A food delivery courier packs an order in Bangkok on March 25, 2020, after the government limited restaurants to takeout during the COVID-19 pandemic. MLADEN ANTONOV / AFP / Getty Images
By Tanika Godbole
Southeast Asia is one of the biggest sources of plastic waste from land to the ocean, and Thailand is among the top five contributors. In January, Thailand placed a ban on single-use plastic, and was looking to reduce its plastic waste by 30% this year.
<p>But the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting lockdown has led to a huge rise in the country's plastic waste. According to the Thailand Environment Institute (TEI), the average amount of plastic waste went from 2,120 tons per day in 2019 to approximately 3,440 tons per day between January and April 2020. The rise in the month of April alone was nearly 62%.</p>
Food Delivery
<p>One of the biggest contributors to the plastic problem is food delivery. As people have been housebound, their tendency to order food delivery has risen, resulting in increased usage of plastic containers and wrapping material.</p><p>Grab, a Singaporean food delivery app, saw a surge of 400% in orders. Other such apps like Line Man and Foodpanda Thailand, too, have seen a rise of 300% and 50% in their orders, respectively.</p><p>Waste from a single delivery could contain several plastic items such as containers, seasoning packets, beverage holders, chopsticks, spoons, forks and so on.</p><p>"Plastic containers for food are often contaminated, the waste separation and collection are not systematic, and there is no regulation on waste separation and enforcement," said Wijarn Simachaya, President of TEI.</p>Waste Management
<p>While countries across North America, Europe and Japan also contribute high levels of plastic waste, they have relatively efficient waste management systems in place.</p><p>The Thai government had released a "Plastic Waste Management Road Map," to phase out the use of plastic by 2030. One of the initiatives of this plan was the single-use plastic ban that has been enforced since January.</p><p>According to data released by the Department of Environment and Quality Promotion, an average person in Thailand uses about 8 plastic bags per day, which adds up to 200 billion per year.</p><p>According to Greenpeace, imported plastic waste is also adding to Thailand's plastic crisis. Their research has revealed that imports of plastic waste into the country jumped two years ago, mostly due to China's decision to ban imports at the start of 2018.</p><p>"This has put added pressure on a waste system which is already failing to deal with domestic demand. Making matters worse, much of it is mislabeled as 'recyclable' even though the shipments constitute hundreds of thousands of tons of contaminated plastic and other mixed wastes from developed countries that cannot be processed," said Pichmol Rugrod, team leader of Plastic Free Future, Greenpeace Thailand.</p><p>"Thailand is in the grip of a growing plastic waste crisis - both domestically, through overproduction and consumption, and via the importation of plastic waste from abroad," Rugrod told DW. "Much of this plastic simply ends up in landfill sites or dumped in our streets because of a lack of waste management options, exacerbating urban flooding, or polluting rivers, seas and oceans - killing wildlife and affecting the food chain."</p>
Widespread
<p>Some say the pandemic has merely brought to the surface an already existing problem for the country. Experts believe that greater awareness and lifestyle changes among the masses could help address this issue.</p><p>The effects of plastic waste are long term. The pollution affects the oceans, aquatic life and also humans.</p><p>"Plastic pollution may also be contaminating the air that we breathe every day. Plastics do not biodegrade, therefore once they are introduced into an animal's system, they will stay there for a long time. Therefore, consuming these plastics leads to malnutrition, digestive blockage and slow poisoning effects due to plastic's heightened toxicity," Simachaya told DW.</p><p>While the pandemic may have been a setback to Thailand's struggle to eliminate plastic waste, Simachaya believes a change in awareness and habits will lead to a gradual decrease in plastic waste.</p><p>Thailand is slowly starting to ease lockdown rules. While it is too premature to say whether the plastic waste levels are expected to go down, some delivery outlets have started offering bio-degradable containers and cutlery. Some online shopping companies are also giving the option of receiving packages without the use of plastic.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Only the paper part of a drink carton would be recycled — everything else, including the plastic coating or layer or aluminum foil, would be incinerated as residual waste. tavan amonratanasareegul / Getty Images
By Jeannette Cwienk
When it comes to recycling and recyclability, very little, it seems is straightforward — even something as seemingly simple as orange juice can present a conundrum. In Germany, many smaller shops sell drinks in cartons or plastic bottles, both of which will end up in the yellow recycling bin. But how do their recycling credentials stack up?
