Brazil burnt, logged and bulldozed a third of the area lost, with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia placing second and third. Brasil2 / Getty Images
Satellite data collated for the World Resources Institute (WRI) showed primal rainforest was lost across 38,000 square kilometers (14,500 square miles) globally — ruining habitats and releasing carbon once locked in wood into the atmosphere.
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<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from </em><em><a href="https://www.dw.com/en/rainforest-losses-stubbornly-unabated/a-53658340?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle.</a></em><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2646150833#/" target="_self"></a></p>
<p>The count by the University of Maryland means that 2019 was the third most devastating year for primary forests — comprising old-growth trees and highly diverse wildlife — since scientists began such surveys two decades ago.</p><p>Brazil burnt, logged and bulldozed a third of the area lost, with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia placed second and a distant third, <a href="https://blog.globalforestwatch.org/data-and-research/global-tree-cover-loss-data-2019" target="_blank">concluded WRI experts from the Global Forest Watch (GFW) project</a>.</p><p>"Primary forest loss was 2.8% higher in 2019 than the year before and has remained stubbornly high for the last two decades despite efforts to halt deforestation," exclaimed the study's authors.</p><p>Brazil's losses preceded President Jair Bolsonaro's legislative moves to loosen rules that would otherwise protect regions from minerals extraction and agriculture.</p>
<p>"Hot spots" identified in satellite images, said the WRI, had corresponded with reports of land-grabs inside the Trincheira/Bacaja indigenous reserve of Brazil's Para state.</p><p>Deforestation across the Amazon was nearing a threshold, calculated another in March, that once crossed would see it morph into arid savannah within 50 years.</p><p>Indonesia was "one of the few bright spots in the global data," wrote WRI fellow Frances Seymour and colleagues, referring to a 5% loss decline since 2018.</p><p>Tougher enforcement and bans on new oil-palm concessions, had all helped, said Arief Wijaya, expert at World Resources Institute Indonesia.</p>
Bolivia Has 80% Higher Loss
<p>In its Global Forest Watch report, the WRI highlighted Bolivia, saying its removal of primary forest and surrounding woodlands — to produce soy and range cattle in 2019 — had been 80% higher than any of its previous years on record.</p><p>"Its highly biodiverse Chiquitano Dry Forest was particularly affected, with reports that nearly 12% of it burned," said the study.</p><p>Other countries with severe losses had been Peru, Malaysia and Colombia, followed by Laos, Mexico and Cambodia — from 1,620 square kilometers and 800 square kilometers in primal forest lost.</p><p><strong>Indigenous Rights Protect Forests Too</strong></p><p>WRI's Seymour said a "mounting body of evidence" suggested that legal recognition of indigenous land rights "provides greater forest protection:</p><p>"We know that deforestation is lower in indigenous territories," Seymour said.</p><p>Global Forest Watch (GFW) project manager Mikaela Weisse said, if left undisturbed, areas stripped of virgin rainforest would "take decades or even centuries" to get back to their original state.</p><p>Those virgin rainforests destroyed comprised but a third of all tree cover (119,000 million hectares, including plantations) lost across the global tropics in 2019, said the study. </p><p>Its authors again warned that slashing forests had major implications for global goals to curb climate change. </p><p>"At least 1.8 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide emissions are associated with 2019 primary forest loss, equivalent to the annual emissions of 400 million cars," said the authors. </p><p>Trees are estimated to absorb about a third of all planet-warming emissions from fossil-fuel combustion, including petrol and diesel-powered vehicles.</p>
Pandemic Weakens Enforcement
<p>The current Covid-19 pandemic had changed dynamics, said Weisse, weakening enforcement of forest-protection laws and leaving rural families desperate to feed themselves back home after losing jobs in cities.</p><p>In April, scientists grouped within the Global Carbon Project estimated that coronavirus-induced economic slowdowns would trim carbon dioxide emissions by more than 5% year-on-year.</p><p>It was "something not seen since the end of World War Two," said project chair Rob Jackson, professor of Earth system science at Stanford University, California.</p><p><span></span>But, recalling the aftermath of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, climate scientist Corinne Le Quéré at England's University of East Anglia, forecast in April that emissions were likely to rebound if structural changes were not instituted.</p>Glasgow's COP26 Postponed
<p>Last week, host Britain confirmed that UN climate talks due in Glasgow, known as COP26, had been postponed a year until between November 1 and 12 2021.</p><p>Experts involved in those long-running negotiations insist that global emissions must start dropping this year to avoid irreversible impacts, including polar melts, record hot weather, rogue storms, and ocean level rises.</p>From Your Site Articles
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During a protest action on May 30 in North Rhine-Westphalia, Datteln in front of the site of the Datteln 4 coal-fired power plant, Greenpeace activists projected the lettering: "Climate crisis - Made in Germany" onto the cooling tower. Guido Kirchner / picture alliance / Getty Images
Around 500 climate activists on Saturday gathered outside the new Datteln 4 coal power plant in Germany's Ruhr region, to protest against its opening.
