Environmental Perception is a blog intended to open dialog about current environmental issues to stimulate awareness and promote realistic sustainability for our future generations.
Most people that know me, know that I am a little bit obsessed with algae... they are the most amazing organisms on the planet (in my opinion). They're responsible for our environment as we know it - early microorganisms, especially cyanobacteria, were the first living organisms on this rock, flying around the Sun - and without them, life today wouldn't exist. Now, this is not to say that there are other really fantastic organisms out there, or that life wouldn't have evolved in any other way, because that would be an incorrect statement. It just so happens that Stromatolites are the earliest records we have found for life on Earth, dating 3.5 Billion Years Ago.
Now, what in the world does this have to do with today's blog? Well, my friends, the United Nations Conference on Climate Change is having it's next meeting in Paris from November 30th through December 11th, 2015. And, a team from Concordia University in Montreal might have found an answer to the ever-going question of how we can reverse our dependence on fossil fuels: Cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae!! Once again, my beloved algae come to the forefront of the survival of Earth!! These wonderful organisms are found everywhere, are found in some of the most hardy environments as well adapted extremophiles, and produce energy through photosynthesis, nitrogen fixation, and respiration; cyanobacteria are arguably the most successful group of microorganisms on earth!! While the details of technology are continuing to work on a sustainable source of harvesting these little power houses.
As published in Science Daily, A New Green Power Source:
"By taking advantage of a process that is constantly occurring all
over the world, we've created a new and scalable technology that could
lead to cheaper ways of generating carbon-free energy," says
Packirisamy [lead engineering professor at Concordia University].
He notes that the invention is still in its early stages. "We have a
lot of work to do in terms of scaling the power cell to make the project
commercial."
Currently, the photosynthetic power cell exists on a small scale, and
consists of an anode, cathode and proton exchange membrane. The
cyanobacteria or blue green algae are placed in the anode chamber.
As they undergo photosynthesis, the cyanobacteria release electrons
to the electrode surface. An external load is connected to the device to
extract the electrons and harness power.
As Packirisamy and his team develop and expand the project, he hopes
that the micro photosynthetic power cells will soon be used in various
applications, such as powering cell phones and computers. And maybe one
day they'll power the world.
And what comes to mind is the Wicked Witch of the West, stirring her crystal ball (which looks like it has algae in it, by the way!), in the Wizard of Oz, substituting her words for "Continue to flourish, my little green beasties, flourish!!!"
Climate Change is becoming a big topic for many people, politicians, and government authorities. In truth, it is a big concern for the future of our planet, and the empirical data is undeniable from researchers around the world. And yet, it is becoming such a buzz word, that it's meaning and impending urge for human change is losing it's significance... Climate change is a complex issue, and like it or not, humans are contributing to to it.
The United Nations (UN) formed an international treaty in 1992, "to consider what they could do to limit global temperature increases and
the resulting climate change, and to cope with its impacts". In 1995, many of the participating countries realized that emission reductions enforced from the 1992 treaty were inadequate. Two years later, in 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted with the intent to legally bind participating countries to emission reduction targets. The first commitment period started eleven years later in 2008, and the second is to start in 2013.
The UN Climate Summit was created to oversee the world's climate negotiations, to prevent climate breakdown by limiting the amount of greenhouse gases that are released. The first offender of climate breakdown is the use of fossil fuels, and the idea was to constrain the use or consumption of these resources. While their efforts are appreciated, what change has really happened since 1992 to decrease emissions that degrade our greenhouse gases?
In the 2014 UN Climate Summit in Lima, there was much talk about utilizing the remaining resources for economic profit. And, last month the UK instated the Infrastructure Act that maximizes the economic recovery of petroleum products, legally binding our future business to squeeze every drop out of the land. Unfortunately, this will become a battle of resources in the future, pushing the largest price on consumers for the gain or benefit of the those in control and in power of the petroleum industry... Is this really leading us towards the mission statement of the UN Climate Summit?