<p>"As far as recyclability is concerned, the plastic bottle is probably slightly better because it is likely only made from one plastic, and so is easier to recycle than a multilayer material like a beverage carton," says Rolf Buschmann, waste and resource expert with the German environmental organization BUND, who worked on the group's 2019 Plastic Atlas.</p><p>He explains that only the paper part of the drink carton would be recycled <em>—</em> everything else, including the plastic coating or layer or aluminum foil, would be incinerated as residual waste.</p>
More and More Multilayer Packaging
<p>How easy is it to recognize multilayer packaging? With drink cartons, it's usually obvious that they're made from a combination of different materials, but with other products, such as candy wrappers, it's a different story.</p><p>Such packaging can be made from a complex mix of up to 10 different films of plastic, which as Joachim Christiani, managing director of German recycling institute cyclos-HTP, explains, is <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-produces-record-amount-of-packaging-waste/a-51293541" target="_blank">invisible to consumers</a>.</p><p>"In recent years there's been a trend toward so-called multilayer packaging, which is extremely light and thin. It saves material as well as CO2 emissions during transport, but can't be recycled," Christiani says.</p><p>Because it is not possible to melt the different plastics together, or — at least for now — to separate the individual films from one another at recycling plants.</p>Lack of Recycled Plastic
<p>A 2017 cyclos-HTP study into the recyclability of conventional packaging waste concluded that a third of it was not recyclable, and only 40% of the remaining two-thirds was made into plastic recyclate. The rest was used as fuel <em>—</em> in other words it was incinerated.</p><p>"There was no economic or political pressure to recycle more than this amount," Christiani says. "The prescribed recycling quotas were met, and there were not nearly enough recycling plants."</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxNjYwMy9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MTQ4MzI5M30.HL0sO8u-CFQf1FvXt4uVkyWtp5iseVH4FmaVYGkfNEY/img.png?width=980" id="b5980" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0967b762faff5003e7a353180d4ad95e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>Another 2017 study by the chemical and waste disposal industry also shows that to date, Germany has not made much use of recycled plastic. According to the findings, plastic recyclate accounted for only 12% of the total amount of plastic processed in Germany <em>—</em> just under 1.8 million tons. The share of new plastic, on the other hand, was more than 12 million tons.</p>
Room for Greenwashing
<p>According to a 2018 survey by Germany's vzbv consumer protection association, most consumers would like to see more plastic recycling, especially when it comes to packaging.</p><p>Although some products come in packaging that is advertised as being "made from recycled material," Elke Salzmann, a resource protection officer with vzbv, says that can be misleading.</p><p>"It says nothing about how much recycled material the packaging actually contains," according to Salzmann. "And it also doesn't mean that the recycled plastic comes from collected plastic waste. It could just as well come from plastic leftovers created during the production of primary plastic."</p><p>The term "ocean plastic," which some textile and shoe manufacturers use to advertise the recycled plastic in their product lines, can also be misleading, Salzmann says.</p><p><span></span>"Plastic waste from the ocean is in much too bad a state to be recycled. Instead, they use plastic waste from beaches or riverbanks."</p>Laws Against Plastic
<p>Images of garbage choking our waters and <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/eurythenes-plasticus-a-deep-sea-crustacean-full-of-plastic/a-52663559" target="_blank">killing marine wildlife</a> have played a key role in giving plastic a negative reputation among the public, and politicians have started to act.</p><p>Many countries worldwide have introduced bans on single-use items, and in Germany, a 2019 packaging law stipulates a plastics recycling quota of 90% from 2022, up from 36%. That said, the quota only refers to how much material has to be fed into the recycling system, not how much ultimately needs to be recycled.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxNjYxNC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMzE4OTE0M30.8xGfBu2brG_AIp45i_q_LxZZu0nMvlFGAEWGL93Hv6M/img.png?width=980" id="79d47" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6bc3d22db4f442dacf798ac32ccc7671" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>This may be addressed in future European Union legislation. As part of its "<a href="https://www.dw.com/en/will-trains-play-a-key-role-in-the-european-green-deal/a-52263495" target="_blank">Green Deal</a>," the European Commission <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/eu-commission-aims-to-clamp-down-on-waste-with-new-law/a-52720804" target="_blank">is aiming to move toward a circular economy</a>, and has announced an action plan to conserve resources and prevent waste.</p><p>The Commission is also being advised by the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC) on how to establish new rules around the use of recycled materials.</p><p>The recommendations range from landfill and export bans on plastic waste and tax rebates for recycled products, to the introduction of a plastics tax and a legal minimum quota of recycled content in packaging.</p>
Rethinking the Whole System
<p>Although plastic is a very useful material, at the end of its life it causes many problems, EASAC environmental program director Michael Norton tells DW, adding that we have to rethink the whole system and completely change the way we use plastic.</p><p>Joachim Christiani says the packaging industry is starting to catch on. Around 70% of recycled mass can currently be generated from packaging, but that figure is expected to rise in the future.</p><p>"95% is quite feasible," says the engineer, adding that sorting facilities are currently undergoing improvements, while packaging design is also changing.</p>Clear Plastics Are Easiest to Recycle
<p>As things stand, PET bottles are easiest to recycle because they're not mixed with other materials. New bottles can therefore easily be made from the old ones and the recycling rate is high. But the color of the bottle can pose a problem.</p><p>Because plastic is sorted by type rather than color, if different colors of plastic are mixed, the resulting recyclate cannot be used for light-colored packaging, which many manufacturers want. The upshot is the introduction of new plastic instead.</p><p>Consumer and environmental associations have long called for recyclability, greater sorting purity and better sorting facilities, but their most important demand remains waste avoidance through reusable systems.</p><p>"Why melt down disposable bottles to make new disposable bottles when you can refill them up to 20 times?" Buschmann asks.</p>From Your Site Articles
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A mallard duck among plastic in polluted water in Cardiff Bay on Sept. 22, 2018 in Cardiff, United Kingdom. Matthew Horwood / Getty Images
The gruesome images of whales and deer dying after mistaking plastic for food has helped put into perspective just how severe the plastic waste crisis is. Now, a new study finds that it is not just land and sea animals eating our plastic trash. It turns out that birds are eating hundreds of bits of plastic every day through the food they eat.
<p>The scientists from Cardiff University, the University of Exeter and the Greenpeace Research Laboratories found that birds along Britain's rivers are eating hundreds of fragments of microplastics daily because the worms and insects they feast on have also swallowed the plastics, making this the first study to show how plastic pollution makes its way up the food chain, as the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52762120" target="_blank">BBC</a> reported. The study was published in the journal <em>Global Change Biology</em>.</p><p>Previous research has noted that half of the insects in the rivers of south Wales contain microplastic fragments.</p>
<p>"The fact that so many river insects are contaminated makes it inevitable that fish, birds and other predators will pick up these polluted prey — but this is the first time that this type of transfer through food webs has been shown clearly in free-living river animals," said Joseph D'Souza, one of the study's researchers, to the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52762120" target="_blank">BBC</a>.</p><p>The Cardiff University researchers analyzed at plastic pollutants found in a bird known as a dipper, which wades or dives into rivers in search of underwater insects. They looked at droppings and regurgitated pellets from the birds and found microplastic fragments in roughly half of 166 samples taken from adults and nestlings at 14 of 15 sites studied.</p><p>"These iconic birds, the dippers, are ingesting hundreds of pieces of plastic every day," said Steve Ormerod, a professor at Cardiff University's Water Research Institute to the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52762120" target="_blank">BBC</a>. "They're also feeding this material to their chicks."</p><p>"In almost 40 years of researching rivers and dippers, I never imagined that one day our work would reveal these spectacular birds to be at risk from the ingestion of plastics — a measure of how this pollution problem has crept upon us," said Ormerod, as <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/environment/british-birds-rivers-insects-microplastics-dippers-2861787" target="_blank">iNews</a> in the UK reported.<br></p>
<p>Similarly, another <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32388295/" target="_blank">study</a> published in the journal <em>Environmental Pollution</em> recently found that birds of prey in Florida swallow tiny bits of plastic debris at a rate of hundreds a day, particularly microplastic fragments made of polyester, polypropylene and nylon, as <a href="https://www.sustainability-times.com/environmental-protection/birds-of-prey-swallow-plenty-of-plastic-research-finds/" target="_blank">Sustainability Times</a> reported.</p><p>In that study, the researchers examined dozens of birds of prey, including hawks, ospreys and owls retrieved from the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey in Florida. From the 63 birds examined, representing eight different species, all were found to have microplastics in their GI tract, according to the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32388295/" target="_blank">study</a>.</p><p>"Birds of prey are top predators in the ecosystem and by changing the population or health status of the top predator, it completely alters all of the animals, organisms and habitats below them on the food web," said Julia Carlin, the study's lead author, in a University of Central Florida <a href="https://www.ucf.edu/news/ucf-study-finds-microplastics-in-floridas-birds-of-prey-for-1st-time/" target="_blank">press release</a>.</p>
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Plastic waste from the nearby city of Ushuaia is polluting nests and being found in penguins' stomachs and excrement. Deutsche Welle
Tierra del Fuego is at the southernmost tip of South America and is sometimes known as the "end of the world." This windswept part of Argentina is home to seven penguin colonies which breed, nest and feed in the area.