<p>Fridays for Future, Greenpeace, as well as German groups Ende Gelände and the German Federation for Environment and Nature Conservation (BUND) were represented at the protests.</p><p>During the night into Saturday, climate activists graffitied the slogan "Climate crisis, made in Germany" on the side of the tower.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/climate-activists-protest-germanys-new-datteln-4-coal-power-plant/a-53632887" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2646137253#/" target="_self"></a></em><em></em></p>
<p>The plant, owned by Dusseldorf-based energy company Uniper, began running on Saturday, after a nearly 10-year delay to its initial start date. It fired up just months after Germany unveiled a plan to phase out coal by 2038.</p>
<p>The protests were reported to be largely peaceful, despite several actions during the day-long event. One action included members of Ende Gelände swimming and using canoes in a canal used for cooling, while holding a floating banner with the slogan: "Shut it down."</p>
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Climate Activists Speak Out
<p>Speaking at the protest, German Fridays for Futures climate activist Luisa Neubauer said: "It's a post-factual power plant. The facts speak for themselves." She said it was a "provocation," to mark the planned coal phaseout with a new coal power plant.</p><p>"We're going to stop this power plant, we're going to bring it to a standstill, we will win this conflict," Neubauer added.</p><p>Former miners also attended the protest. "We condemn the fact that coal mining in Germany was halted and jobs were lost, only for coal now to be imported from other countries to power Datteln 4," said Sebastian Suszka, a former workers' council member.</p><p>Greta Thunberg, founder of climate activist movement Fridays for Futures tweeted that Saturday was "a shameful day for Europe.</p><iframe width="100%" height="150" scrolling="no" class="rm-shortcode twitter-embed-1266646886896881664" id="twitter-embed-1266646886896881664" lazy-loadable="true" src="/res/community/twitter_embed/?iframe_id=twitter-embed-1266646886896881664&created_ts=1590827125.0&screen_name=GretaThunberg&text=Today+is+a+shameful+day+for+Europe%2C+as+we+open+up+a+brand+new+coal+power+plant.+We+have+signed+up+to+lead+the+way+t%E2%80%A6+https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FBFX5PcGejv&id=1266646886896881664&name=Greta+Thunberg" frameborder="0" data-rm-shortcode-id="c4980f9c8b3d58f5d4075f5174690372"></iframe>
Germany's Coal Phaseout
<p>Earlier this year, Germany announced a roadmap to see coal phased out, at the latest by 2038. It laid out plans for eight coal-fired power plants to be taken off the grid in 2020.</p><p>It was an important step for the largest contributor of carbon emissions in the EU — accounting for more than 22 percent of the bloc's CO2 emissions. Over a third of the electricity generated in Germany comes from burning coal.</p><p>Germany's coal commission has recommended that solutions be found for coal plants that are already built but not-yet-in-use to keep them from operating.<br></p><p>The state of North-Rhine Westphalia insisted that the additional carbon dioxide emissions from the new plant would be compensated by the closure of four other power plants.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Esben Østergaard, co-founder of Lifeline Robotics and Universal Robots, takes a swab in the World's First Automatic Swab Robot, developed with Thiusius Rajeeth Savarimuthu, professor at the Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute at The University of Southern Denmark. The University of Southern Denmark
By Richard Connor
The University of Southern Denmark on Wednesday announced that its researchers have developed the world's first fully automatic robot capable of carrying out throat swabs for COVID-19.
