It’s a dream come true for zoologists and environmentalists: researchers around the world have discovered that a number of worms, larval forms of insects to be more precise, are expert plastic eaters and the clue is in their spit.

Give millions of larvae something to chew on and we solve our plastic crisis at the dump? Jump to the bottom of this story to try your own plastic-eating worm experiments at home. 

Spanish scientists reported back in 2017 that wax worms, larvae of a moth that eats bee wax, can eat plastic and now their research shows just how: through worm saliva. This is excellent direction for recycling plastic waste before it breaks up into tiny bits and enters our waterways and lungs. 

A team of CSIC researchers discovered that this worm species from the moth family (the lepidopteran Galleria mellonella) is able to break down pstic (polyethylene). Its saliva contains enzymes that can rapidly set off polyethylene degradation at room temperature.

10 examples of polyethylene plastic

• milk cartons
• disposable cutlery
• packing materials
• CD cases
• detergent bottles
• cereal box liners
• toys
• buckets
• park benches
• rigid pipes

These enzymes are the first and only known enzymes capable of degrading polyethylene plastic without requiring pre-treatment, according to Federica Bertocchini, the lead CSIC researcher at the CIB-CSIC (Centre for Biological Research) who led the study in Spain. The results of the work appears in the BioRxiv online archive. Researchers at SUNY Plattsburgh, in New York, have also found wax worms eat plastic. 

“For plastic to degrade, oxygen must penetrate the polymer (the plastic molecule). This is the first step in oxidation, which is usually a result of exposure to sunlight or high temperatures, and represents a bottleneck that slows down the degradation of plastics like polyethylene, one of the most resistant polymers,” explains Bertocchini. “That is why, under normal environmental conditions, plastic takes months or even years to degrade,” she adds.

“Now we have found out that enzymes in the wax worm’s saliva perform this crucial step: they oxidise the plastic. This means they can overcome the bottleneck in the plastic degradation process and accelerate its decomposition,” she adds.

The next step is for scientists to recreate this enzyme chemically, a form of biomimicry. 

Polyethylene is one of the toughest and most widely used plastics. Together with polypropylene and polystyrene, it makes up 70% of total plastic production. Plastic pollution poses a threat to the planet’s health and environment, so it is urgent to find solutions to tackle the plastic waste problem.

To date, only a handful of microorganisms, including a beetle larva, are known to break down the tough plastic polymers forming polyethylene. What is more, in most cases, aggressive pre-treatment is needed to guarantee oxidation and thus enable the micro-organisms to exert some slow effect on the plastic.

What are waxworms?

Waxworms are the caterpillar larvae of wax moths, which belong to the family Pyralidae also known as snout moths. As adults they are sometimes called “bee moths”.

“In our lab, we discovered the insect that seems to be the fastest of all: the larvae of the lepidopteran Galleria mellonella, commonly known as the wax worm,” says Bertocchini. “These larvae are able to oxidise and break down the polymers in the plastic really quickly,” after just one hour’s exposure, she explains.

“In recent years, efforts have been made to find out how these insects manage to do this.  Numerous studies have focused on the microorganisms inhabiting the digestive system of these worms, based on the assumption that the worms can use plastic as food and that its degradation would be the result of their metabolic activity and digestive processes,” remarks the researcher. “But this assumption is highly questionable so, from the start, our research has focused on the worm’s oral cavity,” she explains.

Race to isolate insect salvia protein

The Spanish researchers have analysed the saliva using electron microscopy and observed a high protein content. “We have isolated two enzymes from the saliva that can reproduce the oxidation produced by the saliva as a whole,” explains the researcher. These two proteins, called Demetra and Ceres, belong to the family of phenol oxidase enzymes.

“We found that the Demetra enzyme had a significant effect on polyethylene, leaving marks (small craters) on the surface of the plastic, visible to the naked eye; this effect was also confirmed by the appearance of degradation products formed after exposure of the polyethylene to this enzyme.

The Ceres enzyme oxidises the polymer too, but does not leave visible marks, suggesting that the two enzymes have a different effect on polyethylene,” she sums up.

How phenol oxidase enzymes work

An even more interesting question is how wax worms have acquired this ability. Researchers speculate that it could be due to an evolutionary process. “Wax worms feed on hive wax and pollen from a wide variety of plant species. Considering that hive wax is full of phenols, this type of enzyme would be very useful to these bugs. Indirectly, this would explain why wax worms can break down polyethylene. However, so far this theory is only speculation and we must carry out more research combining insect biology with biotechnology.

Superworms eat plastic too 

While the Spanish team continue their research and publish papers, a team in Queensland, Australia is looking at a beetle larvae’s ability to eat plastic. 

Scientists at the University of Queensland found that the larvae of darkling beetles, Zophobas morio eat plastic and the enzymes seem to be located in their stomachs, or gut.

Chris Rinke, who led the study said that he had heard that tiny waxworms and mealworms (also a beetle larvae) were good at eating plastic so he wanted to test a hypothesis that larger superworms, bred for reptile and bird food, and for humans to eat in Thailand and Mexico, could eat even more plastic.  can eat even more.”

Superworms can grow up to 2 inches grow up to two inches (five centimeters) and are bred as a food source for reptiles and birds, or even for humans in countries such as Thailand and Mexico.