Obama explained that “I don’t always lead with the climate change
issue because if you right now are worried about whether you’ve got a
job or if you can pay the bills, the first thing you want to hear is how
do I meet the immediate problem?”(17)
Money is certainly a problem, but not necessarily for the reasons
Obama suggested. The bigger issue is the bankrolling of politics by big
oil and big coal(18), and the tremendous lobbying power they purchase. These companies have, in the past, financed wars to protect their position(19);
they will not surrender the bulk of their reserves without a monumental
fight. This fight would test the very limits of state power; I wonder
whether our nominal democracies would survive it. Fossil fuel companies
have become glutted on silence: their power has grown as a result of
numberless failures to challenge and expose them. It’s no wonder that
the manicured negotiators at the UN conferences, so careful never to
break a nail, have spent so long avoiding the issue.
And yet, back on 19 March 2015, USA President Obama signed executive orders to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of US agencies. While the US Federal Agencies have decreased their contribution by 17%, most of these changes cost money.
“For federal agencies who are looking at how to cover their energy
needs, this is a very pragmatic dollars-and-cents issue,” said Brian
Deese, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama. “If they can consume less energy
or they can consume renewable energy that is cheaper, more reliable or
more sustainable, then they can achieve their environmental goals while
they are saving money.” Further information can be read from the New York Times Article: Obama Orders Cuts in Federal Greenhouse Gas Emissions
From a perspective of food resources, published by Reuters:
ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Global warming could cause an 18 percent drop in world food production
by 2050, but investments in irrigation and infrastructure, and moving
food output to different regions, could reduce the loss, a study
published on Thursday said.
Globally, irrigation
systems should be expanded by more than 25 percent to cope with
changing rainfall patterns, the study published in the journal
Environmental Research Letters said.
Where they
should be expanded is difficult to model because of competing scenarios
on how rainfall will change, so the majority of irrigation investments
should be made after 2030, the study said.
"If
you don't carefully plan (where to spend resources), you will get
adaptation wrong," David Leclere, one of the study's authors, told the
Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Infrastructure and
processing chains will need to be built in areas where there was little
agriculture before in order to expand production, he said.
International
food markets will require closer integration to respond to global
warming, as production will become more difficult in some southern
regions, but new land further north will become available for growing
crops.
Based on the study's models, Leclere
expects production to increase in Europe, while much of Africa will
remain dependent on imports.
If climate change
is managed correctly, food production could even rise 3 percent by
2050, the study said, as a higher concentration of carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere has a fertilizing effect on plants.
Managing water resources is expected to be the biggest challenge for farmers steming from climate change.
Water
"may become dramatically scarcer much earlier than previously
thought," Michael Obersteiner, another study co-author, said in a
statement. (Reporting By Chris Arsenault; Editing by Tim Pearce)
Yes, climate change go beyond a nebulous thought of 'someday' - the effects are here, measurable, and impacting our daily lives - and, we have yet to see the change that is truly necessary to make a difference. Let us open our eyes, review our daily habits, and see where we are contributing to the economic mechanism driving this madness.
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results." ~ Albert Einstein
It's
an information superhighway that speeds up interactions between a
large, diverse population of individuals. It allows individuals who may
be widely separated to communicate and help each other out. But it also
allows them to commit new forms of crime.
No, we're not talking
about the internet, we're talking about fungi. While mushrooms might be
the most familiar part of a fungus, most of their bodies are made up of a
mass of thin threads, known as a mycelium. We now know that these
threads act as a kind of underground internet, linking the roots of
different plants. That tree in your garden is probably hooked up to a
bush several metres away, thanks to mycelia.
The more we learn
about these underground networks, the more our ideas about plants have
to change. They aren't just sitting there quietly growing. By linking to
the fungal network they can help out their neighbours by sharing
nutrients and information – or sabotage unwelcome plants by spreading
toxic chemicals through the network. This "wood wide web", it turns out,
even has its own version of cybercrime.
Around 90% of land plants are in mutually-beneficial
relationships with fungi. The 19th-century German biologist Albert
Bernard Frank coined the word "mycorrhiza" to describe these
partnerships, in which the fungus colonises the roots of the plant.
Fungi have been called 'Earth's natural internet'
In
mycorrhizal associations, plants provide fungi with food in the form of
carbohydrates. In exchange, the fungi help the plants suck up water,
and provide nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen, via their mycelia.
