By Constant Méheut and Catherine Porter
The New York Times
PARIS>> Danone, the French dairy giant, is being taken to court by three environmental groups who say it has failed to reduce its plastic footprint sufficiently, in a lawsuit challenging corporate social responsibility in the face of...
By Sameer Yasir
© The New York Times Co.
CHENNAI, INDIA » Amul Vasudevan, a vegetable hawker in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, thought she was going to go out of business.
The state had forbidden retailers to use disposable plastic bags, which were critical for her livelihood because th...
By Hiroko Tabuchi
© The New York Times Co.
With the bang of a gavel made of recycled plastic and a standing ovation, representatives of 175 nations agreed Wednesday to begin writing a global treaty that would restrict the explosive growth of plastic pollution.
The agreement commits nation...
Polystyrene products banned starting in ’24
By Alex Burness
The Denver Post
Gov. Jared Polis signed a new law Tuesday that’s meant to force Colorado businesses and consumers to reduce their use of single-use plastic and polystyrene products.
“We know that plastic pollution affect...
By Haven Daley The Associated Press,The Denver Post
PACIFICA, CALIF. » Disposable masks, gloves and other types of personal protective equipment are safeguarding untold lives during the pandemic. They’re also creating a worldwide pollution problem, sending an influx of ...
The current state of the COVID-19 global pandemic continues to affect many facets of our daily lives. For many, it has resulted in condensed social circles as we continue to try to slow the spread of the virus. For EARTHDAY.ORG and The Great Global Cleanup, it means we have needed to shift f...
Shared from the 9/25/2020 The Denver Post eEditioBy Adam MinterBloomberg Opinion
Adam Minter is a columnist at Bloomberg Opinion.
Is plastics recycling a lie? That’s the question at the heart of a new investigation into whether Americans have been filling up their blue bins with misplaced ...
BALI By Richard C. Paddock, © The New York Times Co., The Denver Post eEdition, July 5, 2020
SEMINYAK, INDONESIA» It was trash season on Bali, the time of year when monsoon storms wash up tons of plastic debris onto the island’s beaches. It was also the time for two teenage sisters, Melati and...
The Ocean Cleanup, the Dutch non-profit organization that made waves in 2015 with its grand plans and new approach to ridding the oceans of plastic, last weekend launched the world’s first ocean cleanup system from the San Francisco Bay. “System 001”headed to a location 240 nautical miles offshore f...
By Peter Moore · July 31, 2018
There are two areas where shippers will feel the effect of the growing water and air pollution problem: freight costs and various taxes and fees. There are now an estimated 52,000 merchant ships on the seas, and the fleet is growing fast as good...
According to recent data from the WHO, “9 out of 10 people breathe air containing high levels of pollutants.”
The data also blames the alarming death toll of 7 million people every year on outdoor and household air pollution.
It further states that “around 3 billion people – more than 40% of the w...
Vancouver city council this week targeted single-use plastic items, such as straws, but researchers wonder why the straw has been singled out when there are hundreds of plastic items making their way into the environment.Researchers have cited balloons, food containers, plastic cutlery and piec...
Discarded plastic will outweigh fish in the world's oceans by 2050, according to a report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. That is, unless overfishing moves the date up sooner.
The study, a collaboration with the World Economic Forum, found that 32 percent of plastic packaging escapes wast...
There are obvious reasons to care about the Earth's environment - global warming, and the litter and rubbish we can actually see are physically apparent to us.
However, the damage to our oceans is somewhat less obvious - because most of the environmental issues the seas face are submerged in the de...
Over the past few decades, it has become a well-known fact that the packaging industry has had a huge impact on the environment. With each passing year, tons of plastic waste from packaging containers and bags end up in landfills and the ocean, at increasingly alarming rates.
Marine life is under t...
Plastic is a nuisance after use, especially if there are no guidelines of how to dispose it off. In developed countries there are special containers and in some places you are paid to dispose of your glass and plastic. In Kampala the capital city of Uganda receives about 600 tons of disposed of plastic every day, which ends up in sewage systems and littering the city (National Environment Management Authority) adding to the uncollected garbage which ends in manholes, drainage channels, on the road side and natural water courses. Which is normally dumped during night fall in slum areas, leading to flooding in those areas and the city as most of the water channels running through the city originate from slum areas.
Source: Waqt News
The government once threatened banning packed water if the producers didn’t ensure proper disposal of used bottles by the Minister of Water and Environment in 2009. Coca Cola is the only company that has complied by setting seven plastic waste collection centres in the whole of Uganda. Plastic does not degrade like organic garbage and hence not supporting life in the soil where dumped. Places with plastic are not fit for agricultural production. Polyvinylchloride (PVC) plastic emits gases like carbon monoxide they are found in bottles, drain pipes, sewage pipes e.t.c. furans and dioxin are leading to cancer and respiratory diseases when burnt.
Source: New vision
The problem has been tackled head on by collecting the used and improperly disposed of plastic for recycling through plastic waste management for cash. In 2010 one plant was operational, now we have more than 15 plastic recycling plants in Uganda, most of them in Kampala the centre of the problem. A need for partnership is that most of the plants operate below capacity due to the limited technology like the specialized film washing line missing in most of the plants. Recycling has given employment to youths who collect the used plastic for money i.e. 250 to 1,000 UGX SHS per kg which depends on the type of plastic. Some are organized and supported into community based collectors by Living Earth Uganda a local branch of an international natural resources management nonprofit organization.
Source: Waqt news
Bottles are used as bricks for building, a practice that is being taken up in South America, Africa and Asia. There are many other uses for plastic bottles only limited to someone imagination and inventing capability.
11. An albatross died because of eating plastic in the ocean
12. The serious haze in Hong Kong forces people to take picture with another picture.
13. People sail on the Chao Lake, which was filled with alga, in Hefei, China.
14. The serious air pollution in Beijing. People have to wear mas...
The Earth is suffering from human activities. Here are 50 photos show human's "masterpiece".
1. A turtle deformed by plastic ring.
2. A seal is tangled by abandoned fishing wire, causing its neck split.
3. A sea bird is covered by oil. The only thing it can do is waiting to die.
4. I...
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON, Feb 12 (Reuters) - The world's oceans are clogged with plastic debris, but how much of it finds its way into the seas annually? Enough to place the equivalent of five grocery bags full of plastic trash on every foot (30 cm) of every nation's coastline around the globe.
T...
Eight million tons of plastic is dumped at sea each year...that's five whole bags-full for every foot of the world's coastline
China topped the league, accounting for up to 3.5 million tons a year
Other main offenders are Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka
United States contribut...
