
By Tony Robert Walker
Twenty five years ago, I spent a summer removing plastic packing bands and plastic nets from 135 entangled Antarctic fur seals on Bird Island, South Georgia in the sub-Antarctic. Plastic marine waste discarded by the fishing industry were the primary source of entanglements.
A quarter of a century later, plastic is still a huge problem. In the past month alone, we have seen dead whales wash ashore with their stomachs full of plastic bags.
This ought to be a strong enough signal to trigger collective action to clean up and improve governance of the plastics that have become this century's Tragedy of the Commons.
Governments and individuals all need to reconsider how we use and dispose of our single-use plastics (SUPs). Within just two generations we have produced and discarded so much plastic that we are now literally drowning in it.
Individual Action
Recently, a former colleague in Newfoundland was so fed up at staring at a pile of garbage dumped on nearby public property that she took it upon herself to clean it up. The result was almost a truckload of trash comprising five full garbage bags and other miscellaneous pieces, most of it SUPs.
We all use SUPs, not just those countries with the largest populations, and so we are all are culpable in contributing to global plastic pollution.
Until recently, China was the world's largest importer of recyclable materials (including plastics) from developed countries, such as Canada, the U.S. and European countries. But these imports have since been banned.
This has left many developed countries scrambling to figure out how to recycle or dispose of their SUPs, with many jurisdictions (from municipalities to entire countries) considering bans or fees on SUP bags.
Recently, Prince Edward Island took the big step to announce new legislation to make it the first province to ban SUP shopping bags. Seattle is the first major U.S. city to ban the use of plastic drinking straws.
Government Support
Canada is planning to adopt a zero-waste strategy, and we recently heard more about these details in the non-binding G7 Ocean Plastics Charter, which was agreed to by five of the seven participating nations and the European Union (EU). However, neither the U.S. nor Japan signed the voluntary agreement.
National and international organizations have also made recent announcements about how to reduce and improve recycling, but all have committed to widely varying timelines to achieve these goals.
For example, the United Nations Environment Programme (with support from 42 governments), declared a fight against plastics, announcing their global Clean Seas campaign in 2017 to eliminate major sources of marine debris by 2022.
The following year, the European Commission (EC) adopted the first Europe-wide strategy on plastics, aiming for all plastic packaging in the EU to be reusable or recyclable—but not until 2030.
Lagging behind the international community, the United Kingdom announced it will eliminate "avoidable" plastic waste by 2042—almost a generation away!
Meanwhile, Canada has also been soliciting comments and ideas on ways to reduce plastic pollution and improve recycling.
Corporations Lead the Way
With governments setting unambitious targets, it seems that large corporations are now showing leadership by listening to consumers who are demanding fewer SUPs in their packing and food containers.
Recently, McDonald's announced that it would replace plastic straws with paper ones in all of its U.K. and Ireland restaurants, as of September 2018. This strategy may soon be rolled out in other jurisdictions. IKEA has also committed to eliminating all SUP products from its home furnishing range by 2020, including plastic straws, plates, cups, freezer bags, garbage bags and plastic-coated paper plates and cups.
Why has it taken so long to tackle this wicked problem?
Sure, the plastics industry has something to lose, and maybe governments also lack the will and technology to make the transition sooner?
But time is running out.
I'm just glad that the Romans invented viaducts and straight roads instead of SUPs, as we likely wouldn't be here today if they had. Giving up a plastic straw, stirrer or bag might not be so bad after all.
If I have to choose between "Planet or Plastic," I know which I'll pick. What about you?
Reposted with permission from our media associate The Conversation.
- Redwoods are the world's tallest trees.
- Now scientists have discovered they are even bigger than we thought.
- Using laser technology they map the 80-meter giants.
- Trees are a key plank in the fight against climate change.
They are among the largest trees in the world, descendants of forests where dinosaurs roamed.
Pixabay / Simi Luft
<p><span>Until recently, measuring these trees meant scaling their 80 meter high trunks with a tape measure. Now, a team of scientists from University College London and the University of Maryland uses advanced laser scanning, to create 3D maps and calculate the total mass.</span></p><p>The results are striking: suggesting the trees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">may be as much as 30% larger than earlier measurements suggested.</a> Part of that could be due to the additional trunks the Redwoods can grow as they age, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a process known as reiteration</a>.</p>New 3D measurements of large redwood trees for biomass and structure. Nature / UCL
<p>Measuring the trees more accurately is important because carbon capture will probably play a key role in the battle against climate change. Forest <a href="https://www.wri.org/blog/2020/09/carbon-sequestration-natural-forest-regrowth" target="_blank">growth could absorb billions of tons</a> of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.</p><p>"The importance of big trees is widely-recognised in terms of carbon storage, demographics and impact on their surrounding ecosystems," the authors wrote<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank"> in the journal Nature</a>. "Unfortunately the importance of big trees is in direct proportion to the difficulty of measuring them."</p><p>Redwoods are so long lived because of their ability to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cope with climate change, resist disease and even survive fire damage</a>, the scientists say. Almost a fifth of their volume may be bark, which helps protect them.</p>Carbon Capture Champions
<p><span>Earlier research by scientists at Humboldt University and the University of Washington found that </span><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112716302584" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Redwood forests store almost 2,600 tonnes of carbon per hectare</a><span>, their bark alone containing more carbon than any other neighboring species.</span></p><p>While the importance of trees in fighting climate change is widely accepted, not all species enjoy the same protection as California's coastal Redwoods. In 2019 the world lost the equivalent of <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation-and-forest-degradation" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">30 soccer fields of forest cover every minute</a>, due to agricultural expansion, logging and fires, according to The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).</p>Pixabay
<p>Although <a href="https://c402277.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/publications/1420/files/original/Deforestation_fronts_-_drivers_and_responses_in_a_changing_world_-_full_report_%281%29.pdf?1610810475" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the rate of loss is reported to have slowed in recent years</a>, reforesting the world to help stem climate change is a massive task.</p><p><span>That's why the World Economic Forum launched the Trillion Trees Challenge (</span><a href="https://www.1t.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">1t.org</a><span>) and is engaging organizations and individuals across the globe through its </span><a href="https://uplink.weforum.org/uplink/s/uplink-issue/a002o00000vOf09AAC/trillion-trees" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Uplink innovation crowdsourcing platform</a><span> to support the project.</span></p><p>That's backed up by research led by ETH Zurich/Crowther Lab showing there's potential to restore tree coverage across 2.2 billion acres of degraded land.</p><p>"Forests are critical to the health of the planet," according to <a href="https://www.1t.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">1t.org</a>. "They sequester carbon, regulate global temperatures and freshwater flows, recharge groundwater, anchor fertile soil and act as flood barriers."</p><p><em data-redactor-tag="em" data-verified="redactor">Reposted with permission from the </em><span><em data-redactor-tag="em" data-verified="redactor"><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/03/redwoods-store-more-co2-and-are-more-enormous-than-we-thought/" target="_blank">World Economic Forum</a>.</em></span></p>EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
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