Rinke and his team fed superworms different diets over a three week period, with some given polystyrene foam, commonly known as styrofoam, some bran, and others not fed at all.

“We confirmed that superworms can survive on a sole polystyrene diet, and even gain a small amount of weight – compared to a starvation control group – which suggests that the worms can gain energy from eating polystyrene,” he said.

In 2019, a study at Stanford in the United States, confirmed mealworms, a beetle larva, can eat plastic.

“This is definitely not what we expected to see,” lead author Anja Malawi Brandon, a PhD candidate at Stanford at the time said: “It’s amazing that mealworms can eat a chemical additive without it building up in their body over time. “This suggests the worms can derive energy from the polystyrene, most likely with the help of their gut microbes.”

What worms are confirmed to eat plastic?

1. Waxworms, a moth larvae, Spain
2. Superworms, a beetle larvae, Queensland, Australia
3. Mealworms, a beetle larvae, Stanford Study

Try your own plastic eating superworm experiment at home

Do they eat plastic?

1. Buy live superworms at Petsmart.
2. Place them in screen-covered Ball jars
3. Set up pilots as below
4. Weigh worms, frass (worm poop), and plastics until moths emerge
5. Share your findings in the comments section below

Pilot 1: Conditions: 5 worms per jar under 2 light regiments (darkness, natural light).

Plastics: water bottle (Polyethylene teraphthalate (PET)), soda bottle (PET colored), PVC tubing (Poly(Diallyl phthalate (PDAP))), bottle caps (Ethylene/Vinyl Acetate(EVAC)), and projector sheet (Hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose).

Pilot 2: Conditions: 5 worms per jar under 2 light regimes (natural, UV light).

Plastics: grocery bag (polyethylene, high density(HDPE(1))), produce bag (HDPE(2)), Ramen package (polypropylene, isotactic), bottle caps (EVAC), green mesh (HDPE(3)), and chocolate mold (polystyrene(PS)). Controls: 5 worms per jar, under all 3 light conditions (darkness, natural and UV light), with NO plastics.

Pilot 3: Conditions: 10 worms per ball jar, under most favorable light regimes (natural and UV light)

Plastics: grocery bag (HDPE(1)), Ramen package (PP), produce bag (HDPE(2)), and bottle caps (EVAC).

Pilot 4: best conditions, highest performing plastics

Conditions: 10 worms, under UV light conditions. Plastic: produce bag (HDPE(1)) Replication: 3 replicates, one control worm jar (no plastics).

(Above experiment idea via SUNY)

The post These worms eat plastic appeared first on Green Prophet.

New research presented by the American Chemical Society at their August meeting warned of the damage disposable contact lenses cause after they are flushed down our home plumbing, a daily habit of many of the 45 million Americans who wear them. Plastic is pollution in whatever form it comes in.

Those flimsy, flexible lenses easily pass through sewage treatment plant filters. Sinking to the bottom of rivers and oceans, the impacts to bottom-feeding fish and other marine life is real.

With awareness on plastic straws covered, it’s time to switch to recycling contact lenses. Some opticians in Canada have started accepting used lenses, a compounding problem if you wear dailies. Canada is a leading country in environmental awareness. 

Myopic me has had a long love/hate relationship with contact lenses, made somewhat better when disposables came online. Pop a fresh pair in, see the world in crystal clarity, maybe even play with a new eye color change, and at the end of the day, kick off my shoes and chuck the used lenses. I toss them in the trash, but what happens if you opt to flush them down a toilet?

The researchers tested how 11 types of lenses survive in wastewater treatment facilities, finding that they can fragment into tiny shards, becoming part of the increasing amounts of microplastic pollution in our oceans and other waterways. Alarmingly, the shredded plastic sops up high volumes of other pollutants on its trip to the sea, which are ingested by the marine life as part of a dystopian food chain, eventually making its way into human food.

Plastic micro-particles now taint everything from German beer to table salt. That’s an argument for buying pink Himalayan salt which is farmed in Pakistan from the mountains before humans started polluting the sea.

In theory, these sewage-stewed contact lens slivers could hurt coral too. According to The Guardian, a recent study found that microorganisms borne by microplastics that then snag on a single coral can sicken entire reefs an a gangrene-like sweep.

Is the concern overblown? According to the researchers’ anonymous study, 19% of all contact lens wearers flush their lenses down the toilet or dumped them down the sink drain. An estimated 10 metric tons of lenses end up in wastewater each year, and that’s just calculating the American contribution.

An article in Quartz advises that US consumers can participate in a used contacts recycling program offered by lensmaker Bausch + Lomb, check their website for details.  But the simplest solution? Put them in the trash, not down the drain.

New research finds microplastics may be released in the eye

In a 2023 study from the State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of Environment, Nanjing University China, researchers found that thousands of bits of microplastics may be released in your eye during the normal course of wearing them. They report in Environmental Science & Technology:

“The widespread use of plastic products leads to the ubiquity of microplastics in daily life, while the release of microplastics from long-used contact lenses has not been reported due to the limitations of conventional detection methods.