Since the 1960s, it has been clear that mycorrhizae help individual
plants to grow.
Fungal networks also boost their host plants'
immune systems. That's because, when a fungus colonises the roots of a
plant, it triggers the production of defense-related chemicals. These
make later immune system responses quicker and more efficient, a
phenomenon called "priming". Simply plugging in to mycelial networks makes plants more resistant to disease.
But that's not all. We now know that mycorrhizae also connect plants that may be widely separated. Fungus expert Paul Stamets called them "Earth's natural internet" in a 2008 TED talk.
He first had the idea in the 1970s when he was studying fungi using an
electron microscope. Stamets noticed similarities between mycelia and
ARPANET, the US Department of Defense's early version of the internet.
Film fans might be reminded of James Cameron's 2009 blockbuster Avatar.
On the forest moon where the movie takes place, all the organisms are
connected. They can communicate and collectively manage resources,
thanks to "some kind of electrochemical communication between the roots of trees". Back in the real world, it seems there is some truth to this.
Avatar: surprisingly accurate when it comes to trees (Credit: Photos 12 / Alamy)
It has taken decades to piece together what the fungal internet can do. Back in 1997, Suzanne Simard of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver found one of the first pieces of evidence. She showed that Douglas fir and paper birch trees can transfer carbon between them via mycelia. Others have since shown that plants can exchange nitrogen and phosphorus as well, by the same route.
These plants are not really individuals
Simard
now believes large trees help out small, younger ones using the fungal
internet. Without this help, she thinks many seedlings wouldn't survive.
In the 1997 study, seedlings in the shade – which are likely to be
short of food - got more carbon from donor trees.
"These plants
are not really individuals in the sense that Darwin thought they were
individuals competing for survival of the fittest," says Simard in the
2011 documentary Do Trees Communicate? "In fact they are interacting with each other, trying to help each other survive."
However,
it is controversial how useful these nutrient transfers really are. "We
certainly know it happens, but what is less clear is the extent to
which it happens," says Lynne Boddy of Cardiff University in the UK.
Tomato plants can receive signals from their neighbours (Credit: Tracy Gunn / Alamy)
While that argument rages on, other researchers have
found evidence that plants can go one better, and communicate through
the mycelia. In 2010, Ren Sen Zeng
of South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou found that when
plants are attached by harmful fungi, they release chemical signals into
the mycelia that warn their neighbours.
Tomato plants can 'eavesdrop' on defense responses
Zeng's team grew pairs of tomato plants in pots. Some of the plants were allowed to form mycorrhizae.
Once the fungal networks had formed, the leaves of one plant in each pair were sprayed with Alternaria solani,
a fungus that causes early blight disease. Air-tight plastic bags were
used to prevent any above-ground chemical signalling between the plants.
After
65 hours, Zeng tried to infect the second plant in each pair. He found
they were much less likely to get blight, and had significantly lower
levels of damage when they did, if they had mycelia.
"We
suggest that tomato plants can 'eavesdrop' on defense responses and
increase their disease resistance against potential pathogen," Zeng and his colleagues wrote. So not only do the mycorrhizae allow plants to share food, they help them defend themselves.
It's not just tomatoes that do this. In 2013 David Johnson of the University of Aberdeen and his colleagues showed that broad beans also use fungal networks to pick up on impending threats – in this case, hungry aphids.
Johnson
found that broad bean seedlings that were not themselves under attack
by aphids, but were connected to those that were via fungal mycelia,
activated their anti-aphid chemical defenses. Those without mycelia did
not.
"Some form of signalling was going on between these plants
about herbivory by aphids, and those signals were being transported
through mycorrhizal mycelial networks," says Johnson.
The internet is also a haven for criminals and pirates (Credit: shotstock / Alamy)
But just like the human internet, the fungal internet
has a dark side. Our internet undermines privacy and facilitates serious
crime – and frequently, allows computer viruses to spread. In the same
way, plants' fungal connections mean they are never truly alone, and
that malevolent neighbours can harm them.