<p>Yet even here, the evidence of human encroachment on nature is clear.</p><p>Plastic waste from the nearby city of Ushuaia is <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/is-marine-plastic-pollution-a-threat-to-human-health/a-39161868" target="_blank">polluting</a> nests and being found in penguins' stomachs and excrement. And warmer waters mean adults must search longer for food, leaving their little ones more exposed to predators. Increasing tourism is also threatening the ecosystem.</p><p>Biologist Andrea Raya Rey has been studying the region's penguins for more than 20 years. She and others from the Austral Center for Scientific Research (CADIC) are working to protect the beloved flightless birds.</p>
A film by Aitor Saez
<iframe scrolling="no" width="640" height="477" frameborder="0" align="middle" name="Penguin colonies suffer from plastic trash | DW.COM" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="https://www.dw.com/embed/640/av-53424380"></iframe>From Your Site Articles
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A biologist looks at microplastics found in sea species at the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research near Athens, Greece on Nov. 26, 2019. LOUISA GOULIAMAKI / AFP via Getty Images
New research suggests there may be far more microplastics in the ocean than initially estimated.
<p>Microplastics, which breakdown into miniscule pieces of plastic are notoriously tricky to catch. Their small size allows them to get buried in <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans">ocean</a> sediment and to escape through nets.</p><p>Now, a team of researchers, led by scientists at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory in England, used a finer net to get a more accurate picture of the amount of plastic in the ocean. Their research suggests the seas may be holding as many as 125 trillion microplastic particles, according to the study published in the journal <em><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749120310253#!" target="_blank">Environmental Pollution</a></em>, as <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/microplastics-ocean-vastly-underestimated-125-trillion-particles-floating-around-1505404" target="_blank">Newsweek</a> reported.</p>
<p>Microplastics are usually defined as tiny pieces of plastic that measure less than five millimeters across. However, despite the abundance of microplastics in the ocean, scientists have actually had a difficult time quantifying and classifying them. Usually, researchers gather samples with nets with a mesh size of 333 micrometers, or 0.333 millimeters, but these do not account for smaller pieces of plastic debris, as <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/microplastics-ocean-vastly-underestimated-125-trillion-particles-floating-around-1505404" target="_blank">Newsweek</a> reported.</p><p>The Plymouth Marine Laboratory scientists, along with researchers from the University of Exeter, used nets with a mesh size of 100 micrometers, or 0.1 millimeters, to get a more accurate picture of the microplastics swirling around coastal waters, according to a University of Exeter <a href="https://phys.org/news/2020-05-underestimating-microplastics-marine-environment.html" target="_blank">press release</a>.</p>
<p>"It is quite well known what impact larger pieces of plastic have on marine animals, like turtles eating plastic bags mistaking them for jellyfish, but we wanted to know if microplastics are a problem to smaller marine animals like mussels or zooplankton," said Pennie Lindeque, lead author of the study from Plymouth Marine Laboratory, to <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/microplastics-ocean-vastly-underestimated-125-trillion-particles-floating-around-1505404" target="_blank">Newsweek</a>.</p><p>"However, first we needed an accurate picture of how many small microplastics there are in the sea, and what sort of plastic they are. We are interested in really quite small microplastics—around 100 micrometers in size, similar to the width of a human hair—and suspected that the standard sampling methods using a net with pores about 333 micrometers in size, wouldn't give an accurate picture."</p>
<p>The researchers compared the efficacy of a 100 micrometer net to what's collected by a 333 micrometer net and a 500 micrometer net. They found that their net collected 2.5 times as much microplastics as the 333 micrometer mesh net. It collected 10 times more microplastic than a 500 micrometer net, according to the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749120310253" target="_blank">study</a>.</p><p>The scientists then extrapolated that data to determine that there are roughly 3,700 pieces of microplastic in one cubic meter. That means that previous global estimates of 5 to 50 trillion particles of microplastics are severely low. The true number, according to the data in the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749120310253" target="_blank">study</a>, is somewhere between 12.5 and 125 trillion particles.</p>
<p>"There is often a mismatch between the number and type of microplastics used in experimental studies and those found in the natural environment," said Rachel Coppock, Marine Ecologist at Plymouth Marine Laboratory and a co-author on the study, in a <a href="https://phys.org/news/2020-05-underestimating-microplastics-marine-environment.html" target="_blank">statement</a>. "This study confirms that microplastic concentration increases with decreasing size and also provides a framework for determining microplastic concentrations in exposure studies, particularly with animals such as zooplankton that eat micron-sized food."</p><p>The researchers focused on coastal water since that is where microplastics are likely to have the greatest impact on marine life. They sampled the water on both sides of the Atlantic, choosing a spot off the coast of Maine and another in the English Channel, according to <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/microplastics-ocean-vastly-underestimated-125-trillion-particles-floating-around-1505404" target="_blank">Newsweek</a>.</p><p>"I was surprised at the extent that we had been underestimating the microplastic abundance in the marine environment; I was also surprised how consistent the results were on both sides of the North Atlantic, the eastern seaboard of the U.S. and the southwest coast of the UK," Lindeque told <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/microplastics-ocean-vastly-underestimated-125-trillion-particles-floating-around-1505404" target="_blank">Newsweek</a>.</p>
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Avantium, a biochemical company in the Netherlands, is fundraising for a new project that will turn sustainably grown crops into a plant-based plastic. Avantium
While some are trying to clean up the plastic pollution in the oceans, and others are removing it from beaches, one company is looking to end the need for plastic bottles that last hundreds of years and are rarely recycled. A Dutch company is looking to fight the plastic crisis with a plant-based alternative that degrades in one year, as The Guardian reported.