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<p>The equipment uses a 3D-printed disposable arm that is automatically swapped after each patient. The robot takes a swab with a specially designed disposable tool that hits the exact part of the throat from which the sample should be taken.</p><p>It then drops the swab into a jar and seals the sample by screwing the lid.</p><p>A team of ten researchers has been working around the clock to develop the prototype as quickly as possible.</p><p>"I was one of the first to be swabbed by the robot, project leader Professor Thiusius Rajeeth Savarimuthu told the university website "It went really well. I'm still sitting here."</p><p>"I was surprised at how softly the robot managed to land the swab at the spot in the throat where it was supposed to hit, so it was a huge success."</p>
<iframe width="100%" height="150" scrolling="no" class="rm-shortcode twitter-embed-1265508926222741508" id="twitter-embed-1265508926222741508" lazy-loadable="true" src="/res/community/twitter_embed/?iframe_id=twitter-embed-1265508926222741508&created_ts=1590555814.0&screen_name=TheEinarkist&text=A+Danish+robotics+research+team+headed+by+Professor+Thiusius+Rajeeth+Savarimuthu+from+SDU+Robotics+have+developed+a%E2%80%A6+https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2F0QAgY3ARsr&id=1265508926222741508&name=Einar+Petersen" frameborder="0" data-rm-shortcode-id="8cb285f4499e0064625c4be2f61c988c"></iframe>
<p>The invention could help relieve healthcare workers from the monotonous work of testing. But crucially, it could also reduce their risk of exposure.</p><p>The team had found out about the demand for such equipment after speaking to research colleagues at Odense University Hospital.</p><p>Hospital medical director Kim Brixen said there was a great advantage in the fact that robots don't get tired and bored of monotonous work.</p>
<p>"Currently, healthcare professionals are carrying out throat swabs for Covid-19; but working conditions can be a challenge," said Brixen. "The task entails long working days of monotonous work. At the same time, the employees are in great demand in other functions."</p><p>A prototype to swab patients is expected by the end of June, with plans to have the robots ready for the market by autumn in the event of a second or third wave of the coronavirus.</p><p>It's also expected that the technology might be adapted to help with testing for other viruses, such as flu.</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from </em><em><a href="https://www.dw.com/en/danish-robot-swabs-throats-for-coronavirus/a-53592080?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.</em><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2646125352#/" target="_self"></a></p>From Your Site Articles
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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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A Malinois dog is taught to find a piece of fabric infected with COVID-19 bacteria during a training session, on May 13, 2020, in France. JOEL SAGET / AFP / Getty Images
By Alexander Freund
In a pilot study at the University of Helsinki, dogs trained as medical diagnostic assistants were taught to recognize the previously unknown odor signature of the COVID-19 disease caused by the novel coronavirus. And they learned with astonishing success: After only a few weeks, the first dogs were able to accurately distinguish urine samples from COVID-19 patients from urine samples of healthy individuals.