For one thing, some
plants steal from each other using the internet. There are plants that
don't have chlorophyll, so unlike most plants they cannot produce their
own energy through photosynthesis. Some of these plants, such as the phantom orchid, get the carbon they need from nearby trees, via the mycelia of fungi that both are connected to.
Other orchids only steal when it suits them. These "mixotrophs" can carry out photosynthesis, but they also "steal" carbon from other plants using the fungal network that links them.
That might not sound too bad. However, plant cybercrime can be much more sinister than a bit of petty theft.
A phantom orchid (Cephalanthera austiniae) (Credit: Tom Hilton, CC by 2.0)
Plants have to compete with their neighbours for
resources like water and light. As part of that battle, some release
chemicals that harm their rivals.
This "allelopathy" is quite common in trees, including acacias, sugarberries, American sycamores and several species of Eucalyptus.
They release substances that either reduce the chances of other plants
becoming established nearby, or reduce the spread of microbes around
their roots.
Sceptical scientists doubt that allelopathy helps
these unfriendly plants much. Surely, they say, the harmful chemicals
would be absorbed by soil, or broken down by microbes, before they could
travel far.
But maybe plants can get around this problem, by
harnessing underground fungal networks that cover greater distances. In
2011, chemical ecologist Kathryn Morris and her colleagues set out to test this theory.
Marigolds are distinctly unfriendly to their neighbours (Credit: blickwinkel / Alamy)
Morris, formerly Barto, grew golden marigolds
in containers with mycorrhizal fungi. The pots contained cylinders
surrounded by a mesh, with holes small enough to keep roots out but
large enough to let in mycelia. Half of these cylinders were turned
regularly to stop fungal networks growing in them.
The team tested
the soil in the cylinders for two compounds made by the marigolds,
which can slow the growth of other plants and kill nematode worms. In
the cylinders where the fungi were allowed to grow, levels of the two
compounds were 179% and 278% higher than in cylinders without fungi.
That suggests the mycelia really did transport the toxins.
The
team then grew lettuce seedlings in the soil from both sets of
containers. After 25 days, those grown in the more toxin-rich soil
weighed 40% less than those in soil isolated from the mycelia. "These
experiments show the fungal networks can transport these chemicals in
high enough concentrations to affect plant growth,” says Morris, who is
now based at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio.
In response, some have argued that the chemicals might not work as well outside the lab. So Michaela Achatz of the Berlin Free University in Germany and her colleagues looked for a similar effect in the wild.
A black walnut tree (Juglans nigra) (Credit: foto-zone / Alamy)
One of the best-studied examples of allelopathy is the American black walnut tree.
It inhibits the growth of many plants, including staples like potatoes
and cucumbers, by releasing a chemical called jugalone from its leaves
and roots.
Achatz and her team placed pots around walnut trees,
some of which fungal networks could penetrate. Those pots contained
almost four times more jugalone than pots that were rotated to keep out
fungal connections. The roots of tomato seedlings planted in the
jugalone-rich soil weighed on average 36% less.
Some especially crafty plants might even alter the make-up of nearby fungal communities. Studies have shown that spotted knapweed, slender wild oat and soft brome can all change the fungal make-up of soils.
According to Morris, this might allow them to better target rival
species with toxic chemicals, by favouring the growth of fungi to which
they can both connect.
Animals might also exploit the fungal
internet. Some plants produce compounds to attract friendly bacteria and
fungi to their roots, but these signals can be picked up by insects and
worms looking for tasty roots to eat. In 2012, Morris suggested that the
movement of these signalling chemicals through fungal mycelia may
inadvertently advertise the plants presence to these animals. However, she says this has not been demonstrated in an experiment.
Trees and other plants are linked underground (Credit: All Canada Photos / Alamy)
As a result of this growing body of evidence, many
biologists have started using the term "wood wide web" to describe the
communications services that fungi provide to plants and other
organisms.
"These fungal networks make communication between
plants, including those of different species, faster, and more
effective," says Morris. "We don't think about it because we can usually
only see what is above ground. But most of the plants you can see are
connected below ground, not directly through their roots but via their
mycelial connections."
