Plastic Pollution - Can Man Win the War on Plastics?

Can Mankind Win the War on Plastics

Yuan Ye Youth Reference, Special Writer of this newspaper (03 Edition, 18 July 2018)

In order to warn people to pay attention to the problem of marine garbage, the whale made of 5 tons of marine plastic garbage "landed" in Bruges, Belgium. The exhibition will last until September 16.

Richard Horner was surrounded by dense plastic garbage while diving in Bali on March 3.

Nearly half a century after the use of freon as a refrigerant, people realized its harm, and then spent decades limiting its production and use. Now, more and more governments, environmental organizations and enterprises are trying to make plastics the next banned target.

Forbidden to Form a Global Trend

On July 9, Starbucks announced that all its stores around the world would phase out disposable plastic straws in two years. Consumers would never see the iconic green straw again. Instead, the company offered a reward of $10 million for the design of a new cup cover similar to the "duckbill lid" for children. However, if customers insist on non-straws, the store will provide environmentally friendly straws made of degradable materials.

Why does the environmental movement focus on small pipettes? Because of its extremely low recovery rate, it is in sharp contrast to the huge amount of use. It is estimated that Starbucks uses more than 1 billion plastic straws every year.

"When you buy a glass of ice latte, you get a straw; when you buy a glass of wine, you may also have a straw." Ives, executive director of the Lonely Whale Foundation, an environmental group, told the Washington Post, "Look around and see how quickly plastic is consumed." According to the Christian Science Monitor of the United States, 600 pipettes are used per capita every year in the country; 500 million pipettes are consumed every day in the United States, which is enough to circle the Earth twice and a half.

That's why the Lonely Whale Foundation is pushing for a ban on plastic pipettes. Thanks to their efforts, Seattle announced on July 1 that it was the first major city in the United States to ban plastic pipes. Restaurants will no longer be allowed to supply plastic pipes and knives and forks, and violators may face a fine of $250 (about 1663 yuan).

New York, the largest city in the United States, is unwilling to lag behind. In late May, Senator Tony Ivera of New York announced that he was drafting a bill banning the use of plastic pipes in the state. In October 2016, New York City enacted legislation requiring plastic bags to be paid for and planned to ban all disposable plastic bags in 2019.

Plastic ban is becoming a global trend. Up to now, more than 60 countries and regions, including China, France, the United States, Canada and Australia, have charged or banned the use of disposable plastic products.

In this regard, the EU is at the forefront of the world. On May 28, the European Commission released a draft proposal to ban all disposable plastic products, such as straws, cotton swabs with plastic sticks, and strictly control plastic lunch boxes, water bottles, etc. It is planned that all plastic packaging in the European Union market will be recycled by 2030. France's European Times said on July 12 that Paris City Council recently passed a resolution banning plastic pipes from September in schools, nursing homes, gymnasiums and other municipal public institutions.

Globally, the toughest ban comes from Kenya. According to the BBC, the Kenyan government decided last August to adopt zero tolerance measures for plastic bags. Anyone who manufactures, sells or uses plastic bags will be fined up to $38,000 and even face up to four years in prison.

Somalia, which is almost anarchic, has also imposed a plastic ban. According to "Russia Today" television reported on July 3, Somali extremist organization "Shabaab" announced that "no longer on the South Somalia area of plastic pollution and the resulting landscape damage stand idly by". They added plastic bags to the contraband list alongside Western music products, cinemas, satellite receivers, mobile phones and humanitarian agencies.

In this way, plastic bags have become the common enemy of extremists and the Queen of England. Elizabeth II announced on February 27 that plastic pipes and bottles would be banned in all her royal properties, and that non-degradable plastics would be banned in Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. Since 2015, the UK has imposed a mandatory charge on plastic bags, with the price of 5 pence per bag (about 0.4 yuan) reducing its consumption by 83%. At the end of March this year, the government offered new recruits to collect more deposits on plastic beverage bottles to encourage people to return empty bottles.

Found plastic shopping bags in the deepest part of the earth's surface

In 1967, with chemical engineers exploring low-cost manufacturing technologies, plastics quickly flooded the planet. In just half a century, global plastic production has surged from 2 million tons per year to 380 million tons in 2016, three times the growth rate of global GDP. The American Journal of Science, Progress in Science, estimates that by July last year humans had produced at least 8.3 billion tons of plastics. Unfortunately, only 9% of them are recycled, 12% are burned, and the rest are discarded in nature.

According to the Washington Post, 10% of the more than 300 million tons of plastic waste produced annually by humans are dumped into the ocean. According to a study published in the American Journal of Science in 2015, 192 coastal countries and regions dumped 4.8 million to 12.7 million tons of plastic into the ocean in 2010.

What is the concept of 12.7 million tons per year? About 30 tons of plastic waste went into the sea in the time you read this sentence at the beginning of this article. U. N. Secretary-General Guterres warned that the total weight of plastic waste in the ocean could exceed that of fish by 2050.

"For a long time, we believed that the ocean was so vast that nothing human could do could affect it. Now I find that I'm wrong. David Attenborough, known as the father of the World Natural Documentary, said, "Plastic can be seen no matter how remote and deep we dive into the ocean when we shoot Blue Planet." According to Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao on May 6, the United Nations and Japanese research teams also found plastic shopping bags at the bottom of the Mariana trench, which is 10,088 meters deep.

Di Cafari was deeply impressed by this. When the woman captain, who had traveled six times around the world, passed through Nimo Point, the central point of the South Pacific, the nearest human being was neither in Oceania nor in South America, but at the International Space Station, but even so far away from humanity, she saw plastic. Currents carry rubbish from the coast into the depths of the ocean.