<p>Avantium, a biochemical company in the Netherlands, is fundraising for a new project that will turn sustainably grown crops into a plant-based plastic. The technology has gained the attention of beer maker Carlsberg, beverage giant Coca-Cola and Danone. All three companies have signaled that they plant to use Avantium's technology in the future, according to <a href="https://www.ubergizmo.com/2020/05/plant-based-plastic-bottles-degrade-in-a-year/" target="_blank">Ubergizmo</a>.</p><p>Carlsberg, for example, hopes to sell its pilsner in a cardboard bottle lined with an inner layer of plant plastic, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/16/the-end-of-plastic-new-plant-based-bottles-will-degrade-in-a-year" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. Avantium posted a picture of <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B3d1_qDAZyD/?utm_source=ig_embed" target="_blank">Carlsberg's paper bottle on Instagram</a>.</p>
<p>"It is a milestone in the development of high-value applications such as specialty bottles," said Marcel Lubben, Avantium's Managing Director, as <a href="https://www.ladbible.com/news/news-coca-cola-and-carlsberg-back-plant-based-bottles-project-20200518" target="_blank">LADbible</a> reported. "The Paper Bottle shows how we, together with partners, can use innovation to help shape packaging for a circular and sustainable future."</p><p>The move towards a plant-based plastic from a sustainable source would mark a major step forward for Coca-Cola, which has consistently ranked as the world's worst plastic polluter, according to the advocacy-group <a href="https://www.breakfreefromplastic.org/2019/10/23/brand-audit-report-2019-press-release/" target="_blank">Break Free From Plastic</a>, as <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/coke-pepsi-plastic-polluters-2641090767.html" target="_self">EcoWatch</a> reported.</p>
<p>The millions of plastic products in the world are almost entirely derived from oils, which offer a complex arrangement of atoms that can be manipulated and rearranged to make plastics of varying strength, rigidity and opacity. They are cheap to produce, too, meaning it is often much more expensive to recycle them than it is to produce new ones. Of course, all that plastic made from oils takes hundreds of years to decompose, as <a href="https://cleantechnica.com/2020/05/17/plant-based-bottles-could-degrade-in-one-year/" target="_blank">CleanTechnica</a> reported.</p><p>Around 300 million tons of plastic is made from <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels" target="_self">fossil fuels</a> every year, which is a major contributor to the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis" target="_self">climate crisis</a>.</p>
<p>Beverage makers have been loath to leave behind profits, even if it means investing in a sustainable alternative to fossil fuel-derived plastic. That may change with Avantium's new technology. The company says it "has found ways to start with plant sugars and transform them into a plastic capable of standing up to carbonated beverages like soda and beer but which will also break down in as little as a year in a composter or three years if left exposed to the elements," as <a href="https://cleantechnica.com/2020/05/17/plant-based-bottles-could-degrade-in-one-year/" target="_blank">CleanTechnica</a> reported.</p><p>"This plastic has very attractive sustainability credentials because it uses no fossil fuels, and can be recycled – but would also degrade in nature much faster than normal plastics do," said Tom van Aken, Avantium's chief executive, to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/16/the-end-of-plastic-new-plant-based-bottles-will-degrade-in-a-year" target="_blank">The Guardian.</a></p>
<p>Van Aken told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/16/the-end-of-plastic-new-plant-based-bottles-will-degrade-in-a-year" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> that he hopes to have a major investment in the bioplastics plant by the end of 2020. The project, which has continued and remains on track despite the coronavirus lockdown, will reveal partnerships with other food and drink companies later in the summer. The hope is to have the product on store shelves by 2023.</p><p>The initial project will make about 5,000 tons of plastic every year using sugars from corn, wheat or beets. It will assess how customers respond to the new bottles. Then, Avantium expects its production and scale to grow considerably as demand for the sustainable plastics increases, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/16/the-end-of-plastic-new-plant-based-bottles-will-degrade-in-a-year" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>.</p>
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Chemical recycling involves sorting plastic by type, grinding into powders, and mixing and melting into the same kind of polymers from which the powders were generated. sturti / Getty Images
By Brigitte Osterath
Yogurt pots, shampoo bottles, coffee-to-go lids, bubble wrap — plastic products are all composed of the same building blocks: long carbon chains.
Heating them to high temperatures makes the carbon chains crack into a mixture of shorter molecules, ultimately converting them back into crude oil, the resource from which the majority of plastic products were originally made.