<p>"We have solid experience in training disease-related scent detection dogs. It was fantastic to see how fast the dogs took to the new smell," says <a href="https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/organisations/faculty-of-veterinary-medicine" target="_blank">DogRisk group leader Anna Hielm-Björkman</a>. After only a short time, the animals identified the urine of people infected by the novel coronavirus, known as SARS-CoV-2, almost as reliably as a standard PCR test.</p><p>The Finnish scientists are now preparing a randomized, double-blind study in which the dogs will sniff a larger number of patient samples. Only then will the scent tests be used in clinical practice.</p>
Important Findings for Other Teams
<p>The very rapid and promising findings from Finland are also important for other research teams, such as those in Great Britain and France, who are training sniffer dogs to detect COVID-19.</p><p>Fellow researchers from the <a href="http://assistenzhunde-zentrum.de/index.php/news/covid-19-hunde" target="_blank">German Assistance Dog Center (TARSQ)</a> have also benefited from the Finnish results.</p><p>"No one could tell us with certainty whether training with the aggressive virus is <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/dutch-house-pets-test-positive-for-coronavirus/a-53460111" target="_blank">dangerous or not for humans and dogs</a>. We wanted to gather more information first before we started training because the German virologists advised us against it — after all, so little is known about the virus so far," explains Luca Barrett from TARSQ.</p>Where Does the Characteristic Smell Come From?
<p>It is still unclear which substances in urine produce the apparently characteristic COVID-19 odor. Since SARS-CoV-2 not only attacks the lungs, but also causes damage to blood vessels, kidneys and other organs, it is assumed that the patients' urine odor also changes. This is something which the dogs, with their highly sensitive olfactory organs, notice immediately.</p><p>Certain diseases appear to have a specific olfactory signature that trained dogs can sniff out with amazing accuracy, Barrett says.</p><p>"According to one study, dogs can detect breast cancer with a 93% probability, for example. And lung cancer with a 97% probability," she says.</p><p>But dogs can also identify skin cancer, colon cancer, ovarian cancer or prostate cancer very reliably, according to Barrett. "The hit rate, which was not so good in the early days of training, has risen enormously in recent years," she says.</p>Hit Rate Decisive
<p>Besides cancer, the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/german-sniffer-dog-makes-1-million-drug-bust/a-53433307" target="_blank">dogs</a> can also detect Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's sufferers smell different even years before they have the disease. "That's how we came up with the idea of training dogs as an early warning system for Parkinson's," Barrett says.</p><p>Dogs are also trained to detect malaria, but the hit rate is not yet satisfactory, she says. So far, the dogs recognize seven out of 10 infected persons, which is not enough.</p><p>A high hit rate is, of course, also absolutely necessary when training for the aggressive SARS-CoV-2 pathogen, according to Barret. "We hope that the hit rate for the coronavirus is significantly higher in the fully trained dogs; after all, it would be very dangerous if COVID-19 were not detected," she says</p>Trained Tracking Dogs
<p>Dogs' ability to smell is about a million times better than that of humans. Humans have about 5 million olfactory cells, compared with 125 million for dachshunds and 220 million for sheepdogs.</p><p>Dogs also inhale up to 300 times per minute in short breaths, meaning that their olfactory cells are constantly supplied with new odor particles. In addition, dogs' noses differentiate between right and left. This spatial sense of smell allows the animals to follow a trail more easily.</p><p>During the training sessions, the dogs — mostly Labrador retrievers or retrievers in general, but also cocker spaniels or sheepdog breeds — are each trained for one scent. That can be the smell of a drug or an explosive, or, as here, the olfactory signature of a specific disease.This means that one dog cannot recognize several types of cancer.</p><p>The animals are trained with containers holding samples of breath or sweat, for example. As soon as they have identified the smell they are looking for, the dogs hear a click and get a treat. They are reliably trained for the one smell on this reward principle.</p>Great Potential, Great Skepticism
<p>Drug and explosive detection dogs have been used for some time. But trained medical scent detection dogs are also now working in hospitals. For example, they sniff the bodies of patients with suspected skin cancer to try and detect the disease — only with the patients' consent, of course. So these skilled snufflers are helping doctors in diagnosing diseases and detecting them early on.</p><p>However, so far there are only very few medical detection dogs. The dog owners almost always work voluntarily and the trained sniffer dogs live in normal households. There is great skepticism, especially among traditional doctors and health insurance companies, even though the first indications given by the dog have to be followed by further medical tests anyway and a lot of time and costs could be saved by early cancer detection.</p>Possible Coronavirus Applications