Henderson Island suffered seedlings from ocean currents. The uninhabited island in the South Pacific is isolated from the rest of the world. It is often five to 10 years before a group of landers for scientific purposes are welcomed. Surprisingly, it is one of the most polluted places in the world. According to a study published in May 2017 in the Journal of the National Academy of Sciences, there are 38 million pieces of garbage on Henderson Island, which covers only 37 square kilometers. The migrant crab lives in plastic bottles and no longer searches for shells.

In the center of the ocean, ocean currents create vast garbage belts. More than 79,000 tons of plastic rubbish floated on the Pacific landfill belt known as the Eighth Continent, nearly 16 times more than scientists had previously estimated, covering more than 1.6 million square kilometres, equivalent to the sum of three French territories, according to the British Journal Science Report on March 28. This is only one of the five known waste belts in the world. In the Barents Sea between Norway and Northern Russia, the sixth garbage belt is forming.

How many plastic particles enter the food chain

What surprised researchers was not the size of the garbage belt, but its size. Together, all the garbage belts contain hundreds of thousands of tons of garbage. Where are the millions of tons of plastic dumped into the sea by humans? Researchers believe they are probably in the stomach of marine organisms.

The taste of plastic is similar to that of algae, which makes marine organisms mistake it for delicious food and actively hunt for food. Studies show that 557 species of marine mammals and birds suffer from plastic wrapped around the esophagus and stomach. Large marine animals such as whales and dolphins are the number one victims.

On South Georgia Island, the frail albatross chick tries to spit out the plastic bag it ate by mistake, and beside it lies many of its dead peers who ate garbage by mistake. A big hawksbill was stuck dead in a plastic bag. Thanks to the help of the photographer, it was able to get away. There are many such scenes in the documentary Blue Planet.

In 2016, scientists found a sea turtle blocked in the Costa Rican waters. People tried to pull out the unknown object with tweezers and pliers, but gently moved it, and the nostrils began to bleed. After eight minutes of pulling, a foreign body 10 centimeters long was finally pulled out - it was a complete plastic straw.

People who produce a lot of plastic garbage can not get rid of the fate of eating garbage by mistake. In the ocean, plastic gradually breaks down and decomposes into a large number of particles less than 5 mm in diameter, which scientists call "PM2.5 in the ocean". It comes from a wide range of sources, such as the addition of "plastic beads" to achieve the function of abrasive facial cleanser, toothpaste and shower gel. In 2015, the European Union responded to legislation banning the use of microplastics in cosmetics and toiletries.

Because the size and density of plastic particles are similar to that of plankton, they are easily eaten by marine organisms and enter the food chain. In October 2017, researchers at King's College London found that 80% of the mussels they fished were filled with plastic particles. Reuters pointed out that shellfish lived on the seabed, where plastic eventually "disappeared", making shellfish an "indicator of plastic particle pollution" in the world.

In Europe, a standard seafood package contains 20 mussels, which the Daily Mail claims may contain 90 plastic particles; if someone eats seafood every day, they may swallow up to 11,000 microplastics a year.

Food is not the only way to "ingest" plastic. In March, US researchers tested 250 bottled water from nine countries and 11 well-known brands, 93% of which contained plastic particles. Orb Media, a non-profit news agency in the United States, commissioned research institutes to conduct more than 150 tests on tap water in various countries. The results showed that 83% of tap water detected plastic particles, and the water of the Trump Barbecue Restaurant in Trump Building, New York, was also on the list.

Some hailed the ban and some protested.

In 2017, UNEP launched a global campaign to "clean the oceans", urging governments, businesses and individuals to participate fully in "pulling back the plastic storm". According to Reuters, in September of the same year, environmental organizations submitted an application to the United Nations to certify the Pacific Ocean as a legitimate "garbage archipelago" comparable to France. Former U.S. Vice President Gore, who has long been concerned about environmental issues, was regarded as the first "honorary citizen" of the country.

On July 9 this year, the World Nature Foundation, an international environmental protection organization, asked multinational catering companies such as McDonald's, Starbucks and Costa to take action to phase out disposable plastic products. These companies have promised to cooperate actively. McDonald's across the UK has been using paper straws since May, Lego has been using bioplastics to make building blocks since March, and a number of companies such as American Airlines, Hyatt Hotel, Royal Caribbean Cruise, Unilever, Nestle and Dell have promised to move towards recyclable plastic packaging.

In July 2017, Woolworths, one of Australia's largest supermarkets, announced a ban on plastic bags, which customers could not afford. While applauding this initiative, it also elicited tremendous opposition. A Sydney citizen was furious when a customer came shopping with a trash can. He pushed the supermarket cart home and uploaded a video to protest.

If banning plastic means inconvenience to customers, then enterprises, especially plastic manufacturers, are undoubtedly more sensitive, because they face loss of profits, layoffs and even bankruptcy. In June, just days before the ban was issued in Maharashtra, India, business representatives and plastic industry officials, including Amazon, came to the door to lobby officials, and eventually won the relaxation of the ban. According to the United Nations report, in the first year of the ban on plastic bags, only 30% of the country's plastic bag use dropped dramatically, while 20% of the country's plastic bags were ineffective or no improvement.

However, the ban on plastics has created a demand for alternative materials. Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC) said that by 2022, the market size of the bioplastics industry will reach 35 billion to 65.6 billion US dollars, and the same benefits will be striking for industries such as plastic recycling, which will obviously attract many people with flexible minds.

In an interview with CNBC, Adidas CEO Caspar Roeder revealed that the brand sold more than 1 million pairs of sports shoes made from marine plastic waste in FY2017, priced at 200 euros (about 1,552 yuan), which is more expensive than the flagship products of the 2018 World Cup. It can be seen that green environmental protection is not only welcomed by public opinion, but also affirmed by the market.

Photo Source CFP