<p><br/></p>
<p>Varying the process can result in different carbon chain lengths and therefore different carbon-based products, ranging from fuels such as diesel and kerosene to petroleum naphtha, a valuable liquid for the chemical industry.<br></p><p>This potential mode of recycling — where plastic is broken down into its original components — has been becoming increasingly popular in industry.</p><p>It's known as 'chemical recycling,' as opposed to 'mechanical recycling' — the chop-and-wash-method in which plastic is sorted by type, ground into powders, mixed and melted into the very same kind of polymers from which the powders were generated.</p>
<p>"Chemical recycling has emerged as a major topic [in industry], mainly out of helplessness of how to proceed in mechanical recycling," says Thomas Fischer, head of the recycling management division with the non-profit environmental association Deutsche Umwelthilfe.</p><p>A prerequisite for mechanical recycling, he says, is making plastic that is actually recyclable. "That requires a lot of know-how, such as which dyestuffs and additives can be used and which cannot."</p><p>You also have to design the product itself in a certain way. When a product has been manufactured by layering several different polymers on top of each other, for example, recycling becomes tricky.</p><p>Chemical recycling is much simpler — it's just a case of heating everything with no need for prior sorting. That's the idea at least. </p>
Big Business
<p>Several companies have made significant investments in chemical recycling, building facilities to test various ways of making what is allegedly more environmentally friendly oil. So far, it's still in the development and test stage.</p><p>In 2018, multinational chemistry giant BASF launched ChemCycling — a project that aims to generate a so-called pyrolysis oil from plastic waste. The company claims it can be used in the production of new polymers, which it says will save fossil fuel resources.</p><p>Austrian oil and gas company OMV has built a pilot plant which it says can process all common packaging material such as polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene.</p><p>The plastics are chopped down, mixed with a high-boiling solvent and heated in a furnace at over 300 degrees Celcius (572 degrees Fahrenheit). Once the product has been distilled and the solvent filtered off, the company is left with synthetic crude oil, which it claims is "free of sulfur, lighter than fossil crude oil and with a higher hydrogen content — therefore of higher quality."</p><p>The product can be refined to make fuels such as gasoline, kerosene and diesel or petrochemical products.</p><p>The plant has the capacity to convert 100 kilos of waste each hour, OMV told DW. But a planned successor facility would be able to process 2,000 kilos hourly.</p><p>Similar pilot plants are being constructed in other countries across Europe.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI4NzAyNi9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5MzgyMjM0MX0.Hf-XPYf0ht6v_H6v6-uFahkuhhTv0u2X8Dy6h9eNdxM/img.png?width=980" id="abe46" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b06e2170d3c847695e9395339482e7ba" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Behind the Hype
<p>So, can chemical recycling solve our waste problem through the creation of fuels?</p><p>Roman Maletz, a researcher at the Institute of Waste Management and Circular Economy at the Technical University in Dresden, is not convinced.</p><p>The idea of recycling plastic trash by cracking it, he says, is neither new nor revolutionary. It has just never worked before.</p><p>"In the past, such plants always ran into problems when in continuous operation," Maletz said. "I don't see how these issues could suddenly be resolved."</p><p>Problems arise when the trash contains too many different materials or when it is too dirty.</p><p>"In that case, the quality of the product is lowered, and the whole process becomes economically unviable."</p><p>Moreover, it is not necessarily environmentally friendly, adds Henning Wilts, Director of the Circular Economy Division at Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy.</p><p>"If you break waste apart at a molecular level, you need a lot of energy, so the CO2 savings are quite low," he tells DW. "If the energy needed comes from burning coal, then the whole thing is an environmental disaster."</p><p>Although it is expensive, he says mechanical recycling still remains the recycling of choice.</p><p>"If countries use the existence of chemical recycling as an excuse to stop any efforts in mechanical recycling, that will become a problem."</p><p>He says the fact that petroleum naphtha generated from chemical recycling could be used to produce new food-grade plastics which is "one of the big drivers to develop the technology."</p><p>Producing fuels like diesel or kerosene from plastic trash, however, Fischer says, makes less sense.</p><p>"If fuels are produced which are burned afterwards, then even more CO2 is blown into the air," Fischer explains. "That's not the idea of a cycle."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/do-fuels-made-from-plastic-make-eco-sense/a-51495966?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.</em><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2646025410#/" target="_self"></a></p>From Your Site Articles
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The beach of Mimiza in France where researchers measured microplastics on the sea breeze. NICOLAS TUCAT / AFP via Getty Images
Around eight million metric tons of plastic are dumped into the world's oceans every year, but researchers still don't know where it all ends up.
<p>Last month, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/microplastics-in-ocean-2645891531.html" target="_self">researchers discovered</a> surprisingly high concentrations of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/microplastics" target="_self">microplastics</a> on the seafloor. And now, a paper published in <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0232746&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+plosone%2FPLoSONE+%28PLOS+ONE+-+New+Articles%29" target="_blank">PLOS ONE Tuesday</a> finds the ocean is spitting some of them back in our faces in the form of the sea breeze.</p><p>"We keep putting millions of tonnes of plastic into the ocean every year," study co-leader and University of Strathclyde Ph.D. candidate Steve Allen told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/12/microplastics-discovered-blowing-ashore-in-sea-breezes" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. "This research shows that it is not going to stay there forever. The ocean is giving it back to us."</p>
<p>The study is the first to show microplastics being released into the atmosphere by the ocean itself. The researchers found up to 19 microplastic pieces per cubic meter of air along the Bay of Biscay in France, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/sea-breeze-microplastic/" target="_blank">Wired reported</a>. They also demonstrated in a lab how the popping of bubbles could fling microplastics into the air.</p><p>Microplastics are just the latest addition to the messy bursting of ocean bubbles, the researchers explained.</p><p>"That bubble actually acts as like a sponge for tiny particles like sea salt, viruses, bacteria, and—potentially—plastics, as it comes up through the water column," University of Strathclyde microplastic researcher and co-study leader Deonie Allen told Wired. "So the outside of that bubble is now sort of coated in particles."</p><p>When the bubble pops, those particles shoot into the air.</p>
<p>All this means you may have to reassess your idea of a sea breeze. The researchers estimated the ocean spray ejects 136,000 tons of microplastics every year.</p><p>"Sea breeze has traditionally been considered 'clean air' but this study shows surprising amounts of microplastic particles being carried by it," Steve Allen told The Guardian. "It appears that some plastic particles could be leaving the sea and entering the atmosphere along with sea salt, bacteria, viruses and algae."</p>
<p>The research challenges a wide consensus about what happens to plastics once they reach the ocean.</p><p>"Current plastic pollutant research has generally assumed that once plastics enter the ocean they are there to stay, retained permanently within the ocean currents, biota or sediment until eventual deposition on the sea floor or become washed up onto the beach," the researchers wrote.</p><p>But this hypothesis doesn't explain the "missing" plastic, Deonie Allen told The Guardian. She said the amount of plastic on the seafloor was actually less than would be expected given all the plastic that enters the oceans.</p><p>If plastic is moving from the ocean to the air, this could have implications for the climate, Wired explained.</p>
<p>Particulate matter from the sea can "seed" clouds, or gather enough moisture to form a fluffy white cloud. If microplastics can do this also, that could lead to whiter clouds that reflect more of the sun's heat.</p><p>"So that'll have a positive effect for us for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate change</a>," Steve Allen told Wired.</p><p>But there's a catch.</p><p>"It'll gather the moisture that's in the air, and not produce rain," he said. "That rain can move somewhere else. So we would get rain somewhere it doesn't belong, and we don't get rain where we need it."</p>
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Plastic waste floating in the ocean. Eloi_Omella / Getty Images
By Elizabeth Claire Alberts
In 2018, Lauren Biermann was scouring a satellite image of the ocean off the coast of the Isle of May, Scotland, searching for signs of floating seaweed for a project at her university. Her eyes were drawn to lines of white dots gently curving along an ocean front.
