Only 14% of plastics are recycled – can tech innovation tackle the rest?

plastic-pollution
“The unprecedented plastic waste tide plaguing our oceans and shores, can become as limited as our chosen relationship with plastics, which involves a dramatic behavioral change on our part…”
Captions and Photo: © SAF — Coastal Care

Excerpts;

The world recycles just 14% of the plastic packaging it uses. Even worse: 8m tons of plastic, much of it packaging, ends up in the oceans each year.

30% (by weight) of the plastic packaging isn’t recycled because the material is contaminated or too small for easy collection, has very low economic value or contains multiple materials that cannot be easily separated. Think of candy wrappers, take-out containers, single-serving coffee capsules and foil-lined boxes for soup and soy milk…

Read Full Article, Guardian UK (02-22-2017)

Loving the Ocean Starts at Home; National Geographic (09-08-2016)

Collecting plastic waste near coasts ‘is most effective clean-up method’, Guardian UK (01-19-2016)

All Human-Made Objects on Earth Amount to 30 Trillion Tons; LiveScience (12-05-2016)

Not all bioplastics are created equal, Science Daily (09-21-2016)

Plastic you can drink: A solution for pollution? CBS News (01-17-2017)

Biodegradable plastic ‘false solution’ for ocean waste problem; Guardian UK (05-23-2016)

Biodegradable Plastics Are Not the Answer to Reducing Marine Litter, Says UN; UN News Center (11-23-2015)
Widespread adoption of products labelled ‘biodegradable’ will not significantly decrease the volume of plastic entering the ocean or the physical and chemical risks that plastics pose to marine environment, concluded a UN report released today…

New UN report finds marine debris harming more than 800 species, costing countries millions; United Nations (12-05-2016)
Marine debris is negatively affecting more than 800 animal species and causing serious losses to many countries’ economies, according to a United Nations report launched December 5th, 2016…

The Ocean Is Contaminated by Trillions More Pieces of Plastic Than Thought, IOP Science (12-08-2015)
This new study suggests there are 15 to 51 trillion micro plastic particles (those less than 200 millimeters in size) in the world’s oceans, weighing between 93 and 236,000 metric tons. This is about seven times more than scientists had previously estimated…

People may be breathing in microplastics, health expert warns; Guardian UK (05-10-2016)
People could be breathing in microparticles of plastic, according to a leading environmental health expert, with as yet unknown consequences on health…

Plastic Pollution: “When The Mermaids Cry: The Great Plastic Tide,” Coastal Care

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