“Here, we established a new and rapid method to capture and count microplastics by using a high-content screening system. This method can simultaneously measure the diameter, area, and shape of each plastic particle, and the reliability and applicability of this method were verified with commercial microplastics. It is estimated that 90,698 particles of microplastics could be released from a pair of contact lenses during a year of wearing.

“Our study reveals an undiscovered pathway of microplastic direct exposure to humans, highlighting the urgent need to assess the potential health risks caused by eye exposure to microplastics.”

The solution? Daily eye exercises to correct vision naturally or going back to glasses or the glass-based contact lenses that people wore in the past.

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Ever visit a 7-11 in Thailand? Or a convenience store anywhere in the world? How about the middle aisles of every grocery store? Single bananas wrapped in plastics. Refined foods, sub-divided, then wrapped. Single cookies. Single candies. Single everything in a plastic coating in a plastic bag in a plastic lined box. How long can this go on? Climate scientists call for a plastic diet, asking governments to cap production. 

An international group of experts says the production of new plastics should be capped to solve the plastic pollution problem. The authors argue that all other measures won’t suffice to keep up with the pace of plastic production and releases. The letter was published in the journal Science.

Capping production of new plastics, the authors implore, will help cut their release to the environment — and the release of dioxins, PVC, Bisphenol A— and brings other benefits, from boosting the value of plastics to helping tackle climate change., the scientists write in their plea. 

The letter comes two months after the United Nations’ historic decision to adopt a global treaty to end plastic pollution, and governmental negotiations on the agreement are set to begin on May 30. These will foster intense debates on what kind of measures will be needed to end the pollution of the air, soils, rivers and oceans with plastic debris and microplastics. Microplastics are in the air we breathe. Microplastics are teaming up with other toxins for an additive effect. Microplastics are found in baby faeces. Microplastics are linked to Covid problems. 

How do we stop microplastics?

Regulating, capping, and in the long term phasing out the production of new plastics.

“Even if we recycled better and tried to manage the waste as much as we can, we would still release more than 17 million tons of plastic per year into nature,” says Melanie Bergmann of the German Alfred-Wegener-Institute, the initiator of the letter. “If production just keeps growing and growing, we will be faced with a truly Sisyphean task,” she adds.

Research published in Science in 2020 shows that plastic emissions can only be cut by 79 per cent over the next 20 years if all solutions available today are implemented, including replacing some plastics with other materials, and improved recycling and waste management.

“The exponentially growing production is really the root cause of the problem, and the amounts of plastics we have produced thus far have already exceeded planetary boundaries,” says Bethanie Carney Almroth of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. “If we don’t tackle that, all other measures will fail to achieve the goal of substantially reducing the release of plastic into the environment,” she said.

Why we should plastics in feeding animals

Phasing out the production of new plastics from fresh feedstocks should be part of a systemic solution to end plastic pollution, the experts from Canada, Germany, India, Norway, Sweden, Turkey, the UK and the U.S. argue. This approach is supported by the best science available today and in line with what political and legal experts proposed in Science last year.

Along with measures to address the consumption and demand side of the problem — such as taxes — a comprehensive approach must also cover the supply side, meaning the actual amount of plastics produced and put on the market.

Gradually cutting the production of new plastics will come with many societal, environmental and economic benefits, the scientists say.

Sedat Gündoğdu of the Cukurova University, Turkey, says “The massive production also feeds the plastic waste transfer from the Global North to the South. A production cap will facilitate getting rid of non-essential applications and reduce plastic waste exports.”

“We gain a lot of benefits from plastics but reducing production will increase the value of plastics, boost other measures to curb plastic pollution, help tackle climate change and promote our transition to a circular and sustainable economy,” adds Martin Wagner, an ecotoxicologist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

The post Scientists call for a plastic cap appeared first on Green Prophet.

Like fast food, Dollar Store and Dollar Tree items are cheap, feel good and offer a temporary fix. Dollar Stores and the concept of buying low quality throwaway plastic goods resonates with everyone but especially with lower income families and people with people of color. A new report finds that 54% of all the products tested at Dollar Stores contain hazardous chemicals linked to cancer, learning disabilities and serious illnesses.

On the eve of the Dollar Tree/Family Dollar annual shareholder meeting, the Campaign for Healthier Solutions – a group of over 200 health, science-based, environmental justice organizations in the United States – released a report about toxic chemicals in products at discount retailers, including Dollar General, Dollar Tree/Family Dollar, 99 Cents Only and Five Below.

The report — Toxic Chemicals in Dollar Store Products: 2021 Results — contains test results from over 200 products such as toys, jewelry, school supplies and other household items. Over half – 54% – contained at least one chemical of concern.

“Once again we have tested products at discount retailers and we are still finding the same harmful chemicals every time. These chemicals disproportionately impact communities of color and low-income neighborhoods. Many of these communities already have multiple exposures because they are located in heavily industrialized areas,” said Jose T. Bravo, National Coordinator for the Campaign for Healthier Solutions.

“Fortunately, Dollar Tree/Family Dollar has expressed interest in cleaning up their supply chain, but Dollar General who this year reported 33 billion dollars in net sales, will not even respond to our requests to discuss the issue.”

BPA in canned foods

The following concerns were identified in the products tested in the new report:

Canned food contained toxic interior coatings that included BPA – a chemical associated with hormone disruption – and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which can contain plasticizers that are linked to asthma and other lung problems.