The fungal internet exemplifies one of the
great lessons of ecology: seemingly separate organisms are often
connected, and may depend on each other. "Ecologists have known for some
time that organisms are more interconnected and interdependent," says
Boddy. The wood wide web seems to be a crucial part of how these
connections form.
Credit: Temple University Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/87524.php
Researchers have assembled the largest and most accurate tree of life calibrated to time, and surprisingly, it reveals that life has been expanding at a constant rate. The study also challenges the conventional view of adaptation being the principal force driving species diversification, but rather, underscores the importance of random genetic events and geographic isolation in speciation, taking about 2 million years on average for a new species to emerge onto the scene.
"Temple University researchers have assembled the largest and most
accurate tree of life calibrated to time, and surprisingly, it reveals
that life has been expanding at a constant rate.
"The constant rate of diversification that we have found indicates
that the ecological niches of life are not being filled up and
saturated," said Temple professor S. Blair Hedges, a member of the
research team's study, published in the early online edition of the
journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. "This is contrary to
the popular alternative model which predicts a slowing down of
diversification as niches fill up with species."
The tree of life compiled by the Temple team is depicted in a new way
-- a cosmologically-inspired galaxy of life view -- and contains more
than 50,000 species in a tapestry spiraling out from the origin of life. For the massive meta-study effort, researchers painstakingly
assembled data from 2,274 molecular studies, with 96 percent published
in the last decade. They built new computer algorithms and tools to
synthesize this largest collection of evolutionary peer-reviewed species
diversity timelines published to date to produce this Time Tree of
Life. The study also challenges the conventional view of adaptation being
the principal force driving species diversification, but rather,
underscores the importance of random genetic events and geographic
isolation in speciation, taking about 2 million years on average for a
new species to emerge onto the scene. "This finding shows that speciation is more clock-like than people
have thought," said Hedges. "Taken together, this indicates that
speciation and diversification are separate processes from adaptation,
responding more to isolation and time. Adaptation is definitely
occurring, so this does not disagree with Darwinism. But it goes against
the popular idea that adaptation drives speciation, and against the
related concept of punctuated equilibrium which associates adaptive
change with speciation." Besides the new evolutionary insights gained in this study, their
Timetree of Life will provide opportunities for researchers to make
other discoveries across disciplines, wherever an evolutionary
perspective is needed, including, for example, studies of disease and
medicine, and the effect of climate change on future species diversity. Researchers around the world utilize molecular clocks to estimate
species divergence times, calculating DNA mutational rates with species
divergence times from gene and genomic sequences, that together with the
fossil record and geological history, provide a constantly improving
view of Darwin's "grandeur of life." These new results add to the decade-long efforts of the Timetree of
Life initiative (TTOL), which includes internet tools and a book, led by
team members Hedges and Sudhir Kumar. "The ultimate goal of the TTOL is
to chart the timescale of life -- to discover when each species and all
their ancestors originated, all the way back to the origin of life some
four billion years ago," said Hedges. As an ongoing service to the scientific community, Hedges and Kumar
plan to continue adding new data to TTOL from future peer-reviewed
studies. They also will improve their current tools, such as web and
smartphone apps, and develop new tools, that will make it easier to
access the information and to explore the TTOL, and for scientists to
update the growing tree with their new data."
Publication Source:
S. Blair Hedges,
Julie Marin,
Michael Suleski,
Madeline Paymer,
and Sudhir Kumar. Tree of life reveals clock-like speciation and diversification. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2015 DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msv037
After the last post, 'What Are We Doing With Our Waste?', the value of 46% of global waste being organic instigated a series of questions about the way food is handled for the economically privileged countries due to the chain of supply. Interestingly enough, an article published this past October answers a good number of these questions in the USA. Author, R. P. Siegel wrote 'Food Waste is a Bigger Problem Than You Think' :
"Food waste
is a horrendous problem in the [USA] that no one seems to want to
talk about. Yet food is the one product type that everyone consumes, and
while a surprising number of people don’t have it, those that do are
shockingly wasteful. As recently as 2012, close to 50 million people
experienced food insecurity, not in Africa or Bangladesh, but right here
in the USA. Worldwide, that number is over 1 billion people.
