The North America plastic bottles and containers market was valued at USD 35.79 billion in 2020 and expected to reach USD 49.99 billion by 2026 and grow at a CAGR of 5.95% over the forecast period
Microplastics found to alter shape of and de-cluster human lung cells
A growing body of research has started to illuminate the widespread impacts of plastic pollution, and the downstream effects of it on the environment and human health. A new study has delved into the kind of damage microplastics can cause to human lungs, with researchers observing changes to the shape of lung cells and a slowdown in their metabolism when exposed to these tiny plastic particles.
Beijing to ban production of non-degradable plastic items
Beijing to ban non-degradable plastic bags and single-use plastic items in key industries, aiming to further reduce plastic pollution, the city’s Market Supervision Bureau announced on Wednesday, adding the ban will take effect on July 1.
Plastic pollution is found in all oceans. Now we have photographic evidence showing benthic pollution in remote areas such is Arctic.
The accumulation of plastic in the Arctic region is almost certainly not caused by local populations. Marine litter, mayority compound by plastic, it’s carried in from distant regions by currents in the Atlantic Ocean. According to Melanie Bergmann, whom took these pictures, every time finds more litter items on the Arctic seafloor: pieces of a beer bottle, string, glass, fisheries net, a plastic bag and bits of plastic.
Arctic plastic is small, fragmentend, weathered and aged, indicating that it had been traveling the seas for decades, fragmenting into smaller and smaller pieces along the way. Detailed image analysis indicate the trend is still on the increase!
During a visual exploration in the north-western Mediterranea using remote operated vehicles (ROVs) a noticeable level of anthropogenic impact was observed in all studied zones,with 158 recorded artificial objects of various types detected.
Different types of anthropogenic impacts observed:
This is outside Nesoddtagen in the Oslofjord in Norway.
Over 8 million tons of plastic ends up in the ocean every year. That is 15 tons every minute, 365 days a year. Estimates calculate that over 70% of this garbage ends up on the ocean floor.
How does the ocean floor look like at your local area?
Derelict fishing gear and other marine debris smother existing animals and create an unstable habitat for those organisms that survive the initial impact. Here some examples of litter items on Condor seamount, west-southwest of Faial Island in the Azores, and interactions with local fauna.
A) close up of a Dentomuriceacf. meteor entangled within a longline
B)glass bottle next toDentomuriceacf.meteor
C)lost wooden box used by fisherman to hook their longlines
D) several Dentomuriceacf.meteor partially damaged
According to scientists consensus, there is no place in the ocean without plastic pollution.
Here are two exaples of excepcional records of acummulation of deep-sea litter in the Japan Trench. Plastic bags in the gap made by a big earthquake off Sanriku in Shinkai, at 6272 m depth (picture a) and the Suruga Bay at 2170 m (in the picture b).
These two records come from a research dive done in 1991 by JAMSTEC.
The images below shows contents of a juvenile green turtle
The ingested marine debris includes pieces of plastic bag and broken-down plastics. The shocking photo is a reminder of the environmental consequences of plastic pollution as the world’s oceans are becoming Earth’s largest wastedumps.
According to a report published by The California Academy of Science and OceanRevolution.org, as much as “80 percent of the waste that accumulates on land, shorelines, the ocean surface, or seabed is plastic.”
“For Here or To Go,” Cliff House, San Francisco, California,
Point Reyes artists Richard Lang and Judith Selby Lang collected plastic debris on Kehoe Beach near Inverness and turned it into an assembly line of meals on plates awaiting delivery to Goldsworthy’s clay tables. The piece is so realistic that some visitors to the opening mistook it for the lunch being served.
It was intentional: Fish eat the plastic and humans eat the fish, so we will end up eating the plastic one way or the other.
“We want to bring visitors’ attention to the very complex conversation around climate change,” said For-Site founder Cheryl Haines, noting that the show opened during COP26, the international climate conference in Glasgow. “We shouldn’t just leave this to government and industry to solve. There is also an individual responsibility to effect change in our own lives.”
“Lands End” Environmental art installation Curated by the For-Site Foundation
Courtesy Robert Divers Herrick and Memo (yoshimichi.blogspot)
Straws, Starbucks, red solo cups, one time plates or food wrapping are all made out of plastic. It’s a very durable material which stays on our planet for several hundred years, but those products are made for one single use only, they are tossed into trash to be burnt, in the best case or worse, they are littered elsewhere and might end up in the ocean eventually. One thing to do is of course recycling as much as possible. But plastics can never really be recycled, they are only downcycled. So the only real solution against plastic pollution is to stop making those plastic items in the first place.
What everyone can do is refuse straws in bars and cafes or serve party drinks in real glasses and food in real plates. We can also ask for a real mug when having our drink to stay not to go.
