Tag: plastic pollution

Lagos styrofoam, plastics ban brings applause and concern

By Leslie FAUVEL From trash-strewn pavements to street vendors packing meals in polystyrene containers, plastic waste is a constant menace in the urban landscape of Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital and the continent’s most populous city. That image could soon change if the local Lagos State government manages to implement its recent ambitious ban on the use of polystyrene and single-use plastics. Sunday’s announcement of the ban on styrofoam boxes and single-use plastics, “with immediate effect”, […]

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Bottled water contains hundreds of thousands of plastic bits: study

Bottled water is up to a hundred times worse than previously thought when it comes to the number of tiny plastic bits it contains, a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said Monday. Using a recently invented technique, scientists counted on average 240,000 detectable fragments of plastic per liter of water in popular brands — between 10-100 times higher than prior estimates — raising potential health concerns that require further […]

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PepsiCo sued by New York state over plastic pollution

New York state sued PepsiCo on Wednesday, pointing to the soda giant’s plastic waste as a scourge of waterways and blasting the company’s “misleading” statements on the environment. The civil suit, filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James in the state Supreme Court, seeks a finding that PepsiCo contributed to a “public nuisance” in the Buffalo River; the imposition of financial penalties and compensatory damages on the company; and an order that PepsiCo cease […]

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World must work together to tackle plastic ocean threat: WWF

by Stéphane ORJOLLET Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) – Plastic has infiltrated all parts of the ocean and is now found “in the smallest plankton up to the largest whale” wildlife group WWF said on Tuesday, calling for urgent efforts to create an international treaty on plastics. Tiny fragments of plastic have reached even the most remote and seemingly-pristine regions of the planet: it peppers Arctic sea ice and has been found inside fish in […]

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Trash tracking satellites help Indonesia tackle marine waste

by Lucie GODEAU Agence France-Presse JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Every year, pounding rains wash away mountains of plastic waste from the streets of Jakarta, with some of it ending up as far away as Bali’s beaches. So scientists are turning to satellites to trace the rubbish and figure out how to tackle the problem. Indonesia allows more waste to enter the ocean than any other country apart from China. The archipelago of nearly 270 million […]

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France cracks down on plastic waste, destruction of unsold clothes

PARIS, France (AFP) — The French parliament on Thursday passed a law forbidding retailers from destroying unsold clothes and banning single-use plastic containers by 2040, part of the government’s efforts to reduce waste. The bill adopted by the Senate, after being cleared by the lower house National Assembly last week, bans fast-food restaurants from serving food that is not for takeaway in plastic containers beyond 2023. All single-use plastic packaging will be banned 17 years […]

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Do you consume a credit card’s worth of plastic every week?

https://youtu.be/UznpIe5wKkg by Marlowe HOOD Agence France Presse Paris, France (AFP) — People worldwide could be ingesting five grammes of microscopic plastic particles every week, equivalent in weight to a credit card, researchers said Wednesday. Coming mostly from tap and especially bottled water, nearly invisible bits of polymer were also found in shellfish, beer and salt, scientists and the University of Newcastle in Australia reported. The findings, drawn from 52 peer-reviewed studies, are the first to […]

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Tackling plastic pollution with mealworms

Mealworms can help save the planet. It turns out the insects are able to naturally biodegrade Styrofoam that would have otherwise sit in a landfill for more than a million years. Researchers from Beijing and California have found that tackling the ever growing problem of plastic pollution may be as easy as feeding worms. “Our study found that actually mealworms eat Styrofoam and they digest Styrofoam in their gut,” said co-author of the study Wei-Min […]

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