Pans and cookware were coated with BPA-based epoxy as well as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), linked to cancer, low infant birth weights, and immune system problems.

100% of microwave popcorn tested positive for PFAS coatings inside the packaging.

We thought this was behind us 10 years ago, but no. One hundred percent of store receipts contained Bisphenol S (BPS), an unfortunate substitute for BPA with similar health risks. Imagine if you are working at these shops as a cashier?

Consumer electronics contained lead in the solder, a toxic metal that harms brain development and could impact the workers who put these products together. These electronics also contained toxic flame retardants and phthalate plasticizers, linked to birth defects, reduced fertility, cancer, learning disabilities, diabetes, and other health issues.

A variety of products contained other chemicals of concern, including antimony compounds, associated with respiratory irritation and organotins associated with hormone disruption.

Earlier this year, the fifth annual Mind the Store report card was released, ranking 50 companies according to their level of chemical safety in products. Dollar Tree/Family Dollar was one of the most improved, going from a D+ in the last report to a C+ in 2021. Dollar Tree/Family Dollar has met with the Campaign for Healthier Solutions and recently expressed a commitment to clean up their supply chain.

They have also publicly released a chemical policy, a commitment to eliminate priority chemicals, and a pollinator protector policy, and have stated in private that they plan to expand the number of chemicals that they are phasing out, as well as the number of products they will be cleaning up.

“We’re very encouraged with the communication that we’ve had with Dollar Tree/Family Dollar,” said Bravo. “We’ve made a lot of inroads with their chemical policy to protect customers, workers and the company’s bottom line, and encourage other dollar store chains to be just as transparent in their chemical policies and commitments to improve.”

Dollar General, which received a C- grade in the 2021 report card, has not responded to any recent communication from the Campaign for Healthier Solutions about expanding their list of restricted substances and product categories that they are focusing on.

Although Dollar General received positive attention last week for selling fresh groceries at some stores, they halted communication with the AgriCultura Network (ACN) in Albuquerque, a partner of the Campaign for Healthier Solution. During a face-to-face discussion between ACN and Dollar General in 2019, some parameters were set around certifications that ACN needed to become a local vendor. The project has since come to a standstill. This is an important pilot project because it would potentially give Dollar General a source for locally-grown produce and shelf-stable products directly from community gardens.

“Dollar Stores are often the most convenient places for busy families to purchase snacks and meals,” said Helga Garcia-Garza , Executive Director of the AgriCultura Network. “We will not stop fighting until we know these stores are not selling toxic products, including food, especially products targeted for children.”

99 Cents Only Stores have done nothing to phase out toxic chemicals. They have earned an F grade with zero points on the Retailer Report Card for the third year in a row, landing them in the Toxic Hall of Shame.

Many of the products in Five Below stores are targeted toward children. Still, 66% of the products in the new report from Five Below tested positive for at least one chemical of concern. Although Five Below is a new target for the Campaign for Healthier Solutions, the group’s members are hopeful that they will soon be ready to begin eliminating hazardous chemicals from their products.

The good news is that there was some improvement from the Campaign’s 2015 product testing report – A Day Late and a Dollar Short: Discount Retailers are Falling Behind on Safer Chemicals. At that time, 164 products were tested and over 81% contained at least one chemical of concern, including lead in children’s jewelry, which was not found in the latest round of testing.

“We hope discount retailers will phase out these harmful chemicals once and for all,” said Bravo. “Until then, we will continue testing and releasing the results.”

The post More than half of Dollar Store products contain toxins that can hurt you appeared first on Green Prophet.

If you have ever spent Spring Break at a beach in Panama City you would be shocked. Get up at the crack of dawn and you find plastic cups and bottles as far as the eye can see littering the beach. When I was there some years ago with my parents we were also disheartened  to learn that the bottles that don’t get swept into the sea, just get thrown into the municipal trash. Because while recycling efforts may take the sting or guilt from our hearts, most plastics we use today don’t get recycled at all. 

With Covid times and one-time use more in demand, Americans consume 70 billion plastic water bottles each year on planes, at offices, at resorts, at school, at home –– only 8% of the U.S.’s plastic waste is recycled. Boxed Water is Better, a company that proposes an interim solution is better for the planet. After all, plastic waste simply cannot continue to build at this rate.. er!”

The brand gets the single-use rub. Their official motto is “Boxed Water is Better, Refill is best,” which is why they are focused on distribution channels where packaged water is unavoidable, e.g. airlines, hotels, restaurants, take-out, entertainment venues, sports, venues. And with our current annual rate of plastic water bottle consumption (again 70 billion!), it’s unrealistic to expect a network of purified refill stations to appear overnight in the immediate future. 

Boxed Water sources 92 percent of its packaging from plants, the highest rate for any water product. Every carton is fitted with a plant-based cap that won’t take forever to break down in the environment. 

“Recycling efforts can no longer keep up with the world’s plastic production, and the shift toward plant-based products is critical for our planet’s wellbeing,” Daryn Kuipers, the CEO of Boxed Water tells Green Prophet. “Our product is almost entirely plant-based, and we are proud to have the highest sustainable content in the water category, at about 92%.”