<p><br/></p>
<p>"It was weird because I was seeing floating things that didn't look like plants, and I didn't know what they could be," Biermann, an Earth observation scientist at <a href="https://www.pml.ac.uk/" target="_blank">Plymouth Marine Laboratory</a> in the U.K., told Mongabay. She said she considered the fact that it could be plastic, but found it hard to believe that Scotland had patches of plastic off its coast. "I spent the first three months trying to prove that it wasn't plastic, so I went and made a library of all of the things floating, like foam and driftwood."</p><p>During her investigation, Biermann came across a <a href="https://mrsg.aegean.gr/?content=&nav=55" target="_blank">project</a> conducted by the University of the Aegean in Greece, in which a team of academic staff and students used drone and satellite image technology to identify "plastic targets," such as water bottles, plastic bags and fishing nets, on the sea surface. This data helped Biermann connect the dots in her own research.</p><p>"I went, yes, okay, this is plastic," Biermann said. "It was the first time I had … data to validate what I had seen in Scotland, and that's how I could build a spectral signature of plastic, and then go and apply it to other places."</p>
<p>More than 8.3 billion tons of plastic waste enter the oceans each year, equivalent to a garbage truck dumping its contents into the sea every minute of the day, according to a <a href="http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_New_Plastics_Economy.pdf" target="_blank">report</a> by the World Economic Forum. Anything more than 5 millimeters in size, about a fifth of an inch, is generally considered to be "macroplastic," while anything below that size is "microplastic."</p><p>Biermann and a team of colleagues embarked on their own study of detecting ocean plastic through <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08/no-place-to-hide-for-illegal-fishing-fleets-as-surveillance-satellites-prepare-for-lift-off/" target="_blank">satellite imagery</a>, and recently published their <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-62298-z" target="_blank">findings</a> in <em>Scientific Reports</em>. First, they obtained high-resolution optical data from the European Space Agency (ESA), which is gathered by the Sentinel-2 Earth observation satellite. Second, they used the plastic target data from the University of the Aegean to help differentiate plastic debris from natural objects like driftwood and seaweed.</p>
<p>Then the researchers employed an algorithm to develop a "floating debris index" (FDI) that would identify macroplastics, like plastic water bottles and plastic bags, bobbing on the surface of the sea.<br></p><p>"I will read an article or a social media post about marine plastic pollution, and then go and look at that area, using Sentinel-2, and process the data using the floating debris index … and then extract those values and feed it into the machine learning algorithm," Biermann said.</p><p>Biermann and her colleagues have tested these methods on satellite imagery of coastal waters off Accra, Ghana; the San Juan Islands, U.S.; Da Nang, Vietnam; and east Scotland, reporting an 86% accuracy rate.</p>
<p>However, the process of identifying plastic isn't always straightforward. Cloud cover and rough seas can compromise the data, and macroplastics won't stay in one place for a long time, particularly in coastal zones, Biermann said. "Things change really quickly, so a Sentinel-2 image that I look at today would have been taken two days ago, and by then anything that I see is gone," she said.</p><p>While plastic tends to get pushed around in the ocean, winds and ocean currents will propel it into clusters that stay in one place. Biermann says she hopes that optical satellite data can help identify these aggregates, and that people and organizations can use this information to work on solutions.</p><p>"There will be cleanup operations like the <a href="https://www.oceanvoyagesinstitute.org/" target="_blank">Ocean Voyages Institute</a>, which we'd like to work with. They would then go to where we spotted things, and they would be able to remove tons of plastic at a time," Biermann said. "This really is the first technical exercise, but we would then like to apply the method, far more broadly … to rivers and open waters."</p>
<p>Biermann makes an important clarification: this satellite data shouldn't be seen as a solution to the plastic pollution issue.</p><p>"On its own, it can't do anything to curb the plastic pollution problem," Biermann said. "The way to curb plastic pollution problem is to address the source. We know that the majority of plastics come from land, so it's not just addressing the source in terms of the industry, but also in terms of waste management practices on land."</p><p>She says she also hopes this data will help build awareness of the global plastic pollution issue, and inspire action on the issue.</p><p>"What I don't want to see is my work being used to greenwash the problem — now we can see it from space, so we know where to go and fetch it," she said. "That's not the case at all. And I think if anything, it's just to say there that there's enough of it now that it can be seen from space, [and we should] take that message to heart. The individual is not the problem here, and our individual behavior is not generating plastic on such a scale that it can be seen from space. Really, it is an industry problem."</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/05/satellite-imagery-is-helping-to-detect-plastic-pollution-in-the-ocean/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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On March 2, 2019, the Schiavonea beach in Calabria, Italy is littered with microplastics lifted from the seabed following a storm in the Ionian sea. Alfonso Di Vincenzo / KONTROLAB / LightRocket / Getty Images
Scientists have discovered the highest concentration of microplastics ever recorded on the seafloor—1.9 million pieces in one square meter (approximately 11 square feet) of the Mediterranean.