That
makes the fact that somewhere between a quarter and a third of all food
produced worldwide is never eaten all the more shocking. America is the
worst offender by far. Here in the states, the portion of food
production that goes to waste is closer to 40 percent.
A report by the National Consumer League,
called Wasted: Solutions to the American Food Waste Problem, came out
last week. It maps the magnitude of the problem and, as the title
suggests, offers a number of practical suggestions.
Let’s
start with a look at the problem. Most of the food waste in the
developing world occurs in the supply chain. Either the farmers suffer
crop failures due to weather, insects or disease, or they are unable to
harvest the crops efficiently due to inadequate equipment. Inefficient
transportation and lack of refrigerated trucks lead to more losses in
transit. Consumers, despite the lack of refrigeration, waste less food
since they have so little to begin with and they value it.
The
situation is inverted in developed countries. Consumers waste more food.
American consumers waste 10 times as much food as their counterparts in
Southeast Asia.
Why do we waste so much? Well, one reason is
because it’s become so cheap. Americans today spend only 6 percent of
their total household expenditures on food. Back in 1982 that number was
12 percent. But, as the saying goes, perhaps you get what you pay for.
According to Nadya Zhexembayeva, in her book “Overfished Ocean Strategy,”
the nutritional value of American food has been declining dramatically.
A study of 43 vegetable crops over the period from 1950-1999 shows
declines of 20 percent in Vitamin C, 15 percent in iron and 38 percent
in riboflavin. American food waste has risen by 50 percent since the
seventies at the same time that prices and nutrition have declined.
Today’s American family of four throws away anywhere from $1,350 to
$2,275 worth of food each year. Put that all together and we are looking
at $165 billion, as a nation, being wasted.
The energy, water and land implications of this are enormous. In
essence, this means that at a time of increasing resource scarcity, 20
percent of our land, 4 percent of our energy and 25 percent of our water
is used to produce food that ends up being thrown out.
Unfortunately,
the story does not end once that wasted food is grown. After the plates
are scrapped and refrigerators cleaned out, the food in the trash bin
must be hauled to the landfill, costing more energy, where it ultimately
breaks down into methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas. One study in
the U.K. found that eliminating all food waste from landfills would be
equivalent to taking 1 in 4 cars off the road. One has to wonder: If the
true environmental cost of our food were priced in, would we be so
willing to waste it?
Hunger in the streets will not simply be
solved by reducing waste, but the report tells us that, if we could
reduce our level of waste by 30 percent, that would be enough food to
feed our 50 million hungry. If only we could get it to them.
So,
much for the bad news, though it surely represents opportunities for
those with a mind to address them. Let’s take a look at some of the
solutions.
Addressing the food waste issue requires a multifaceted
approach. First, retailers need to move away from the
buy-one-get-one-free mentality. That might be a good way to move
product, but much of it gets moved right into the landfill with a brief
stopover in the home. That used to be considered acceptable as long as
the company was generating profits. Those days will soon be gone.
Attitudes can also change about food that is less attractive but still
perfectly safe to eat. Perishable foods near expiration can be sold at
marked down prices where, if used promptly, it can provide excellent
value. More retailers can participate in programs to donate overstock
foods to those who are hungry.
But the biggest opportunities are
with consumers. Perhaps the biggest barrier is consumer attitudes.
Because of the fall in food prices, food is not valued as it was in
earlier times. People need better information about how to store foods
properly and expiration dates must be clearly labeled. Labels should
indicate the date at which food will become unusable.
Perhaps
tomorrow’s refrigerators will scan the inventory as they are being
stocked and issue reminders such as this one. “Expiring tomorrow: milk
and cheese. Use it while it’s still good.”
Public education programs aimed at reducing food waste have been quite effective in Europe. The U.S. EPA has a food recovery hierarchy that
spells out the most effective use of unusable food — starting with
donating it and ending with composting. Rochester, New York-based Epiphergy
followed this hierarchy in its extensive food waste recovery program.
Middle stages include producing animal feed, followed by energy.
Cities
can help by providing composting services and also by charging for
waste collection by the pound instead of using a flat rate. That would
encourage people to think twice before throwing things away.