Caps made from FSC-certified wood waste

The plant-based cap is made from FSC-certified sustainably grown trees used for pulp and bioenergy and has lower CO2 emissions than petroleum and sugarcane. 

Every Boxed Water carton offers a similar plant-based design, created out of paper sourced from trees in well managed forests. “We needed to create a better plant-based cap than what was currently being offered,” Kuipers adds, “by avoiding sugar cane, we are using substantially fewer natural resources and generating a lower environmental footprint.”  

Boxed Water remains committed to their promise to always deliver 100% recyclable and BPA free packaging. Compared to aluminum (which is mined from Bauxite), Boxed Water is 50% lower impact on ozone depletion and smog emissions from smelting, and has a 33% lower impact on acidification due to deforestation. 

• U.S. consumes more plastic than any other country in the world. Our plastic recycling rates are at 8%
• U.S. plastic waste inputs to the coastal environment were among the highest in the world: 51- 1.45 million metric tons
• U.S. purchases 70 billion plastic water bottles per year. 
• #1 ocean bound plastic: beverage bottles. #2: bottle caps

Measuring a box footprint

These days everyone in the consumer and service industry is measuring their carbon footprint and just buying offsets or ESG investments won’t do. It’s easy to buy your way out of offsetting, hearder to do it in-house. But here is an easy way to slash the carbon footprint for hotels, events producers, and airlines. When we fully emerge from Covid, be ready: Compared to plastic, Boxed Water has a 64% lower carbon footprint (lower contributor to global warming), 43% less fossil fuel use, and 1,084% lower in impact on the ozone. Also, only 25% of plastic is recycled.

Currently available in multiple sizes, Boxed Water can be purchased in a 250mL, 330mL, 500mL and 1 liter box, and is packed in 6-pack, 12-pack and 24-pack configurations. 

Boxed Water say they address the front-end of the problem too –– and that the environmental impact of oil drilling and blow molding needed for food grade plastic… and the strip mining and smelting required for aluminum is extremely damaging to the planet as well.

If you want to dive into the boxed water story, watch this recorded Zoom session:

An outside company, Anthesis Group, looked at Boxed Water and reported Boxed Water has a 36% lower carbon footprint  global warming), 43% less fossil fuel use, and 95% lower impact on our ozone.

We spoke with CRO Robert Koenen, asking him some additional questions:

If your packaging could be 100% biodegradable and plant-derived, how would that look? Imagine 10 years down the line. Where would the materials come from? (Want to encourage chemists to start thinking how)

It’s a great question and we’re always trying to make our product more sustainable.  We’re proud that our package is already 92% plant-derived, the highest in the industry. I think what so many people miss in the sustainability discussion is the importance of how you source materials. We know that plastic and aluminum are actually not sustainable because they come from finite resources that deplete the planet. Our paper-based carton is the only water that is made from a renewable resource- trees. Even some plant-based plastics, like sugarcane, are grown and harvested solely for the production of plastic. That’s why our Boxed Water’s plant-based cap comes from Nordic pine tree oil, which is leftover from the paper-making process. Our plant-based cap was a new innovation we announced in 2020, and our entire product’s history has been centered around new approaches to packaging.  

In order for our carton to be 100% biodegradable, we would need to remove some barrier between the paperboard and the water to keep the water fresh and the box intact. We know that even with a sustainability mission, you still need to offer customers an exceptional product, so if any of your chemist readers want to work on a material to safely and sustainably protect the package and water, we’d love it. We are currently looking at ways to remove those layers ourselves, while still keeping the water pure.  We’re still a small company trying to make a big impact, so the more that sustainability becomes “mainstream” the bigger impact we can make. 

What are the most polluting industries for plastic bottles, in order with stats… hotels, travel, home? Schools? 

The bottled water industry is the largest polluter–with Coke, Pepsi and Nestle leading the pack. Bottles, caps and ties make up the overwhelming majority of pollution that is found in the ocean.  Hotels, travel, schools are all places you find bottles—we are blind to the amount of plastic that is around us.  I challenge your readers to stop the next time they are in a grocery store to stop in the water aisle and just look at the tons of plastic–in just one store. 

I will speak to the industries that we see making changes in a meaningful way.  The high carbon footprint of the travel industry is well-documented. It makes such an impact when you have people from around the world coming and going for short amounts of time. While it would be wonderful to solely use reusable bottles, the travel industry is one of the more challenging situations when you look at it practically, and in the age of COVID, shared water pitchers or drinking fountains aren’t always a safe option.

While the travel industry generates a lot of plastic bottles, they also have an enormous opportunity for impact and we’ve seen them be some of our most-receptive customers. Much of the travel and hospitality industry is based upon the experience you provide customers, and customers take note when you offer a Boxed Water instead of a plastic bottle. We’ve even had hotel customers share that they make more sales because customers are happier and more likely to purchase a Boxed Water than a plastic bottled water.

We’ve seen a growing area of interest from schools as well because young people are so passionate about environmental change – it’s their future we’re talking about. While schools often encourage and have reusable water bottles more easily accessible, we’ve seen calls from the student-level demanding their schools shift from plastic water bottles. 

Retail stores that provide water, specifically in the fashion industry, have made the switch to cartons.  Handing a bottle of water to a consumer is like handing them a pack of cigarettes.