<p>If the findings from Finland are confirmed, the sniffer dogs with their extremely sensitive sense of smell could prove to be a great help in the fight against the new coronavirus.</p><p>Luca Barrett from TARSQ can easily picture coronavirus sniffer dogs being used in situations where there is a high risk of infection. For example, people attending football matches and other major events could be checked before they are admitted.</p><p>The dogs could also be employed at airports to scan people entering a country. "When the dogs go down the queue, they can detect if someone is healthy and can enter the country. But if a person smells of COVID-19, the handler could send that person to a coronavirus testing center instead," Barrett says. That is because a second test is still needed to confirm the dog's initial sniff detection.</p><p><span></span>Barrett says dogs could also be used to search for the virus on surfaces. For example, before passengers board an aircraft, a four-legged friend could first check whether the machine is free from SARS-CoV-2. Similar measures are planned for doctors' surgeries, aged care homes or nursing homes that have had to be evacuated because of COVID-19 cases. Before these are used again, a sniffer dog could check whether the environment is "clean."</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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Charlie Rogers / Moment / Getty Images
As the COVID-19 virus was spreading around the world, deforestation in the world's rainforests rose at an alarming rate, the German arm of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said in a study published on Thursday.
<p>The study, which analyzed satellite data of 18 countries compiled by the University of Maryland, found that deforestation rose by 150% this March compared 2017-2019 average for the same calendar month.</p>
<p>Around 6,500 square kilometers (2,510 square miles) of rainforest were felled in March alone — an area seven times the size of Berlin, the WWF said.</p><p>"This indicates that we're dealing with a coronavirus effect on the exploding rates of deforestation," Christoph Heinrich, the head of nature conservation with WWF Germany, said in a statement.</p>
Indonesia Forests Hit Hardest
<p>The forests most heavily hit by deforestation in March were in Indonesia, with more than 1,300 square kilometers lost. </p><p>The Democratic Republic of Congo saw the second-largest forest loss with 1,000 square kilometers followed by Brazil with 950 square kilometers.</p><p>The Brazilian non-profit research institute Imazon told news agency DPA that deforestation was up in April as well. The institute recorded a loss of 529 square kilometers in the Amazon in April, a rise of 171% compared to last year.</p>Tied to COVID-19
<p>The WWF says there's ample evidence to suggest the boom in rainforest deforestation is being fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic.</p><p>With stay-at-home orders and strict lockdowns in place in countries around the world, authorities haven't been able to patrol nature preserves and indigenous territories as often — a situation that criminal organizations and illegal loggers have been using to their advantage.</p><p>The virus has also prompted massive job losses in many countries, leaving many newly-unemployed people increasingly desperate for sources of income.</p><p>The WWF noted that the legal timber trade is a substantial source of income for several African countries but is virtually on ice amid various coronavirus shutdowns. The broken supply chains have led to concerns that the forests are losing their value and forest conservation efforts are losing their foothold.</p><p>Along the Mekong River in southeast Asia, tourists have disappeared and with them a substantial source of income for local merchants selling forest products like honey, nuts or berries. Many have left the cities and returned to their home villages and are cutting down trees for firewood or a source of income.</p><p>The WWF said governments providing financial and technological support to locals could help reduce the rise in deforestation.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/wwf-rainforest-deforestation-more-than-doubled-under-cover-of-coronavirus/a-53526064" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.</em><em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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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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Beekeeper Younes Kheir shows Julia Klöckner, federal minister of Food and Agriculture, honeycombs on World Bee Day, May 20, 2020 in Berlin, Germany. Carsten Koall / picture alliance via Getty Images
By Ajit Niranjan
Coronavirus lockdowns that keep farmers from fields and suppliers from markets are restricting another cornerstone of the agriculture industry: bees.