<p>But the finding, <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/04/29/science.aba5899" target="_blank">published in Science Thursday</a>, suggests a much broader problem as deep-sea currents carry <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/plastics" target="_self">plastics</a> to microplastic "hotspots" that may also be deep-sea ecosystems rich in <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity" target="_self">biodiversity</a>. For study coauthor professor Elda Miramontes of the University of Bremen, Germany, the results were a call to action.</p><p>"We're all making an effort to improve our safety and we are all staying at home and changing our lives - changing our work life, or even stopping work," she told <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52489126" target="_blank">BBC News</a>, referring to the global response to the new coronavirus. "We're doing all this so that people are not affected by this sickness. We have to think in the same way when we protect our <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans" target="_self">oceans</a>."</p>
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<p>Of the more than ten million tons of plastic that enter the world's oceans every year, less than one percent of it stays on the surface. Researchers at the University of Bremen, IFREMER in France, the universities of Manchester and Durham and the National Oceanography Centre in the UK set out to discover what happens to the remaining 99 percent, a <a href="https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/scientists-find-highest-ever-level-of-microplastics-on-seafloor/" target="_blank">University of Manchester press release explained</a>.<br></p><p>They determined that it doesn't settle on the bottom evenly, but is instead pushed together with other sediments by deep-sea currents.</p><p>"Almost everybody has heard of the infamous ocean 'garbage patches' of floating plastic, but we were shocked at the high concentrations of microplastics we found in the deep seafloor," lead study author Dr. Ian Kane of the University of Manchester said in the press release. "We discovered that microplastics are not uniformly distributed across the study area; instead they are distributed by powerful seafloor currents which concentrate them in certain areas."</p>
<p>Because these currents also distribute oxygen and nutrients, the microplastics may be concentrating in important deep-sea ecosystems.</p><p>Since this is the first study to uncover the connection between these currents and microplastic concentration, it can drive research into other seafloor hotspots and their impact on <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/marine-life" target="_self">marine life</a>. Other studies have shown that toxic chemicals from plastics can block the digestive systems of insects and marine animals, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/30/toxic-microplastic-hotspots-are-accumulating-on-the-ocean-floor-in-record-levels.html" target="_blank">CNBC pointed out</a>. They can also harm their development and reproductive systems. Microplastics have been found in 114 freshwater and ocean species to date.</p><p>The research took place in the Tyrrhenian basin between Italy, Corsica and Sardinia, but there is nothing unique to that area that could not occur in other ocean regions with strong deep-ocean currents, BBC News explained.</p>
<p>The microplastic fibers on the seafloor mostly come from textiles and clothing, the University of Manchester said. They end up there because wastewater treatment plants do not filter them effectively.</p><p>Roland Geyer, a professor of industrial ecology at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California at Santa Barbara, was not involved with the current research, but is part of the broader effort to understand how plastics enter the oceans.</p><p>"We still have a very poor understanding of how much total plastic has accumulated in the oceans. There seems to be one emerging scientific consensus, which is that most of that plastic is <em>not</em> floating on the ocean surface," he told BBC News. "Many scientists now think that most of the plastic is likely to be on the ocean floor, but the water column and the beaches are also likely to contain major quantities. We really should all be completely focused on stopping plastic from entering the oceans in the first place."</p>
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A man receives a food delivery in plastic bags at his home. Alex Potemkin / Getty Images
By Daiane Scaraboto, Alison M Joubert and Claudia Gonzalez-Arcos
In eight years, US environmentalist and social media star Lauren Singer had never sent an item of rubbish to landfill. But last month, in an impassioned post to her 383,000 Instagram followers, she admitted the reality of COVID-19 has changed that.
<p><br></p><blockquote>I sacrificed my values and bought items in plastic. Lots of it, and plastic that I know isn't recyclable in NYC (New York City) recycling or maybe even anywhere … why would I go against something that I have actively prioritized and promoted?</blockquote><p>Singer wrote that as the seriousness of COVID-19 dawned, she stocked up on items she'd need if confined to her home for a long period – much of it packaged in plastic.</p><p>Her confession encapsulates how the pandemic has challenged those of us who are trying to reduce our waste. Many sustainability-conscious people may now find themselves with cupboards stocked with plastic bottles of hand sanitizer, disposable wipes and takeaway food containers.</p><p>So let's look at why this is happening, and what to do about it.</p>
<h2>Sustainability out the window</h2><p>We research how consumers respond to change, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340451756_How_banning_legitimate_entities_can_change_markets" target="_blank">such as</a> why consumers largely resisted single-use plastic bag bans. Recently we've explored how the coronavirus has changed the use of plastic bags, containers and other disposable products.</p><p>Amid understandable concern over health and hygiene during the pandemic, the problem of disposable plastics has taken a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/lauratenenbaum/2020/04/25/plastic-waste-during-the-time-of-covid-19/#2c6b6c47e484" target="_blank">back seat</a>.</p><p>For example, Coles' home delivery service <a href="https://shop.coles.com.au/a/essendon-fields/content/priority-service-information" target="_blank">is delivering items in plastic bags</a> (albeit reusable ones) and many coffee shops have <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8085567/Sydney-cafe-bans-customers-using-reusable-cups-stop-spread-coronavirus.html" target="_blank">banned reusable mugs</a>, <a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/coronavirus-reusable-cups-banned-from-starbucks-coffee-club/news-story/d840738f512c7f12ee1cc47e335e53a9" target="_blank">including global Starbucks branches</a>.</p>