Of course, we think that small changes end up making the biggest impact. We continue to work with the industries that go through billions of single-use plastic bottles every year, the average American uses 167 single-use plastic bottles a year. If you made a change for yourself and your family, you could stop hundreds of plastic bottles from polluting the planet. We’re here to empower every person to make a change, by making the sustainable choice simple and convenient. 

How do big box stores with low cost water contribute to the plastic problem? You can buy 24 bottles for .99 in some Costcos sometimes

There is a reason that plastic bottles are so prevalent: they are inexpensive to produce. These low costs lead to huge margins, and it’s a big profit generator for these stores.  It’s literally a financial addiction.  Unfortunately, these low cost items come at an astronomical price for our planet. While most importantly everyone should have access to clean water, we want to make the sustainable choice a simple and convenient one for consumers. We hope that you think twice about purchasing single-use plastic bottles and if you don’t see an alternative, ask for one. Only consumer demand can change this addiction for the big boxes. 

How does plastic residue affect the water? Even if it’s food safe, I somehow don’t trust it. Explain what you think.

I trust it.  We test our water constantly during the day to make sure it’s super pure and pH balanced.  We are BPA free, and also remove impurities.  Due to our package construction, we don’t need to use BPA plastic so it doesn’t affect your health or the taste.  In fact, we’ve won awards for the fresh taste of our water. Plastic has infiltrated not just our lifestyle, but our food chain.

There are the negative effects of BPA in plastic impacting our health, and so thankfully with this awareness, there has been a push to ensure many products are free of BPA (like our Boxed Water!). However, the pollution of plastic in our oceans is breaking down into micro-plastics and being eaten by fish and other sea creatures. People consume a credit card’s worth of plastic every week. Again, there isn’t any doubt that for the health of our planet and ourselves, we need to be seeking alternatives to single-use plastic. ….I’d be more worried about residue in the plastic bottles.

Thank you for the interview! For more information see Boxed Water is Better

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A Thai supermarket in Chiangmai has devised a brilliant alternative to plastic produce packaging, turning to natural banana leaves and raffia to bundle vegetables. Shoppers  immediately responded, posting pictures of the aesthetically pleasing and sustainable wrappers on social media. The eco-friendly merchandising scheme was featured on the Rimping supermarket Facebook page last week, and  Vietnamese supermarkets quickly adopted the idea. Major market chains in Vietnam, such as Lotte Mart, Saigon Co.op, and Big C, have all begun to experiment with banana leaves as a packaging alternative in their stores as well.

In an interview with VnExpress, a representative from the Lotte Mart chain stated that they are still in the testing phase but plan to replace plastic with leaves nationwide very soon. Aside from wrapping vegetables and fruits, the grocery chain intends to also use the leaves for fresh meat products.

Customers applaud the effort. “When I see vegetables wrapped in these beautiful banana leaves I’m more willing to buy in larger quantities,” said a local shopper. “I think this initiative will help locals be more aware of protecting the environment.”

According to VN Express, the use of the leaves as packaging is a welcome addition to the numerous other efforts establishments in Vietnam are experimenting with to reduce plastic waste. Big C already offers biodegradable bags made with corn powder in its stores.

Vietnam ranks fourth in the world for the most amount of plastic waste dumped into the ocean, with a reported 2,500 tons of plastic waste disposed in the sea daily. According to a Vice report, banning or reducing single-use plastic bags in supermarkets is a growing trend in Asia. South Korea recently banned use of disposable plastic bags, requiring supermarkets and other commercial establishments to provide recyclable containers to customers.

Singapore supermarkets have also been launching campaigns informing the public on the need to reduce plastic bag use, and Taiwanese shops have started charging for single-use plastic bags to discourage customers from using them. Meanwhile, China has seen a 66% drop in plastic bag use in over a decade since banning the use of ultra-thin plastic bags in 2008.

Images via Facebook/perfecthomes

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France has passed a new law that bans cups, cutlery, plates, and takeaway containers made from plastic. It’s The part of the nation’s Energy Transition for Green Growth Act, which will also carry out a ban on plastic bags in grocery shops and markets beginning in July. The law comes into effect in 2020.

French President Francois Hollande says the law aims to make France ‘an exemplary nation in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, diversifying its energy model and increasing the deployment of renewable energy sources’.  Viva la France! But why stop at its borders?Arash Derambarsh, a municipal councillor for the commune of Courbevoie in Paris, has called for the ban on single-use plastics to be implemented across Europe. Derambarsh is an environmental action figure; he previously led a successful campaign to ban French supermarkets from throwing away unsold food products.He told The Independent, “This problem of recycling exists in all European countries. We have to pass the same law in all European countries to tackle this very important problem of waste.”  He describes the new law as one part of a circular economy of waste disposal, one of several legislated measures to reduce waste production and divert remaining waste from landfills.

The law requires all plastic single-use items to be made from biologically-sourced materials that can be composted after use.

It’s not rocket-science. Bans on free-issue plastic shopping bags have been on national law books for over a decade. The Republic of Ireland (enacted in 2002), Denmark (2003), Belgium (2007), Mexico (2010), Wales and Italy (2011),  Scotland (2014), and England (2015) all tackled the problem with legislation.