<p>Responsible for pollinating about a third of the plants we eat, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bees" target="_self">bees</a> are in short supply and their numbers are <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/insect-apocalypse-dying-ecosystem-species-loss-a-52160360/a-52160360" target="_blank">declining globally</a>. In large, food-exporting countries like the U.S. and China, there are too few local bees to pollinate crops — so beekeepers truck hives thousands of kilometers to pollinate fields.</p><p>Now, travel restrictions to halt the spread of the coronavirus are hurting the pollination industry by keeping bees at home. They are also stopping some beekeepers from feeding their hives, grounding flights that could import bees from abroad, and making it harder to hire seasonal workers to transport them, said Etienne Bruneau of Apimondia, the international federation of beekeepers. Some farmers "arrive in the [pollinating] season without bees and nobody to help them."</p>
<p>In the U.S., which is the world's biggest agricultural exporter but has fewer beehives than Spain, farmers rely on bees trucked long distances on pallets and forklifted into fields. California grows more than 3 in 4 of the world's almonds and each spring about two-thirds of the country's bee population is mobilized to pollinate them. The bees are then loaded onto trucks and sent elsewhere to fields of cherries, apples, blueberries, cranberries, pumpkins and other foods.</p><p>Pollination services contribute $15-20 billion (€13.7- €18.3 billion) to the value of U.S. crop production and, for many beekeepers, it is more lucrative than making honey. When bees gather nectar, pollen sticks to their bodies and rubs off onto other plants they land on. Harvest losses without their help can range from 5-10% for grains like rapeseed to as high as 80% for almonds and cherries, said Bruneau. </p>
<h3>Food Security</h3><p>Bees, together with pollinators like bats and birds, underpin the global food system. But their populations are dwindling and colonies collapsing as a result of human activity like building settlements, overusing pesticides, farming with monocultures and changing the climate through greenhouse gas emissions. A UN-backed assessment of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/why-biodiversity-loss-hurts-humans-as-much-as-climate-change/a-48579014" target="_blank">life on earth</a> last year found that pollinator loss threatens $235-$577 billion in annual crop output.</p><p>While experts say the food security risk from restrictions to bee movements is small, it represents yet another coronavirus-induced shock to a global food system already reeling from the pandemic. The <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/world-food-program-act-now-to-prevent-coronavirus-famine/a-53219305" target="_blank">World Food Programme</a> warned last month that COVID-19 could double the number of people facing acute hunger — currently estimated at 135 million people — by the end of 2020.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">Climate change</a>, conflict and poverty have worked together to drive food crises.</p><p>Across East Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/locust-swarm-africa-wildfires-australia-climate/a-52208213" target="_blank">swarms of locusts</a> have ravaged vegetation after a year of weather extremes that included abnormally heavy rains and strong cyclones. While African bees have not been greatly affected by <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/do-coronavirus-lockdowns-in-africa-make-sense/a-53228689" target="_blank">lockdowns</a> — unlike in North America and Asia, beekeepers typically use fixed hives and do not move them large distances — pesticides to fight locusts have, in turn, hurt pollination, said David Mukomana, Apimondia's Africa president.</p><p>"Many [farmers] resorted to aerial sprays that had serious effects on many pollinating insects, bees included."</p><p>Meanwhile, across Asia and South America, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/food-security">food security</a> is particularly threatened by a growing dependence on <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pollinators">pollinators</a>, according to a study published in the journal Global Change Biology last year. Areas that are more biologically diverse encourage pollination, researchers say, but countries are farming in ways that hurt <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity">biodiversity</a>.</p><p>What's more, the increase in pollinator dependency has not been matched by a rise in managed honeybees, the authors wrote, adding that this was an "alarm call" for pollinator-friendly farming methods such as targeted use of insecticide and planting hedgerows next to crops.</p><p>"The picture is worse for wild pollinators that are in decline in several regions," the authors wrote.</p>