These
are all small steps. But when people understand the larger picture that
ties them all together, it changes their attitude and their behavior.
Experiences in Europe have proven that out. We need to raise awareness
here and set ambitious targets for food waste reduction and we need to
do it soon."
A few years ago, an interesting documentary about wasted food feeding a family from Trader Joes' Waste:
When plastics were invented, it transformed the world. It is light, durable, and malleable to create many products that humans utilize. For many years, modern-day plastics were praised and thought of as a great alternative to glass. However, with more understanding and awareness of how toxic it can be, such as BPA, and DEHP, many people are becoming more skeptical of container plastic. Yet, few people are looking at whether or not the plastic they're purchasing can be recycled. Just think about all the plastic you buy - water bottles, take-away food, toys for children, women's' hairbands, piping for water, wrapping of vegetables, coating of wires - it is everywhere! But what happens to that plastic when we're done with it? Well, according to Dr. Jenna Jambeck at the University of Georgia - "8 million metric tons of plastics are entering the oceans every year" - a study utilizing scientific calculations to quantify the amount of plastics entering the ocean, reported on 12 February 2015:
"... found between 4.8 and 12.7 million metric tons of plastic entered the
ocean in 2010 from people living within 50 kilometers of the coastline.
That year, a total of 275 million metric tons of plastic waste was
generated in those 192 coastal countries.
Jambeck, an assistant
professor of environmental engineering in the UGA College of Engineering
and the study's lead author, explains the amount of plastic moving from
land to ocean each year using 8 million metric tons as the midpoint:
"Eight million metric tons is the equivalent to finding five grocery
bags full of plastic on every foot of coastline in the 192 countries we
examined."
To determine the amount of plastic going into the
ocean, Jambeck "started it off beautifully with a very grand model of
all sources of marine debris," said study co-author Roland Geyer, an
associate professor with the University of California, Santa Barbara's
Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, who teamed with
Jambeck and others to develop the estimates.
They began by looking
at all debris entering the ocean from land, sea and other pathways.
Their goal was to develop models for each of these sources. After
gathering rough estimates, "it fairly quickly emerged that the
mismanaged waste and solid waste dispersed was the biggest contributor
of all of them," he said. From there, they focused on plastic.
"For
the first time, we're estimating the amount of plastic that enters the
oceans in a given year," said study co-author Kara Lavender Law, a
research professor at the Massachusetts-based Sea Education Association.
"Nobody has had a good sense of the size of that problem until now."
The framework the researchers developed isn't limited to calculating plastic inputs into the ocean."
What is your plastic footprint? Do you know where your
rubbish/garbage goes? Unfortunately, more and more of our rubbish is
going into the ocean. The fact is, we are running out of land to bury
our non-renewable or recycle-able wastes and more of it is getting into
the oceans each year. In 2012, the World Bank reviewed the world
rubbish and published "What a Waste: A Global Review of Solid Waste Management"
According
to this report, places considered to be 'high income', such as
countries within the European Union, Canada, the USA, New Zealand, and
Australia have an average of 1.2 kg (2.64 lb) of garbage, per person,
per day; about 44% of the worlds waste generation every day. That's a
significant amount of waste that goes into landfills, dumps, and thermal
disposal!! Sadly, only 1 - 19% of the solid waste generated goes into
compost, when nearly half (46%) of the waste produced is indeed organic -
food, horticulture, animals foods - that could be composted.
And, of the 36% of waste created that is recycle-able, such as paper,
plastic, glass, and metals, a mere 1% is actually recycled... The
obvious question is, 'why don't we recycle and compost more?'. If more
than half - 55% - of our waste could be renewed for use, either
biologically, or for human consumption (such as plastics and metals),
why aren't the leading countries doing just that - leading the way - for
the benefit of our planet and future generations?
"Solid wastes are the discarded leftovers of our advanced consumer society. This growing mountain of garbage and trash not only represents and attitude of indifference toward valuable natural resources, but a serious economic and public health problem." - Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the USA
Let us reconsider our use and disposal of wastes... everything in life is connected. What we do to the world, we do to ourselves!
