Save the Ocean Life and Save Earth

A chemical breakthrough could eat the plastic pollution crisis Environment By   BONNIE CHRISTIAN  -  Sunday 1 July 2018 A new chemical process can liquify plastic. The next challenge? Creating a machine that can recycle the sludge on an industrial scale NOEL CELIS/AFP/Getty Images One single-use plastic bag takes at least 450 years to degrade. Give Miranda Wang three hours and she can reduce ten of them into liquid. Wang is the first to discover a chemical process that tackles the end-of-life of plastic. She first learned the scale of the problem in eighth grade with her friend, Jeanny Yao, when they visited a city waste recycling plant in Vancouver, Canada where they grew up. “That’s when we learnt that even plastics that are put into a curbside recycling bin end up being exported overseas in developing countries where they become ocean pollution,” she says. Since the 1950s, 8.3 billion tons of plastic has been produced. It's now found in toys, car parts, in don...

Microbead Ban On Rinse-Off Products Comes Into Effect Sabrina Barr @fabsab5 The ban has been issued in an effort to protect the marine environment The ban on products that contain  microbeads  will come into effect from today, the  government  has announced. In  January , it was revealed that manufacturers in the UK would no longer be allowed to develop products containing the miniscule pieces of  plastic , due to the detrimental impact that the plastic has had on the ocean. When products such as face washes, body scrubs and toothpaste that contain microbeads are flushed down the drain, they can consequently damage the marine environment when they eventually reach the sea. In 2016, a  report  issued by the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee stated that approximately 100,000 microbeads can make their way to the ocean from a single shower. The ban will prevent retailers in England and Scotland from selling products tha...

Plastic Wasteland: Asia's Ocean Pollution Crisis PUBLISHED JUN 5, 2018, 12:43 PM SGT This photo taken on May 12, 2018 shows Perigrina Santos, 81, collecting her laundry next to a garbage-filled creek in Manila. The blanket of trash on a creek that flows between the makeshift homes of a Manila slum is so dense it appears one could walk across it like a paved street. PHOTO: AFP THANH HOA, VIETNAM (AFP) - A Vietnamese mangrove draped with polythene, a whale killed after swallowing waste bags in Thai seas and clouds of underwater trash near Indonesian "paradise" islands - grim images of the plastic crisis that has gripped Asia. About eight million tonnes of plastic waste are dumped into the world's oceans every year, the equivalent of one garbage truck of plastic being tipped into the sea every minute of every day. More than half comes from five Asian countries: China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, according to a 2015 Ocean Conservancy report...

Food Deliver Service Deliveroo Partners with Emirates Wildlife Society - WWF By  Devina Divecha May 20, 2018 The partnership aims to contribute towards reduction in plastic waste in the UAE Andrey Nekrasov - WWF Green turtle (chelonia mydas), photographed in the Red Sea, Egypt Deliveroo has entered into a partnership with Emirates Wildlife Society in association with WWF (EWS-WWF), in a drive to contribute towards reduction in plastic waste across the UAE. The collaboration will introduce several initiatives in the market, which both support restaurant partners and educate consumers on how they can do their bit to reduce plastic pollution. Deliveroo general manager Anis Harb said in a statement: "Plastic pollution is a global issue and it’s imperative that businesses of all scales are responsible in making the necessary changes to prevent this crisis from destroying our planet further. This is something that we at Deliveroo care about deeply, so we’re making several...

Is Your Recycling is Getting Recycled? By    Livia Albeck-Ripka May 29, 2018 Plastics and papers from dozens of American cities and towns are being dumped in landfills after China stopped recycling most “foreign garbage.”                         Bales of recyclable waste in Seattle. American waste managers are struggling to find plants to process their recyclables. Credit                        Wiqan Ang for The New York Times Oregon is serious about recycling. Its residents are accustomed to dutifully separating milk cartons, yogurt containers, cereal boxes and kombucha bottles from their trash to divert them from the landfill. But this year, because of a far-reaching rule change in China, some of the recyclables are ending up in the local dump anyway. In recent months, in fact, thousands of tons of material left curbside for recycling in doz...

Whale Died After Eating 80 Plastic Bags 2 June 2018                        AFP/ THAIWHALES     Helpers tried to stabilise the whale but it died on Friday afternoon A pilot whale has died off southern Thailand after swallowing 80 plastic bags, Thai marine officials say. The whale vomited five bags during a vain attempt by conservation officials to save it in a canal in Songkhla province. The bags, weighing about 8kg (17lbs), had made it impossible for the whale to eat food, a marine expert said. A recent report warned the amount of plastic in the ocean could triple in a decade  unless litter was curbed. Thailand is a major user of plastic bags and its government last month announced it was considering a levy on them. They are believed to kill hundreds of marine animals there each year. The small male pilot whale had been discovered ailing and unable to swim in the Na Thap Canal last Monday.   ...

How Plastic Pollution is Affecting the Ocean Wildlife By   Kerry Taylor-Smith, B.Sc. (Hons)   May 16  2018 Image Credit:Shutterstock/ RichCarey Introduction A huge whale with a plastic bucket stuck in its mouth, new-born dolphin calves being exposed to pollutants through their mother’s contaminated milk, and seabirds unsuspectingly feeding their chicks piece of plastic - these scenes from the  BBC Blue Planet II documentary series were heart-breaking, and just a snapshot o f the problems plastic pollution is causing in the oceans. Effects of Plastic on Marine Life Fish, marine mammals and seabirds are being injured and killed by plastic pollution, and its it believed that 700 species could go extinct because of it. Current estimates suggest that at least 267 species worldwide have been affected, including 84% of sea turtle species, 44% of all seabird species and 43% of all marine mammal species – but there are probably many more. Deaths are chiefly caused by...