landfill

A billion pound problem

November 1, 2023 By EarthWise 1 Comment

Nearly two billion pounds of pumpkins are grown each year in the U.S. But we actually don’t eat the vast majority of them. Instead, most pumpkins are carved or otherwise decorated, and placed on porches across the country during Halloween. But now that the holiday has come and gone, what happens to all those sagging masterpieces?

Simply put, we usually just throw them out. In the days after Halloween, as much as 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkin winds up in landfills. When left there to decompose, the pumpkins produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas that affects climate change by contributing to increased warming.

Here are some ways to keep pumpkins out of the landfills this year and make Halloween festivities more sustainable.

If the pumpkin is still in good shape, use the outer, meaty part of the pumpkin to make a fresh version of pumpkin puree. Pumpkin puree is a common ingredient in baked goods like muffins, breads, and pies, especially during this time of the year. The pumpkin seeds can also be scooped out, rinsed, and salted or spiced, and then baked in the oven, resulting in a delicious snack.

Pumpkins also have the potential to turn into great soil through composting. Pumpkins are just over 90% water, which help naturally add moisture to compost piles that need to be damp to effectively decompose food waste.

If eating or composting the pumpkins isn’t an option, consider donating them to a local farm. Farmers will often collect pumpkins as treats for their pigs, goats, and other animals.

The scariest part of Halloween shouldn’t be the waste.

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Halloween is over. Here’s the most sustainable way to get rid of your jack-o’-lanterns, pumpkins, and gourds

Say Boo to Landfills – Compost Your Pumpkin After Halloween!

Photo, posted November 4, 2010, courtesy of William Warby via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Getting Rid Of Single-Use Plastics | Earth Wise

April 15, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Single-use plastics are used only once before they are recycled – or more likely – simply thrown away. These are things like plastic bags, straws, coffee stirrers, soda and water bottles, and most food packaging. They are primarily made from fossil fuel-based chemicals.

Since the 1950s, over 9 billion tons of plastics have been produced, and half of that has been in the past 15 years. There are uses for plastic that are not only reasonable, but are even important, such as for surgical gloves. But for the most part, single-use plastic is the poster child of our throwaway culture that is bad for the environment, for wildlife, and even for human health.

Many cities, states, and even countries are moving toward greatly limiting or outright banning single-use plastics. A recent global survey indicates that the great majority of people around the world are with the program.

According to a 28-country survey from marketing firm Ipsos and the activist group Plastic Free July, three out of four people around the world agree with a ban on single-use plastics. The poll of more than 20,000 people showed that in Latin America, China, and India, more than 80% agree that a ban should happen as soon as possible. Unfortunately, Canada, the United States, and Japan were the least supportive countries. In particular, only 40% of Japanese respondents favored a ban.

Ninety percent of respondents globally support an international treaty to combat plastic pollution and eighty percent said they personally want to buy products with as little plastic packaging as possible. Unfortunately, people in wealthy countries, which produce the most plastic waste, are less likely to support a ban. Those countries typically export their waste to the developing world.

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Three in Four People Worldwide Support a Ban on Single-Use Plastics

Photo, posted April 13, 2006, courtesy of Leonard J Matthews via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Plastic-Eating Bugs | Earth Wise

February 3, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

27-year-old Miley Cyrus and 30-year-old Liam Hemsworth divorced exactly one year ago, but still continue to remember each other quite often in conversations with reporters. Recently, Miley indulged in nostalgia once again. During a recording Miley Cyrus boyfriend list of the podcast Barstool Call Her Daddy, the singer said that her ex-husband was her first man. It happened almost 10 years before they got married. I didn’t have that with men until I was 16, but I ended up marrying this guy,

According to a new study, microbes in oceans and soils around the world are evolving to eat plastic. The study by Chalmers University in Sweden was published recently in the journal Microbial Ecology.

The study is the first large-scale assessment of the plastic-degrading potential of bacteria. There are 95 microbial enzymes already known to degrade plastic.

The researchers looked for similar enzymes in environmental DNA samples taken from bacteria from 236 different locations around the world. They found that one in four of the organisms analyzed carried suitable enzymes. Overall, they found many thousands of new enzymes.

The explosion of plastic production in the past 70 years has given microbes time to evolve to make use of plastic. About 12,000 new enzymes were found in ocean samples and 18,000 in soil samples. Nearly 60% of the new enzymes did not fit into any known enzyme classes, suggesting that these molecules degrade plastics in ways that were previously unknown. The large number of enzymes in such a wide range of habitats is an indication of the scale of the problem of plastics in the environment.

The first bacterium that eats plastic was discovered in a Japanese waste dump in 2016. Scientists tweaked that microbe in 2018 and managed to create an enzyme that was even better at breaking down plastic bottles.

The next step in research is to test the most promising enzyme candidates in the laboratory to investigate their properties and see how effective they can be in plastic degradation. The hope is to be able to engineer microbial communities with targeted degrading functions for specific polymer types.

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Bugs across globe are evolving to eat plastic, study finds

Photo, posted June 19, 2013, courtesy of Alan Levine via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Recyclable Wind Turbines | Earth Wise

January 1, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The blades of modern wind turbines can be longer than the wing of a Boeing 747. Their useful lifetime is perhaps 20 years and after that, they can’t just be hauled away. They end up being cut up with special industrial saws to create pieces small enough to be strapped to a tractor-trailer. Then, they end up in landfills. There are thousands of blades being removed each year and those numbers are growing.

