A Blog Devoted to Plastic Pollution

"Quotes About Plastic Pollution"

- A blog

"Sooner or later, we will have to recognise that the Earth has rights, too, to live without pollution. What mankind must know is that human beings cannot live without Mother Earth, but the planet can live without humans." by Evo Morales

Source: http://quotesgram.com/quotes-about-plastic-pollution/

Ready To Give Up Plastic Yet?

"Shocking images show how bottles, bags and rubbish are choking oceans"

Source: https://www.icetrend.com/shocking-images-show-how-bottles-bags-and-rubbish-are-choking-oceans/

Biogradable Water Bottle

Wow, you've got to read this article. Congratulations to Icelandic product design student Ari Jónsson on developing this amazing biodegradable bottle.

Photo by Ari Jónsson

This biodegradable water bottle breaks down when it’s empty

 Excerpt here:

Your water bottle could one day start to biodegrade the moment you finish drinking, if a visionary piece of design becomes reality.

The brainchild of Icelandic product design student Ari Jónsson, the bottle holds its shape until you’ve drained it. As soon as it’s empty, the bottle will start to decompose.

As he argued in Dezeen Magazine: “Why are we using materials that take hundreds of years to break down in nature to drink from once and then throw away?”

How does it work?

The bottle is made from a powdered form of agar – a substance obtained from algae. When this powder is mixed with water it becomes a jelly-like material, which can be moulded into a shape of your choosing.

Jónsson explained in an article with Co.Exist that the mix of algae and water produces the perfect lifespan for the bottle. It needs liquid to hold its shape, but once it’s empty it begins to break down.

He argues that the water is entirely safe to drink, although it might take on a bit of a salty taste after a while. You could even eat the bottle, which is said to taste a bit like “seaweed jello”.

At the moment the design is little more than a concept, but Jónsson hopes it will get people thinking about the problem and consider developing their own solutions.

Read full article here: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/04/this-biodegradable-water-bottle-breaks-down-when-it-s-empty?utm_content=buffer397b6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Hurricane Irma Devastates the Caribbean

"For the first time in 300 years, no one is living on Barbuda" 
   -CNN

 
(CNN) When Hurricane Irma ravaged the island of Barbuda in the Caribbean, the ferocious storm "extinguished" the isle's way of life and left the beautiful spot "uninhabitable." And, now, for the first time in a few centuries, no one lives there.

Remains of a house in Barbuda

Tortola, British Virgin Islands

St. Martin

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/15/americas/irma-barbuda-population-trnd/index.html

Get Some Glass!

The best purchase I may have ever made yesterday at IKEA:

Glass bottles for my water and other beverages. Only $2.38 (79 baht) at the IKEA in Bangkok, Thailand.

Thanks IKEA, for making glass bottles affordable. Everyone should use them!

Climate Refugees: Coming Soon

I've posted information like this before, but it is worth repeating in light of upcoming airing from CBS:

The people of Kiribati could become the world's first climate refugees

 

Stay tuned:

Some people in the South Pacific could become the world’s first climate change refugees due to rising sea levels. For “CBSN: On Assignment,” CBS News correspondent Seth Doane visits the low-lying island nation of Kiribati where about 100,000 people live. Watch the full report on Monday, Aug. 21, at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CBS and CBSN



Read more here: https://wdef.com/2017/08/19/the-people-of-kiribati-could-become-the-worlds-first-climate-refugees/

Six-year Ban on Plastic Water Bottles Ended - Thanks, Trump

Who knew plastic water bottles in national parks would be a political issue? The common good over corporate profit, right? Not so under the Trump administration.

If the original Bill was indeed flawed, why not fix it instead of ending the ban?

National parks put a ban on bottled water to ease pollution. Trump just sided with the lobby that fought it.

Hikers wade through the Virgin River along the “Narrows” in Zion in 2014. 

 

(Ross D. Franklin/AP)

The Trump administration has ended a six-year-old ban on selling bottled water at some national parks that was aimed at easing plastic pollution and the huge amount of waste being recycled.

In a statement that closely tracked the arguments of a campaign by the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) in opposition to the ban, the National Park Service said the 2011 action under the Obama administration “removed the healthiest beverage choice at a variety of parks while still allowing sales of bottled sweetened drinks.”

The move follows a review of the policy “in close consultation with Department of Interior leadership,” according to the statement Wednesday. The department declined to elaborate.

The decision came three weeks after the Senate confirmation of David Bernhardt as deputy interior secretary. Bernhardt is a former lobbyist with the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, which has represented one of the largest water bottlers in the United States, Nestlé Waters. Nestlé distributes the Deer Park brand.


Another quote from the article: “Under Trump, the Department of the Interior appears to be working hand in hand with the bottled-water industry to do its bidding,” said Lauren DeRusha Florez, associate campaign director for Corporate Accountability International, a nonprofit groups that takes on the tobacco, fast-food and fossil-fuel industries.


Read the full article by Darryl Fears here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/08/17/national-parks-banned-bottled-water-to-ease-pollution-trump-just-sided-with-the-lobby-that-fought-it/?utm_term=.85f3ffec4712