<h3>Learning From Bees</h3><p>Even as lockdowns keep industrial bees grounded, wild bees may benefit from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-air-pollution-might-raise-risk-of-fatality/a-52977422" target="_blank">a drop in pollution and traffic</a> as humans stay at home. A study published in the <em>Journal of Insect Conservation</em> in 2015 estimated that billions of pollinating insects were killed on roads each year in North America alone. A global fall in transport may have kept some bees safe.</p><p>Yet despite these short-term benefits, "lockdown will do virtually nothing to reverse the major causes of bumblebee declines, which are habitat loss and degradation," a spokesperson from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust said.</p><p>Bees also have their own viruses to deal with. Like people, honeybees live in large groups and thrive on social interactions.</p><p>"That poses risks when it comes to pathogen transmissions," said Adam Dolezal, an insect scientist at the University of Illinois. "If a pathogen evolves that can circumvent those risks, the bees have to respond or become more infected."</p>
<p>Honeybees may be in an "evolutionary arms race" with the deadly Israeli acute paralysis virus, according to a study published in the journal <em>PNAS</em> last month. While bees are known to socially distance from infected nest mates and touch each other less, the virus has evolved a way of sneaking sick bees past guards of other colonies and spreading itself into new hives.<br></p><p>In the wild, where beehives are sparsely spread and there is little interaction between colonies, this evolutionary trait offers little advantage. But in industrial farms — with up to thousands of bees per square kilometer — it gives viruses a greater chance of starting new outbreaks.</p><p>It suggests that intensive agriculture can increase the danger of pathogens that target insects, as well as humans and other animals. Modern farming practices have come under scrutiny since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic as scientists have sounded alarm bells about the dangers of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-pandemic-linked-to-destruction-of-wildlife-and-worlds-ecosystems/a-53078480" target="_blank">habitat destruction and zoonotic diseases</a>.</p><p>This doesn't mean we should stop keeping bees this way, but it does show how manipulating natural environments can give advantages to viruses, said Dolezal, who co-authored the study. "We should be on the lookout for places where pathogens can find chinks in the armor of the organism."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/bees-coronavirus-lockdowns-pollination/a-53500622?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" target="_blank">DW</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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View of a windmill farm in the Tehuantepec Isthmus region, Mexico, on July 27, 2017. PATRICIA CASTELLANOS / AFP / Getty Images
By Sam Edwards
The Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico is one of the windiest places on earth. Hemmed in by two mountain ranges, the flat strip of land between the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico is a natural wind tunnel. A single gust can flip over cars. It's the perfect place for turbines.
<p>The unique geography of the isthmus has brought it mixed fortunes. Union Hidalgo, once a sleepy, agrarian town, is among the predominantly indigenous communities in the area that began experiencing a "wind rush" in the 2000s. Some dubbed it "La Nueva Conquista" — the new conquest — as large, often European, corporations hurried to harness the isthmus' natural power.</p><p>Like so many in this area, Guadalupe Ramirez's home in Union Hidalgo is dwarfed by seemingly endless rows of wind turbines.</p><p>In 2009, Ramirez, an indigenous Zapotec housewife-turned-activist now in her 60s, signed a 30-year lease for her land to be used for a wind power project. She has been fighting ever since to ensure others are better informed than she was before making a similar deal.</p><p>"We want people to be informed of what will come [with new wind parks], to know that it won't just bring benefits but also many problems," she told DW. "When people have all the facts, it won't be so easy to convince them."</p><p>Ramirez and other activists argue that Mexico's wind farms bring little or no economic benefit to the local community. They also compete for space with small-scale farming, the main source of income for many in the town.</p><p>The principle problem, though, lies with the fraught consultation process. Under Mexican law indigenous communities should be given a deciding vote on projects but in practice, activists say, the information they are given beforehand is often incomplete or misleading, and those opposed to new developments sometimes face harassment and intimidation.</p><p>Ramirez is now placing her hopes on an ongoing legal battle that could shape the course of clean energy in Mexico by halting the latest controversial project before construction begins.</p>
Clean Energy at a Price