Wind turbine blades are currently manufactured using thermoset resin, which cannot be recycled. It is also energy-intensive and manpower-intensive to produce.

Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in partnership with Arkema Inc of Pennsylvania have demonstrated the feasibility of using thermoplastic resin instead to make wind turbine blades. That material can be recycled and can also enable longer, lighter-weight, and lower-cost blades. Using thermoplastic could also allow manufacturers to build blades on site, alleviating the problems of transporting ever larger turbine blades.

Current blades are made primarily of composite materials like fiberglass infused with thermoset resin. The manufacturing process requires additional heat to cure the resin, which adds cost and time. Thermoplastic resin cures at room temperature and requires less labor. With regard to recycling, thermoplastic resin, when heated above a certain temperature, melts into its original liquid resin and can be reused.

NREL has demonstrated the feasibility of the thermoplastic resin system by manufacturing nearly identical blades using both the standard materials and the thermoplastics. NREL has also developed a technoeconomic model to evaluate the cost benefits of using thermoplastic resin.

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News Release: NREL Advanced Manufacturing Research Moves Wind Turbine Blades Toward Recyclability

Photo, posted June 28, 2008, courtesy of Patrick Finnegan via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Safer Disposal Of Printed Circuit Boards | Earth Wise

March 4, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Printed circuit boards are key elements of modern electronic devices that support and connect all of their electronic components. On average, they are composed of 30% metallic and 70% nonmetallic substances.

Once the circuit boards have served their purpose, they are often burned or buried in landfills, and can pollute the air, soil, and water. The biggest problem is that they have brominated flame retardants added to them in order to keep them from catching fire. Compounds in brominated flame retardants have been linked to endocrine disorders and fetal tissue damage.

Many circuit boards are recycled to recover valuable materials – generally the metals they contain. But recycling has its own problems. Metallic components can be recovered from crushed circuit boards by magnetic and high-voltage electrostatic separations. When the metals are removed, what remains are resins, reinforcing materials, brominated flame retardants, and other additives, which are of little value and present various dangers.

Researchers at Sun Yat-sen University in China have developed a ball-milling method to break down these potentially harmful compounds, enabling safe disposal. A ball mill is a rotating machine that uses small agate balls to grind up materials. The researchers also added iron powder, which helps remove bromine from organic compounds by breaking the carbon-bromine bonds in the flame retardants. The result was particles with half of their bromine content removed as well as decomposition of phenolic resin compounds.

The ever-increasing proliferation of device technology had led to a new set of pollution and waste challenges facing society. Research on ways to reduce the impact of high-tech garbage is an important need for society.

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Toward safer disposal of printed circuit boards

Photo, posted February 18, 2018, courtesy of Diego Torres Silvestre via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Car Parts From Agricultural Waste

January 11, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

A new bio-composite material made from date palm fiber biomass could be used to produce sustainable, lightweight and low-cost parts for the automobile and marine industries.

A team of researchers from the UK has developed a date palm fiber polycaprolactone composite that is completely biodegradable, renewable,sustainable and recyclable, in contrast to synthetic composite materials reinforced by glass and carbon fibers. The team tested the mechanical properties of the material and found that it achieved better low-velocity impact resistance than traditional man-made composites.

The idea would be to use the material in non-structural auto parts such as car bumpers and door linings. The result would be to reduce the weight of vehicles, contributing to less fuel consumption and lower emissions. The new material can be produced using less energy than glass and carbon fibers and is biodegradable and therefore easier to recycle.

Date palm fibers are one of the most available natural fibers in many parts of the world. The trees produce a large quantity of agricultural waste, which is mostly burned or land-filled,causing serious environmental problems.

Convincing industry to use a new class of materials such as natural-fiber reinforced composites is challenging. First it is necessary to obtain consistent,reliable properties from the material. Then the industries need to work closely with the developers to test the materials and convince themselves of the viability of using them. The team, led by researchers at the University of Portsmouth, has been working with industry to test the viability of parts made from a variety of other sustainable materials as well including flax, hemp, and jute. Someday, our cars may have bumpers made from agricultural waste.

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Agricultural waste drives us closer to greener transport

Photo, posted October 27, 2017, courtesy of David Stanley via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Australian Plastic Bag Ban

December 31, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Last summer, the two largest supermarket chains in Australia – Coles and Woolworth’s – decided to stop offering single-use disposable plastic bags to customers. The initial public reaction was decidedly negative. However, within just three months after the radical change, the country’s National Retail Association reported an 80% drop in the consumption of plastic bags nationwide.

In that three-month period, it is estimated that 1.5 billion bags have been prevented from use. Some retailers are reporting reduction rates as high as 90% in the use of the bags. The move by the big supermarkets has paved the way for smaller businesses to follow suit. The smaller businesses typically can’t afford to risk the wrath of their customers with a major change like this. Customers have to learn to bring their own bags or buy reusable bags at the store.

In much of Australia, the phase-out of plastic bags has been legislated, but the state of New South Wales, home to Sydney, the country’s largest city, has not enacted such legislation. So, supermarkets themselves are doing the work of getting rid of the bags.

The change has not been without hiccups. For the first couple of months after the plastic bag ban was put in place, Woolworth’s saw poor sales in its stores. However, customers eventually got used to the new way of doing things and sales levels returned.

Disposable plastic bags often find their way into the oceans where they break down into microparticles. Studies have shown that these plastic bits are ingested by a wide variety of marine life. For example, a UK study found that 100% of sea turtles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans as well as the Mediterranean Sea had plastic in their digestive systems.

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