{"id":539556,"date":"2010-04-22T10:31:24","date_gmt":"2010-04-22T14:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dirt.asla.org\/?p=4416"},"modified":"2010-04-22T10:31:24","modified_gmt":"2010-04-22T14:31:24","slug":"earth-day-focus-getting-plastic-out-of-the-oceans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/539556","title":{"rendered":"Earth Day Focus: Getting Plastic out of the Oceans"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nFor the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, organizations around the world are sponsoring events,\u00a0new publications, and programs.\u00a0In the U.S., the Earth Day Network is sponsoring two full days of events on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on April 24th and 25th. See updated coverage of Earth Day at Google<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Perhaps one particular focus on Earth Day should\u00a0creating a plan for addressing the\u00a0massive garbage patches\u00a0in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. According to an article in The Huffington Post<\/em>, “Our Plastic Ocean Turns Forty<\/a>,” there are now “continent-sized bowls of plastic soup” floating in the oceans. The Pacific Garbage patch, just one of eleven major gyres, says Ocean Trust Film<\/a>, “covers an area approximating ten million square miles,\u00a0[…] roughly the size of Texas.\u00a0 It contains approximately 3.5 million tons of trash, including shoes, toys, bags, pacifiers, wrappers, toothbrushes, and bottles too numerous to count.\u00a0 First discovered in 1988, the size of the patch has roughly doubled in the last five years.”<\/p>\n

Plastics in sea water attract bacteria and absorb polychlorinated biphenyls.\u00a0Continual wave\u00a0energy\u00a0breaks plastics\u00a0into tiny plastic components\u00a0eaten by fish, which are then eaten by people. In other cases, the garbage that hasn’t been broken down also causes major problems for sea life. On this year’s Earth day, a whale found dead off the coast of Seattle was found to have more than “50 gallons in volume, from hand towels, surgical gloves, duct tape to sweat pants,” in its stomach. The local news station’s Web site<\/a> says the whale was feeding\u00a0off the coast.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Huffington Post<\/em> argues that Earth Day launched a real movement. In the U.S. alone in 1970,\u00a0more than 20 million people participated in Earth Day events. However, since then, plastic production has only exploded. “Use of single-use disposable plastic and plastic pollution grew exponentially. The plastics industry stepped on the gas, hired lobbyists and marketers and did their thing. Profits from plastics soared. Life became more ‘convenient’.” In return for convenience, The Huffington Post<\/em> says, we’ve gotten massive garbage patches.<\/p>\n

Some scientists are working on alternatives to plastics.\u00a0 While recycling can lead to reuse of many plastics, they can only be down-cycled, and fossil-fuel-based break apart after continual recycling. There aren’t currently any “cradle to grave” fossil-fuel based plastics. Wikipedia lists a range of bioplastics or organic plastics<\/a> derived from renewable biomass sources, such as vegetable oil, corn, or various starches. However, many of these new technologies haven’t scaled up so the costs remain high.<\/p>\n

Regulatory or legislative action on plastic waste products may be part of the solution. In the world of technology, the EU’s WEEE-ROHS<\/a>\u00a0system has helped ensure hazardous elements in electronic products are captured and reused since 2003. The\u00a0European Union<\/a>\u00a0describes the system: “The legislation provides for the creation of collection schemes where consumers return their used e-waste free of charge. The objective of these schemes is to increase the recycling and\/or re-use of such products. It also requires heavy metals such as lead, mercury, cadmium, and hexavalent chromium and flame retardants such as polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) or polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) to be substituted by safer alternatives.” The\u00a0EU is also exploring expanding\u00a0WEEE-ROHS so it can\u00a0tackle the\u00a0”fast increasing waste stream of such products.”\u00a0Perhaps a similar system is needed so that fossil-fuel-based plastic components are designed to be fully recycled, and any waste\u00a0biproducts\u00a0are addressed early in the design and manufacturing process.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There has also been a towards turning\u00a0waste into energy through\u00a0incineration. If plastic and other wastes can’t be recycled, perhaps they can produce new energy. While incineration has taken off across the European Union,\u00a0landfills remain popular in\u00a0the U.S.<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a><\/em> describes Denmark’s cutting-edge incinerator technology and its benefits: “Far cleaner than conventional incinerators, this new type of plant converts local trash into heat and electricity. Dozens of filters catch pollutants, from mercury to dioxin, that would have emerged from its smokestack only a decade ago. In that time, such plants have become both the mainstay of garbage disposal and a crucial fuel source across Denmark, from wealthy exurbs like Horsholm to Copenhagen\u2019s downtown area. Their use has not only reduced the country\u2019s energy costs and reliance on oil and gas, but also benefited the environment, diminishing the use of landfills and cutting carbon dioxide emissions. The plants run so cleanly that many times more dioxin is now released from home fireplaces and backyard barbecues than from incineration.”<\/p>\n

Across Europe, there are now 400 of these plants turning garbage into energy. Most of these are located in Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands. In comparison, the U.S., a country of 300 million people, has less than 90 plants, even though the E.P.A. now\u00a0classifies burned waste as a renewable energy eligible for subsidies.<\/p>\n

On the other side,\u00a0there are legislative and regulatory efforts\u00a0to attack demand for plastic bags and other common applications of plastic.\u00a0In Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and other U.S. cities, there are now taxes on plastic bags (see earlier post<\/a>).\u00a0Some countries, like China, Russia, Uganda, Ireland and South Africa,\u00a0have announced total bans on plastic bags.\u00a0However, this needs to occur worldwide to get plastic materials out of oceans.\u00a0According to The Times of India<\/a><\/em>, around 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide. India’s plastic waste alone is around 4.5 million tonnes a year. This is the result of every day use by every Indian citizen: 10 to 12 plastic bags are used each\u00a0day in every Indian household.<\/p>\n

Lastly, however infeasible, some designers are trying to turn those massive ocean garbage patches into usable resources. Rotterdam’s WHIM Architecture<\/a> came up with an impractical but interesting idea — “Recycled Island<\/a>,” a plan to\u00a0turn those continent-sized floating garbage patches into habitable islands. Good<\/a><\/em> magazine writes: “the island would be built out of the muck already out there polluting the Pacific, which would clean the ocean of the debris and also put that waste to use. Ridiculous, yes. Impossible, probably.” But can this floating ocean garbage be turned into a renewable resource?<\/p>\n

Add your thoughts. How would you address plastic supply and demand?<\/p>\n

Also, check out Ocean Trust Film.org<\/a>, a group working with the producers of Super Size Me, to create a documentary on the Pacific Garbage Patch.<\/p>\n

Image credit: Ocean Trust Film<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, organizations around the world are sponsoring events,\u00a0new publications, and programs.\u00a0In the U.S., the Earth Day Network is sponsoring two full days of events on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on April 24th and 25th. See updated coverage of Earth Day at Google. Perhaps one particular focus on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-539556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539556\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}