<p>Restaurants and other food businesses can now only offer home delivery or takeaway options. Many won't allow customers to bring their own containers, defaulting to disposables which generate <a href="https://qz.com/1802406/startups-are-trying-to-solve-takeouts-plastic-problem/" target="_blank">plastic waste</a>. This means many consumers can't reduce their plastic waste, even if they wanted to.</p><p>Demand for products such as disposable wipes, cleaning agents, hand sanitizer, disposable gloves and masks is at a record high. Unfortunately, they're also being thrown out in unprecedented volumes.</p><p>And the imperative to prevent the spread of coronavirus means <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21194647/the-covid-19-pandemic-is-generating-tons-of-medical-waste" target="_blank">tons of medical waste</a> is being generated. For example, hospitals and aged care facilities <a href="https://waste-management-world.com/a/coronavirus-advice-for-the-australian-waste-recycling-industry" target="_blank">have been advised to</a> double-bag clinical waste from COVID-19 patients. While this is a necessary measure, it adds to the plastic waste problem.</p>
<h2>Cause for hope</h2><p>Sustainability and recycling efforts are continuing. Soft plastics recycler <a href="https://www.facebook.com/REDcyclebyREDGroup/" target="_blank">Red Cycle</a> is still operating. However many dropoff points for soft plastics, such as schools and council buildings, are closed, and some supermarkets have removed their dropoff bins.</p><p>Boomerang Alliance's <a href="http://www.plasticfreeplaces.org/" target="_blank">Plastic Free Places</a> program has launched a guide for cafes and restaurants during COVID-19. It shows how to avoid single-use plastics, and what compostable packaging alternatives are available.</p><p>As the guide <a href="https://www.plasticfreeplaces.org/post/sustainable-takeaway-packaging" target="_blank">notes</a>, "next year the coronavirus will hopefully be a thing of the past but plastic pollution won't be. It's important that we don't increase plastic waste and litter in the meantime."</p>
<h2>Old habits die hard</h2><p>In the US, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/27/rightwing-thinktanks-use-fear-of-covid-19-to-fight-bans-on-plastic-bags" target="_blank">lobbyists for the plastic industry</a> have <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90483143/the-plastic-industry-is-using-the-coronavirus-to-fight-plastic-bag-bans" target="_blank">taken advantage of health fears</a> by arguing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/climate/plastic-bag-ban-virus.html" target="_blank">single-use plastic bags</a> are a more hygienic option than reusable ones. Plastic bag bans have since been rolled back in the US and elsewhere.</p><p>However, there is <a href="https://www.fda.gov/food/food-safety-during-emergencies/shopping-food-during-covid-19-pandemic-information-consumers" target="_blank">little evidence</a> to show plastic bags are a safer option, and at least reusable cloth bags <a href="https://www.qld.gov.au/health/conditions/health-alerts/coronavirus-covid-19/information-for/industry-and-businesses/resources-and-fact-sheets-for-industry/routine-household-cleaning" target="_blank">can be washed</a>.</p><p>A relaxation on plastic bag bans – even if temporary – is likely to have long-term consequences for consumer behavior. Research shows one of the biggest challenges in promoting sustainable behaviors is to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0022242919825649" target="_blank">break old habits and adopt new ones</a>. Once people return to using plastic bags, the practice becomes normalized again.</p><p>In Europe, the plastic industry is using the threat of coronavirus contamination to push back against a <a href="https://fd0ea2e2-fecf-4f82-8b1b-9e5e1ebec6a0.filesusr.com/ugd/2eb778_9d8ec284e39b4c7d84e774f0da14f2e8.pdf" target="_blank">ban on single-use plastics</a> such as food containers and cutlery.</p><p><span></span>Such reframing of plastic as a "protective" health material can divert attention from its dangers to the environment. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0743915618810440?casa_token=UlRC8kaXhJ0AAAAA:qt91-_9-PxAHdGRRr-xYKavt9LRCaw0WvEmkT4sk3sao8bgrvvyCETMkm2RDFQXD3fwdAaIvvbq-tg" target="_blank">Prior research</a>, as well as our preliminary findings, suggest these <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1469540510390500?casa_token=27yxd3HU-bAAAAAA:F3-TFNtYQAGXJR0f8wgpJ4W69QZVuyKp79O9GddFOWy2kiGdNI9Ul2B77O4IfUQxz9dZnzhLUjWJeA" target="_blank">meanings matter</a> when it comes to encouraging environmentally friendly behaviors.</p><p>Many people are using their time at home to clear out items they no longer need. However, most second-hand and charity shops <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-04/charities-say-stop-donating-if-shop-closed-due-to-coronavirus/12120046" target="_blank">are closed</a>, so items that might have had a second life end up in landfill.</p><p>Similarly, many <a href="https://brisbanetoollibrary.org/" target="_blank">tool</a>, <a href="https://www.alia.org.au/how-libraries-are-responding-covid-19" target="_blank">book</a> and <a href="https://www.toylibraries.org.au/" target="_blank">toy libraries</a> are closed, meaning some people will be buying items they might otherwise have borrowed.</p>
<h2>What to do</h2><p>We can expect the environmental cause will return to the foreground when the COVID-19 crisis has passed. In the meantime, reuse what you have, and try to store rather than throw out items for donation or recycling.</p><p>Talk to takeaway food outlets about options for using your own containers, and refuse disposable cutlery or napkins with deliveries. Use the time to upskill your coffee-making at home rather than buying it in a takeaway cup. And look for grocery suppliers offering more sustainable delivery packaging, such as cardboard boxes or biodegradable bags.</p><p>Above all, be vigilant about ways environmental protections such as plastic bag bans might be undermined during the pandemic, and voice your concerns to politicians. <br></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/daiane-scaraboto-386773" target="_blank">Daiane Scaraboto</a> is an Associate Professor of Marketing at University of Melbourne.</em></p><p><u><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/alison-m-joubert-1018513" target="_blank">Alison M Joubert</a> is a Lecturer in Marketing at The University of Queensland.</em></u></p><p><u><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/claudia-gonzalez-arcos-1018512" target="_blank">Claudia Gonzalez-Arcos</a> is a Lecturer in Marketing at The University of Queensland.</em></u></p><h3></h3><p><em>Disclosure statement: The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/using-lots-of-plastic-packaging-during-the-coronavirus-crisis-youre-not-alone-135553" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
- Coronavirus: Can we still live sustainably? - EcoWatch ›
- Coronavirus Plastic Waste Polluting the Environment - EcoWatch ›
- Plastic Bag Bans Put on Hold Amid Coronavirus Fears - EcoWatch ›
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