement kilns doesn’t help lessen the landfill problem. It simply transfers the landfills from being on the ground to in the skies.

BASCOMB: Well, that certainly is a big problem. Well, what else do you have for us this week Peter?

DYKSTRA: It’s kind of a weird sci-fi sort of project. The Scripps Institute out in San Diego is building a 32,000 gallon tank that has a wind tunnel on top of it. And with all that, they hope to synthesize what happens in the ocean, and how the oceans can affect climate change.

BASCOMB: How will they do that?

DYKSTRA: There are wind currents brought in, water currents introduced mechanically into this tank, and we’ll see what happens as climate change begins to alter both wind and wave and current patterns. It’ll give a little bit more of an insight as to what lies ahead in our future, as climate change really takes hold in our oceans.

The surface layer of the ocean can tell scientists a lot when looking at climate change. That is one aspect researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography will study in their simulated ocean. (Photo: NOAA on Wikimedia Commons)

BASCOMB: So they can simulate climate change in this pool and sort of speculate what we’re going to be looking at then.

DYKSTRA: Right, and thanks for using the word pool because 32,000 gallons sounds like a lot, but it’s actually about 5% of what it takes to fill in a competition sized Olympic swimming pool.

BASCOMB: So it’s really not all that big then. It’s amazing what they can do in such a small space.

DYKSTRA: It is. Scientists can have fun with it and can give us some information that’ll help guide us through a particularly dangerous time in our environmental future.

BASCOMB: Indeed, well, what do you have for us from the history books this week?

DYKSTRA: November 5, 1492. And we all know what happened in 1492. Columbus sailed the ocean blue. And on his subsequent stop to the Bahamas, Columbus went to Cuba in early November, and he was introduced to maize. That corn was brought back to Europe and has since become a global staple for both humans and livestock.

BASCOMB: Well, yeah, there’s so much to that. I mean, that the Columbian Exchange brought tomatoes and potatoes to Europe. I mean, imagine Italian food without tomatoes, but before that, they made do I guess.

Maize has become a food staple around the world after it was introduced from the New World to the Old World in 1492. (Photo: Balaram Mahalder on Wikimedia Commons)

DYKSTRA: And even though Columbus was a tip of the spear, coming from Europe, in the genocide of native peoples in the West, one other thing that was a gift so to speak, from North America to Europe was of course, tobacco. So it’s feed ya and kill ya, Mr. Columbus.

BASCOMB: All right. Well, thanks Peter. Peter Dykstra is an editor with Environmental Health News. That’s ehn.org and DailyClimate.org. We’ll talk to you again real soon.

DYKSTRA: Okay, Bobby. Thanks a lot. Talk to you soon.

BASCOMB: And there’s more on these stories on the Living on Earth website. That’s loe dot org.

 

Links

Reuters | “Trash and Burn: Big Brands Stoke Cement Kilns with Plastic Waste as Recycling Falters”

WIRED | “This Groundbreaking Simulator Generates A Huge Indoor Ocean”

Read more about the Columbian Exchange

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NJ legislation partially banning plastic straws now in effect

As of Nov. 4, all New Jersey restaurants and food service establishments are banned from providing single-use plastic straws unless specifically requested by customers, according to legislation passed by Gov. Phil Murphy and other lawmakers last year.

The ban is part of a statewide move to reduce plastic pollution originating from food and retail businesses.

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The next phase of the plan to cut reliance on single-use plastics is scheduled to come into effect on May 4, 2022, when businesses will no longer be allowed to give customers carryout plastic bags or polystyrene food packaging. Convenience and grocery stores larger than 2,500 square feet will also be fined if found distributing paper bags.

Stores, food service businesses, and grocery stores will receive a warning for the first offense, monetary fines up to $1,000 per day of violation for a repeat offense, and fines ranging up to $5,000 per day for the third offense. Gov. Murphy’s office described this legislation as “the strongest such ban in the country,” according to NBC News.

New Jersey uses 4.4 billion plastic bags annually, contributing to the severity of the plastic problem.

“Single-use plastic straws are one of the most publicly recognized ocean pollutants, causing massive numbers of sea turtle deaths. Even though straws don’t account for the largest proportion of plastic pollution, they represent a proportion that can easily be mitigated,” Marissa Bornn ’25, a member of the Princeton Conservation Society, told The Daily Princetonian.

The legislation initially proposed banning plastic straws entirely. However, disability rights advocates prompted a transformation of the ban into a partial restriction, allowing for straws to be provided on request.

The law was thus modified so that stores will be “required to keep an adequate supply of single-use plastic straws,” and further noted that stores can continue to sell packages of single-use plastic straws and beverages that are “pre-packaged by the manufacturer with a single-use plastic straw.”

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“[T]aking steps to limit the amount of waste produced on campus has been an important part of Campus Dining’s sustainability efforts for years,” Deputy University Spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss wrote in an email to the ‘Prince.’ He explained that in 2018, Campus Dining eliminated self-service plastic straws and plastic takeaway bags, and replaced plastic utensils with plant-based utensils.

“At that time, sales of water in plastic bottles was eliminated, and single-serve water is sold today in easily recycled aluminum cans,” Hotchkiss added. “Styrofoam products have not been used in Campus Dining for more than 20 years.”

He noted, however, that “nationwide supply-chain problems have temporarily limited availability of some of these more sustainable products.”

COVID-19 pandemic-associated disruptions have curbed other states’ moves towards sustainability as well. In April 2020, California Gov. Gavin Newsom temporarily suspended the 2016 ban on plastic bags for a two-month period.

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New Jersey is not the first state to take such measures. Legislation to dissuade the use of single-use plastics was first introduced in California, where stores were prohibited from distributing plastic bags and instructed to charge customers at least 10 cents for paper bags. New York, Vermont, and Connecticut followed suit with various levels of restrictions, and New Jersey was the ninth state to prohibit throw-away plastics.

Other states have taken contrasting approaches: Florida has preemption laws that prevent local counties or cities from banning particular plastics and foam.

As of Nov. 7, Wawa has updated its store policy in accordance with the legislation. Signs near coffee counters now read: “Please ask a register associate if you need a straw.”

Tara Agarwal / The Daily Princetonian

However, establishments on Nassau Street appear to be still implementing these changes. Junbi, a bubble tea store in town, was recently seen distributing plastic straws alongside customers’ tea without special request.

“We’re going to need a lot of help reaching out to our merchants, especially our small merchants for whom English is not necessarily their first language, to make sure that they understand the rules,” said Councilmember and Environmental Commission liaison Eve Niedergang GS ’85 in an interview with the ‘Prince.’

According to the legislature, exceptions on certain plastics like long-handled polystyrene foam spoons, small cups of two ounces or less, trays for raw meat and food pre-packaged in polystyrene by the manufacturer will remain in place until May 4, 2024. The law will be enforced by the Department of Environmental Protection along with other entities and will overwrite individual county or city policies.

Tara Agarwal is a news contributor for The Daily Princetonian. She can be reached at ta3150@princeton.edu.

News contributor Charlie Roth contributed reporting.