China, Bangladesh, South Africa, Uganda, Somalia, Rwanda Botswana, Kenya and Ethiopia have enacted total bans. The United States does not consider it a federal issue, instead leaving it to states, counties, and cities (since 2013, at least 17 states, and 98 cities and counties have enforced bans).

The Middle East has been slow to join in, despite having many of its main touristic venues and natural habitats seriously polluted by uncollected plastic garbage. EcoMENA reports that some governments have tried to raise public awareness and incite behavioral change, but full-bore bans – with rigorous enforcement – have not been enacted.

In 2009, the UAE Ministry of Environment and Water launched the “UAE free of plastic bags” initiative. Dubai Municipality launched a “No to Plastic Bags” campaign to eliminate 500 million plastic bags from circulation. Smaller scale efforts in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait encourage clean-up campaigns in seas, deserts and cities, but do not deter usage of disposable plastics.

In 2014, Jordan announced plans to ban plastic bags and wraps used in food sales, but two years on there is little evidence of policy enforcement. In 2017, two years after the initiative was first raised, Israel passed a law that halted free issue of plastic bags at all large supermarket chains.  The law also imposed a full ban on very thin plastic bags (less than 20 microns).

Hurghada, Egypt became the first plastic-bag-free governorate with a 2009 ban which also generated employment opportunities for women who create reusable cloth bags to replace plastic ones.

The French law moves beyond bags to include food industry single-use plastics. France is the first nation on the planet to do so, an action that could be repeated everywhere to forcibly halt our culture of waste. Predictably, the law faces opposition from the European packaging industry, who claim that the ban violates European Union rules on free movement of goods and protection of manufacturers.

Pack2Go Europe, a Brussels-based trade organization representing manufacturers, has said it will fight the new law and work to prevent its adoption by the rest of the continent. “We are urging the European Commission to do the right thing and to take legal action against France for infringing European law,” Pack2go Europe secretary-general Eamonn Bates told The Associated Press. “If they don’t, we will.”

Bates believes there is no proof the biologically-sourced materials are more environmentally beneficial and that the ban might exacerbate pollution worse as people may increase littering, thinking the products degrade instantly when exposed to natural elements. It’s a view shared by Daniella Dimitrova Russo from the Plastic Pollution Coalition (read her Op Ed on the matter – link here).

Perhaps edible plastics are the way to go? Feed the world by literally eating up potential litter. There’s an idea to chew on.

Image from Metro UK

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The Saudi crew, headed by an environmental team from Italian oil and gas contractor Saipem SpA, chose a beach cleaning project. Baish Beach is a stretch of sand in the Farasan Islands, located 50 km off the Saudi port city of Jazan, near Yemen and Eritrea. See the “before” condition, above, versus the “after” condition, below.

Volunteers from Aramco Management, Nasser S Al Hajri Corporation, and Consolidated Contractors International Company – ranging from day workers to Senior Vice Presidents – slapped on sunscreen and donned rubber work gloves (safety first!) and spent the day picking up plastic bottles, bags, and paper products. They raked smaller debris from the powdery sands.

In addition, Saipem engineers installed metal waste containers along the beach access road to encourage visitors to properly dispose of their garbage. The results were impressive, but without public education and penalties for littering, how long until the beach again looks like a landfill?

Earlier this year, Saudi tourism authorities announced that they targeted the Farasan Islands for development as the kingdom moves to diversify its economy beyond fossil fuels. Most of Saudi’s islands are along its Red Sea coast, some 1,150 in total. Sixty-six of these beaches – ringed by mangrove forests and coral reefs – have been selected for investment, including the three main Farasan islands (Farasan, Sajid and Muharraq).

Rustom Al-Kubaisi of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage told Telegraph Travel the country was aiming to attract luxury hotel developers to build “scuba diving, spa and resort facilities” on the three main islands. Readily accessible by ferry, the islands are home to nesting sea turtles, Arabian gazelle, and a wide range of seabirds. Perhaps they will coordinate with the developers of Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, who have successfully combined five-star luxury with strict sustainability standards.

“For the time being it is aimed at Saudis and expats, but maybe Western tourists in the future, why not,” said Al-Kubaisi.

That “why not” prompts several responses. Restrictions on female travelers deter women from visiting Saudi Arabia; currently only foreign men come to the islands for underwater sports. The proximity to Yemen is problematic; as example the British Foreign Office currently deems Jazan off-limits for its subjects.

Jazan is the second smallest region of Saudi Arabia, running 300 km along the southern Red Sea coast, just north of Yemen. About 1.5 million people live in the archipelago. It’s Saudi’s poorest zip code, with about one third of its families living below the poverty line.

The Farasan Islands are Saudi Arabia’s first conservation protected area.  Kudos to these volunteers for their efforts on Baish Beach. The cleanup team are all stakeholders in the Jazan IGCC (integrated gasification combined-cycle) project.

Images courtesy of Saipem SpA 

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Want a peek into a dystopian future? This is an update on the garbage crisis in Lebanon, which is largely attributed to a corrupted political system, but it’s also a cautionary tale about uncontrolled consumerism and environmental arrogance that could happen in nearly every free market zip code.

