plastic

Plastic
on this page: microbeads, recommended listening related: garbage, recycling poster: [|english], [|spanish] editing: [|plastic]


 * Plastic** = a synthetic material made from a wide range of organic polymers such as polyethylene, PVC, nylon, etc., that can be molded into shape while soft and then set into a rigid or slightly elastic form.

Headlines
[] [] [] [] [|billions-of-pieces-of-plastic-on-coral-reefs-send-disease-soaring-research-reveals] [|Takeaway coffee cups are not as recyclable as they seem and they're piling up in landfill] How Big Water is trying to stop the National Park Service from cleaning up plastic bottles that are fouling the parks [|'Biodegradable' plastics don't live up to manufacturers' claims] [|Is Boyan Slat's idea to clean plastic from the oceans fatally flawed?]

Microbeads
Microbeads are polyethylene microspheres widely used in cosmetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbeads http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/science/ban-on-microbeads-proves-easy-to-pass-through-pipeline.html http://time.com/2917462/why-illinois-banned-microbeads [] http://www.beatthemicrobead.org https://www.facebook.com/BeattheMicroBead [|@BeatTheBead]

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Roofdog
Do your cosmetics include microbeads? = ¿Tus cosméticos incluyen microperlas?

Embedded Tweets
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Recommended listening
[|Oceans of plastic] - It is estimated that 8 million tonnes of new plastic debris enters the world’s ocean every year.

[|Message in a Bottle] - Plastic debris - bottles, lighters, packaging - washes out of our lives into the ocean and back again to us via the food cycle. It's destroying wildlife and forming huge patches of garbage in the Pacific Ocean. But how do you draw attention to it? A group of adventure ecologists have found a way - first, show how to turn waste into a resource by building a boat out of plastic bottles, next, turn your educational mission into a high seas adventure, complete with a swashbuckling captain.

[|Moby Duck] - In 1992 a container ship from China was wrecked in the northern Pacific. Its cargo, including 28,800 plastic bath toys, has been turning up on the world's beaches ever since. Donovan Hohn was intrigued by the story and, inspired by Captain Ahab's search for the white whale, he embarked on a voyage to find a yellow plastic duck.

[|Oceans of plastic] - Captain Charles Moore has sailed through the North Pacific Gyre describing it as a soup of plastic.

[|That's a wrap] - An expose of the ubiquitous plastic wrap.

[|The not so fantastic plastic] - So many of our products are made of plastic or wrapped in plastic but the volume of plastic waste polluting the ocean is a threat to marine life. Are there good alternatives to plastic and would you choose to use them?

May 2015 Hangout
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Plastic Spoon
http://michelevarianblog.com/post/6824202962 http://flaneur-etrange.tumblr.com/post/6815824510
 * < Plastic Spoon: It’s pretty amazing that our society has reached a point where the effort necessary to extract oil from the ground, ship it to a refinery, turn it into plastic, shape it appropriately, truck it to a store, buy it, and bring it home is considered to be less effort than what it takes to just wash the spoon when you’re done with it. || Cuchara de Plástico: Increíble es, que nuestra sociedad ha llegado a un punto tal, que el esfuerzo para extraer el petróleo del suelo para posteriormente enviarlo a una refinería en donde será transformado en plástico en la forma adecuada, transportarlo en camiones a una tienda donde será comprado y llevarla a casa parece menos esfuerzo que lavar la cuchara después de usarla. ||
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Det är ganska fantastiskt att vårt samhälle har nått en punkt där den ansträngning som krävs för att utvinna olja från groud, skicka den till ett raffinaderi, förvandla den till plast, form det på lämpligt sätt, lastbil till en butik, köpa den och ta med den hem anses vara mindre ansträngning än vad det tar att bara tvätta skeden när du är klar med det.
 * Swedish**

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Background
Plastics are causing big problems. Check out the story about the [|world's rubbish dump: a garbage tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan]

[|Are There Really 'Continents' of Floating Garbage?]

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/tonywheeler/books_articles/moby_duck

Mexico Officials estimate that people in Mexico City use more than 20 million plastic bags per day http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11032252

Plastic bags & bottles make up 80% of the trash collected in seas around the world. http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=589&ArticleID=6214&l=en&t=long

The report [|Marine Litter: A Global Challenge] (PDF)

What can visitors do?
Reduce your consumption of plastic bags and bottles. If that's difficult, re-use them.

Let us know of the hotels where water bottles can be refilled.

Flickr
[|plastic bags blow]

Facebook
[|No Plastic Bags in New Zealand] [|Plastic Pollution Australia]

Australia
What difference did the plastic bag ban make to Canberra's waste? http://www.abc.net.au/news/specials/curious-canberra/2017-04-10/what-difference-did-the-plastic-bag-ban-make-to-canberras-waste/8392804 [|Listen to the story]

ban single-use shopping bags

2015-16 National Litter Index

Should plastic bags be banned? Check out the news from Australia: http://news.theage.com.au/free-plastic-bags-banned-by-year-end/20080302-1w8k.html

For years Australia's Planet Ark has [|campaigned] to ''say no' to plastic: "A person's use of a plastic check-out bag can be counted in minutes - however long it takes to get groceries from the shops to their homes. These bags, however, can last for hundreds of years."

[|Planet Ark] deserves kudos for campaigning on this topic for years. Here are some of the most popular resources: [|Why are plastic bags a problem?] [|Steps for Towns to go Plastic Bag Free] [|Tips for shoppers] [|Other Plastic Bag Alternatives] [|Plastic Bag Recycling] [] [|Plastic Pollution Australia] [|The Great Garbage Patch exposed]

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Mexico
Mexico has a strong addiction to the plastic bag. There are alternatives as shown here in the [|video] about using linen bags for greens instead of plastics in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Another plastic alternative is wrapping up items in leaves, a traditional practice. One example is the San Pablo plant, seen in this [|photo] by Pedro Martinez.

New Zealand
[] [|No Plastic Bags in New Zealand] []

USA
http://act.storyofstuff.org/page/s/make-our-parks-bottled-water-free By selling and promoting bottled water in our national parks, the bottled water industry is attempting to paint its eco-unfriendly product green. Coca-Cola and other bottled water corporations are using our parks as a billboard and concession stand for a product that is anything but environmentally friendly.
 * By going bottled water free, Zion National Park reduced its annual waste by 5,000 pounds.
 * 30% of the Grand Canyon National Park’s recycling waste came from disposable bottles before going bottled water free.
 * 20 billion barrels of oil go into making all the water bottles Americans throw out annually creating 25 million tons of greenhouse gases.

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http://www.libertybottles.com

Elsewhere on the Web
[|“Midway” Film Tells Story of Plastics in Our Ocean Through Plight of Albatross] [|Five Myths About Plastic Bags - The Times] [|'Sustainable' bio-plastic can damage the environment] [|Q: Is it safe to drink water from plastic bottles?] [|The Great Garbage Patch exposed] [|La primera casa de botellas de África] [|Travelers Against Plastic] www.thinkbeyondplastic.com - https://twitter.com/DRussoInnovate

Wikipedia
[|Plastic] [|Polyethylene_terephthalate] [|Melamine_resin]

Video: Plastic Forms Pacific Ocean Death Zone
[] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/22431379

Ecoclub
In 2008 ECOCLUB announced it would celebrate Earth Day by hosting a photo contest with the theme 'tourism without plastic.' http://www.ecoclub.com/c/index.php?showtopic=7280 http://www.ecoclub.com/c/index.php?act=module&module=gallery&cmd=si&img=104

Cleaning the oceans
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Videos
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Photos
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