decompose

Plant-Based Bottles | Earth Wise

June 30, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Single-use plastic soda and water bottles are a real problem. Every year, billions of them are produced – comprising nearly 300 million tons of plastic that mostly ends up in landfills or in the ocean. This discarded plastic ends up on remote islands, in the snow atop mountains, and in trenches in the deepest parts of ocean.

There has been increasing pressure on beverage companies to put an end to this environmental disaster, but the convenience and economy of disposable bottles is just too attractive.

These bottles are made of plastic derived from oil and once they are produced, they take decades or even centuries to decompose. Recycling them is a not-starter because it is cheaper to just make new ones.

A possible solution has emerged. A Dutch company called Avantium has found a way to take plant sugars and transform them into a plastic capable of standing up to carbonated beverages like soda and beer but that will also break down in as little as a year in a composter or 3 years if left exposed to the elements.

Coca Cola and Carlsberg are working with Avantium to develop new drink packaging based on their material that could be in stores as soon as 2023. The new packaging would be quite different from what we use today. Instead of a clear or tinted bottle, beverages would come inside a cardboard container with a liner made of plant-based plastic.

It may take a while for people to get used to the change, but we have already managed to get used to milk, juice and other liquids coming in cardboard containers instead of glass or plastic bottles. The benefits to the planet would make the effort well worthwhile.

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Plant-Based Bottles Could Degrade In One Year

Photo courtesy of Avantium.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Methane-Eating Bacteria And Greenhouse Gas Emissions | Earth Wise

May 20, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

One of the great concerns about the warming Arctic temperatures is that thawing permafrost will release alarming amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Organic material in the permafrost begins to decompose when temperatures rise, and methane is released in the process.

Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Methane’s lifetime in the atmosphere is much shorter than carbon dioxide, but it is more efficient at trapping radiation. Pound for pound, the comparative impact of methane is more than 25 times greater than carbon dioxide.

A new study, published by scientists at Purdue University, has discovered a type of methane-oxidizing bacteria living in upland Arctic soils that could potentially be reducing the amount of methane emitted by decomposing permafrost.

The findings of the research indicate that the net greenhouse gas emissions from the Arctic may be much smaller than previously modeled because of the increased productivity of a type of bacteria known as high affinity methanotrophs, or HAMs. This group of bacteria uses atmospheric methane as an energy source. The emissions from wetlands will potentially be very large, but the contribution from the uplands will be mitigated by the bacteria.

Organic-rich soils, including permafrost, comprise only 13% of the Arctic land area and are the major source of methane emissions. The other 87% of the region is dominated by mineral-rich soils that support HAMs. Because of this, overall methane emissions continue to be less than climate models have predicted.

While this is good news, the researchers warn that Arctic emissions overall will continue to increase as shown in other studies.

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Methane-Eating Bacteria Could Help Decrease Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Thawing Arctic Tundra

Photo, posted July 12, 2016, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Fighting Climate Change With Trees

August 20, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

We cut down forests all around the world for a myriad of reasons, including livestock grazing, agricultural production, timber, and urban development. But what if we stopped cutting down forests for these things and additionally grew new forests on vacant lots and any other available parcels of land on earth? What impact could this have on our survival?

For the first time, scientists have quantified what impact this plan could have. According to a new study by researchers at ETH Zurich – a university that specializes in science, technology, and engineering – the planet could support nearly 2.5 billion additional acres of forest without shrinking current cities and farms. When all those acres of forest mature, the trees could store an extra 200 gigatons of carbon. This reforestation could stave off the most devastating impacts of global climate change.

Russia could restore the most acres of forest – 373 million acres to be precise – followed by the United States with 255 million acres and Canada with 193 million acres. Australia, Brazil, and China also have large areas well-suited for forest restoration.

The average global temperature has risen by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since the start of the industrial age with its surge in greenhouse gas emissions. Temperatures are projected to rise even more in the coming years as the planet continues to warm.

Trees absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and store it in their roots and branches. The absorbed carbon becomes part of the soil when trees die and decompose, and it can linger there for millennia depending on things like temperature and soil management. Trees are critical in the fight against climate change.

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How trees could save the climate

Photo, posted June 18, 2011, courtesy of K.W. Barrett via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Powering Cars With Cactus Juice

June 24, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Back in 2016, a company called Nopalimex, located in Micoacan, central Mexico, built the world’s first cactus-powered energy plant. The facility utilizes a biodigester to make biogas from nopal, also known as prickly pear cactus. The nopal plant has been called the ‘Green Gold of Mexico’ and is a staple in Mexican diets, medicine and cosmetics.

Nopalimex is now using the cactus to make biofuel for vehicles.

The fruit of the cactus is pureed, mixed with manure, and then left to decompose, producing methane. The methane produced – about eight tons a day – fuels the biodigester which powers the company’s corn chip and cactus chip production and is being tested in a fleet of government vehicles.

The biogas will cost just 65 cents per liter, which is about a third cheaper than the cost of regular gasoline. Using prickly pear as a feedstock for biofuel is attractive because it can be grown in places where traditional energy crops cannot. One can imagine vast fields of cacti in remote, arid areas of the country where normal crops cannot grow. It would not suck up the resources or space needed to feed people, which is an ongoing criticism of current bioenergy crops.

As long as the nopals are regularly replanted, the process is almost entirely sustainable, producing only water and nopal waste, which can be used to fertilize other crops.

Finding sustainable ways to produce fuel while doing minimal damage to the environment is an important challenge for countries around the world. In Mexico, harnessing the power of the prickly pear cactus is a unique and clever solution.

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Mexico’s ‘green gold’: The company powering cars with cactus juice

Photo, posted July 8, 2006, courtesy of Christian Frausto Bernal via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Getting Rid Of Plastic Here And Abroad

May 23, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Efforts in the fight against plastic pollution are really stepping up these days.

New York State lawmakers have agreed to impose a statewide ban on most types of single-use plastic bags from retail sales. The ban would be the second statewide ban after California, which banned the bags in 2016. Hawaii effectively also has such a ban since all of the state’s counties have their own bans.

The New York ban would begin next March and would forbid stores from providing customers with single-use plastic bags. There are a number of exceptions, including food takeout bags in restaurants, bags used to wrap deli or meat counter products, and newspaper bags. New York counties could opt into a plan to charge a 5-cent fee on paper bags, with proceeds going to the state’s Environmental Protection Fund. Some environmentalists point out, however, that paper bags have their own issues. While they do decompose in landfills, they have a substantial carbon footprint since they are made from wood and being heavier, they are more costly to ship. Business groups are concerned about the forthcoming ban based on increased costs.

Meanwhile, European Union member states have reached a provisional agreement to introduce restrictions on single-use plastic products. In 2021. European citizens will say goodbye to plastic cutlery, plastic plates and plastic straws among other products.

According to the European Commission, plastics make up 85% of beach litter in the Mediterranean. Large plastic pieces injure, suffocate, and often kill marine animals but microplastics have reached record levels of concentration – over a million fragments per square kilometer – in the Mediterranean.

Both here and abroad, the war on plastics is heating up.

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