Since the nation’s largest landfill closed in July, Lebanon has been drowning in its own garbage. The waste crisis escalated last weekend when angry demonstrators tried to storm the parliament in Beirut. Riot police responded with tear gas and water cannon, and according to some reports, rubber bullets and live ammunition. An unspecified number of demonstrators and more than 35 Internal Security Forces (ISF) members were wounded, according to an ISF online statement.

The Naameh dump site in the mountains southeast of Beirut (shown above) had been the endpoint for waste generated by half of Lebanon’s four million people. This summer,  when authorities failed to find an alternate landfill, Naameh residents blocked trucks from dropping new garbage, which triggered a waste collection shutdown across wider Beirut. So began a domino effect that resulted in the death of one Beirut protester, and as yet undefined environmental fallout.

Garbage dropped near the Port of Beirut (shown above) triggered a mid-August work stoppage over mounting health and safety concerns. “We will not accept our port becoming the capital’s dumping ground. The health of all who enter the port is at risk, workers, visitors and customers.” Bchara Asmar, president of the Union of Beirut port employees, told ITF Global. He added that the Lebanese government has not provided a viable long-term waste management solution; forcing municipalities to resort to temporary remedies.

The situation has prompted protests across Beirut, but also grassroot solutions. Local priests are calling for reduced pollution, citing Pope Francis’ recent criticism of our “throwaway culture”. The mayor of northern town Roumieh organized volunteers and city employees to collect recyclables and biodegradable waste (such as food scraps) on a regular schedule. Recyclables with commercial value will be sold to help underwrite the initiative.

Beirut business owner and environmental engineer Ziad Abichaker told the Wall Street Journal, “I think it is a golden opportunity now to start saying to people that you need a paradigm shift. You need to stop looking at waste as a problem and start looking at it as a resource.”

These efforts – quietly pursued before the protests – are garnering increased attention by a public desperate to dig out of the stinking debris. (Reports state some 20 tons of rubbish have been dumped in the capital’s streets).

Lebanon has been without a president for 15 months.  Its government is viewed as paralyzed and ineffective, a reputation underscored when Environment Minister Mohammed el-Mashnouq posted a statement saying his office was “working silently” to resolve what he called “a tragic situation”.

Reduce, reuse, recycle. Those actions won’t fix a broken bureaucracy, but will lessen the pain when civil services collapse.

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Two years back, Green Prophet ran a story about a Dutch engineering student who devised a way to siphon off the gargantuan plastic garbage patches (called gyres) growing unchecked in our seas. Then-19-year-old Boyan Slat claimed his floating “Ocean Cleanup Array”, developed with classmate Tan Nguyen, could clean up each gyre in about 5 years, removing millions of tons of plastic powered by sunshine and using natural ocean currents. Turns out the kid wasn’t just a flash in the eco-pan.

Since the initial press buzz that followed his first TedTalk in 2012, he’s completed a year-long feasibility study which concluded that the design is a feasible means of cleaning up nearly half the Great Pacific Garbage Patch within a decade. He’s also entered into agreement with Japanese authorities for a two-year pilot to be launched before summer 2016 off the coast of Tsushima, an island between Japan and South Korea, where the Ocean Cleanup’s trash removal capabilities will be put through its paces.

Ocean waste washes up on Tsushima’s shoreline at a rate of over 35 cubic feet per capita per year. Officials are considering proposals to use that waste as a new energy source for the population of about 35,000.

The pilot will feature floating booms spanning an estimated 1.2 miles across the sea surface, making it the longest floating structure in history. Collection platforms will be anchored to the sea bed. Water moves debris into the floating booms, which are angled according to surface currents; they replace net technology, ensuring near-zero fish by-catch.

Garbage is funneled towards the processing platforms where it’s separated from plankton, dewatered, and stored in containers until collected for upland recycling.

If it extracts floating plastics as planned, the team plans to deploy a “62-mile-long array that will be capable of capturing about half of the trash in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch” over the course of a decade, according to Al Jazeera.  That’s an estimated 70,320,000 kg of trash, implying a cleanup cost of about $5 per kilo, or $2 per pound.

In August, he will conduct a “Mega Expedition,” leading fifty ships between Hawaii and California in the first-ever effort to create a high-resolution map of oceanic plastic deposits. In a press release, Slat claims the expedition will “collect more plastic measurements in three weeks than have been collected in the past 40 years combined.”

Listen to Slat explain himself in this 2014 clip:

[youtube]https://youtu.be/QpDxE8BhPSM[/youtube]

It’s a fairly simple idea, but in practice, the size and scale of the Ocean Cleanup Array is staggering. There are known flaws (the array cannot capture microplastics), and even if effective, it’s still just part of the solution. Says Slat, “It is of paramount importance to also ‘close the tap’, to prevent more plastic from entering the oceans in the first place.” That includes reducing our own plastic consumption and urging manufacturers and policy makers to tackle the issues on land.

Waterborne pollution affects Middle East shorelines from Israel to Oman, even Jordan’s minuscule Red Sea coastline is dotted with plastic. It’s only by trialing new ideas that a solution will be found. And while he moves forward, do your part.  Cut down your use of single-use plastics, and recycle.

Check out his website to see how you can support his work.

The post “The Largest Cleanup In History” – will Boyan Slat’s Ocean Cleanup Array scour plastic from the seas? appeared first on Green Prophet.