<p>The Gunaa Sicaru wind park is planned to be built next to Union Hidalgo. Run by French energy giant EDF, it would provide 252 megawatts of power. But first it needs approval from locals through an ongoing public consultation. And as for many multinational-backed wind parks in Oaxaca, that's proving a challenge.</p><p>In a country historically reliant on oil revenue, wind power and other renewables could bring a transition to cleaner energy. But Alejandra Ancheita, director of NGO ProDESC, warns green power must not replicate the environmental harm and mishandling of local communities typical of the global fossil fuel sector.</p><p>"Renewable energy projects can't be justified solely on the basis they are creating clean energy," Ancheita told DW. "It's not 'clean energy' if it isn't developed with a strict respect for the local communities where the project will be built."</p><p><span></span>ProDESC's legal team represents a group of Union Hidalgo residents in an injunction against EDF and local authorities, alleging violations of the consultation process. The NGO claims the local authorities and EDF failed to provide accurate information on the project's impacts and distributed misleading translations from Spanish to Zapotec.</p>Community Conflict
<p>Ramirez and other local activists say oil runoff from the turbines that already dominate the landscape pollutes waterways, while the sound of the wind farms — many of which are close to towns — disturbs residents and local birdlife.</p><p>But while Ramirez and others fight to prevent further damage to their land, some in Union Hidalgo support the development, particularly those who can earn a steady income from leasing their land.</p><p>"It's creating a lot of division in our community," Ramirez said.</p><p>According to a report by the Berlin-based <a href="https://www.ecchr.eu/fileadmin/Publikationen/ECCHR_PP_WINDPARK.pdf" target="_blank">European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights</a> (ECCHR), conflict in the community escalated in 2018, after critics of the project were condemned as "enemies of development" in the EDF consultation meetings.</p><p>ProDESC and ECCHR said in a formal letter last year, that the company needed to do more to prevent conflict in the community.</p><p>EDF told DW it had met its obligations in the consultation process for Gunaa Sicaru but it was the Mexican authorities who ultimately bore the responsibility for ensuring residents were informed and free to make a decision. EDF has received no reports of threats against critics of the Gunaa Sicaru project, the company added.</p><p>The Oaxaca state government did not respond to DW's request for comment.</p>Future of Clean Energy
<p>Mexico, one of the world's top 15 carbon emitters, has committed to producing 35% of its electricity from clean energy by 2024. Renewables have drawn significant interest from investors since a reform opened the sector to private investment in 2013. Both the solar and wind sectors reported record growth last year.</p><p>But observers fear the future of renewables is uncertain under President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrado. Lisa Viscidi, from think tank The Inter-American Dialogue, told DW that regulatory changes under the current administration are undermining incentives to invest in the sector. Winning consent from communities in Oaxaca has been another significant challenge. A 2019 report authored by Viscidi on Mexico's first clean energy auction found several projects had been delayed due to a failure to get the community on board.</p>Alternative Development
<p>The challenges of wind energy in Oaxaca are not unique.</p><p>The transition to renewables will be an "epochal shift" in most countries, says Cymene Howe, an anthropologist with Rice University in Texas and author of a book about wind energy in Oaxaca. That's because energy infrastructure will move into parts of the planet untouched by fossil fuel industries.</p><p>"[It will be] a fundamental shift in how we imagine landscapes, what land is to be used for, who lives there and who has responsibility," she said. "This is a new frontier."</p><p>In Union Hidalgo, Ramirez says the conflicts over wind parks have already forced some people to move elsewhere searching for work or new land to farm. She fears that if Gunaa Sicaru goes ahead, the town will soon be bordered on most sides by wind turbines and unable to grow.</p><p>"No one is coming here to force us off our land. [But] one day we'll have to leave ourselves because we won't be able to handle being surrounded," Ramirez said.</p><p>For her, it is not about stifling wind power development, but empowering locals to shape it — for example through community-owned wind parks that would funnel profits back into the local community.</p><p><span></span>"Development can take many forms," Ramirez said.</p>From Your Site Articles
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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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