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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.

Sunscreen And Coral Reefs | Earth Wise

May 18, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The dangers of overexposure to UV solar radiation have led to the extensive production and use of sunscreen products. It is generally understood that many of the chemical compounds used in sunscreen products have toxic effects on marine organisms, but research in this area is relatively limited.

There are estimates that as many as 82,000 kinds of chemicals from personal care products have made their way into the world’s oceans. In 2015, it was estimated that around 14,000 tons of sunscreen are ending up in the world’s coral reefs per year and causing irreparable damage.

Eighty-five percent of the Caribbean’s coral reefs died before the turn of the century, not as a result of global warming, but because of pollution. Oxybenzone and octinoxate are two of the common sunscreen ingredients that are most toxic to corals. Preservatives like parabens are also toxic.

There are much safer sunscreens such as those based on zinc oxide or titanium oxide. In some places, such eco-friendly sunscreens are mandatory. Sunscreens with SPF values above 30 contain a higher percentage of chemicals and have been shown to not really provide any more protection than SPF 30 products.

Apart from the choice of sunscreen product, if one really wants to reduce the negative impact sunscreen has on reefs and marine life, wearing sun-protective clothing such as rash-guards will allow the use of much less sunscreen and therefore result in less of it entering the ocean.

Products that can help protect against the harmful effects of UV radiation on human health are extremely important, but it is also important to identify and quantify the risks associated with these products to reef ecosystems.

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How to Know If Your Sunscreen Is Killing Coral Reefs — and the Brands to Try Instead

Impacts of sunscreen on coral reefs needs urgent attention, say scientists

Photo, posted January 11, 2015, courtesy of Elch Korallen via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Increasing Palm Oil Production Without Harming The Environment | Earth Wise

May 5, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Palm oil is the most important source of vegetable oil in the world. The oil itself and ingredients based on it are found in approximately 50% of the products on supermarket shelves, including both food and non-food items. Many of the mysterious chemicals that show up on ingredient lists such as sodium lauryl sulfate are actually derived from palm oil.

Dozens of countries produce palm oil, but about 2/3 of the world’s supply comes from Indonesia and the demand for its oil keeps growing. To keep up with that demand, Indonesia continues to convert valuable ecosystems that contribute greatly to biodiversity to palm production.

A four-year research project at the University of Nebraska- Lincoln has found that keeping up with palm oil demand may not necessarily mean converting valuable, fragile ecosystems into agricultural land. According to the study published in Nature Sustainability, palm oil yields on existing farms and plantations could be greatly increased with improved management practices.

The researchers identified key practices that could lead to larger yield. These include improved harvest methods, better weed control, improved pruning, and better plant nutrition. With such practices, Indonesia could produce 68% more palm oil on existing plantation areas.

The results were surprising to the researchers and are significant from both environmental and economic standpoints. In particular, it could have a great impact on the millions of individual farmers who draw their livelihood from small palm farms often containing just a few acres. In Indonesia, about 42% of land used for palm oil production is owned by smallholder farms.

The researchers are now working with various stakeholders in Indonesia to put these management techniques into practice.

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Husker research shows palm oil production can grow while protecting ecosystems

Photo, posted August 15, 2006, courtesy of Lian Pin Koh via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Turning Food Waste Back Into Food | Earth Wise

March 3, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Scientists at the University of California Riverside have discovered that fermented food waste can boost bacteria that increase crop growth, make plants more resistant to pathogens, and reduce the carbon emissions resulting from farming.

Food waste is a serious problem from multiple perspectives. As much as 50% of food is thrown away in the United States and most of that simply ends up in landfills, taking up more than 20% of America’s landfill volume. Food waste is a huge economic loss as well as a significant waste of freshwater resources used to produce food.

The researchers studied byproducts from two kinds of food waste readily available in Southern California: beer mash – a byproduct of beer production – and mixed food waste discarded by grocery stores.

Both types of waste were fermented and then added to the irrigation system watering citrus plants in a greenhouse. Within 24 hours, the average population of beneficial bacteria was two to three orders of magnitude greater than in plants that did not receive the treatments. This led to improvements in the carbon to nitrogen ratio in crops. When there are enough so-called good bacteria in plants, they produce antimicrobial compounds and metabolites that help plants grow better and faster.

The results of the study suggest that the use of food waste products in agriculture is beneficial and could complement the use of synthetic chemical additives by farmers, perhaps eliminating it entirely. Crops would in turn become less expensive.

Making use of food waste in agriculture is a step towards a more circular economy in which we use something and then find a new purpose for it.

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Turning food waste back into food

Photo, posted October 28, 2012, courtesy of Daniel Lobo via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Cell-Based Meat And Seafood | Earth Wise

February 8, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

We have heard about laboratory meat for a number of years, generally in terms of something that may happen at some point in the indeterminate future. But at least for a couple of California companies, that future is now.

These high-tech companies are producing products – real meat and seafood – that are originally cultured from animal cells but are made without the actual animal.

San Francisco-based Eat Just makes chicken nuggets that have recently gained regulatory approval in Singapore and are now available to order at a downtown restaurant. San Diego’s BlueNalu creates cell-based seafood fillets including yellowtail, mahi-mahi, red snapper, and tuna.

The companies use stem cells obtained from actual animals and cultivate them in steel tanks with the same nutrients that living animals consume. The original cell donor is not sacrificed. The harvested cells multiply and are eventually shaped to form meat or fish that cooks, looks, and tastes just like its natural counterpart.

The “mouth feel” of conventional meat or fish can be mimicked by recreating the same proportions of muscle, fat, and connective tissue in the cell-based product. Eat Just says their product cooks, looks, and tastes like chicken because it is chicken. BlueNalu says their product has all the same characteristics as fish because it is fish.

These products have major environmental, safety, and ethical advantages. The big question is whether people will eat them. Is there an “ick factor” to overcome? Ultimately, the key thing is how they taste. If they pass muster on that score and cell-based meats and seafood are scaled up and accepted, we can have the nutritional and sensory advantages of meat proteins without the environmental, ethical and safety disadvantages.

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Can We Enjoy Meat and Seafood and Save the Planet?

Photo, posted February 1, 2012, courtesy of Andrea Parrish-Geyer via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Aluminum And Deodorants | Earth Wise

October 2, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Aluminum is the third most common element in the earth’s crust. That element and its compounds are contained in numerous foods and products intended for consumers. Aluminum can occur naturally in certain foods and it can be a part of food additives. Apart from that, it is also possible for aluminum to transfer to food from packaging and tableware. We also can take in aluminum from cosmetic products like whitening toothpaste, lipsticks, particles in sunscreens, and in the form of aluminum chlorohydrate in antiperspirants.

The concern about aluminum intake is related to its effects on the nervous system, on the mental and motor development of children, and upon possible negative effects on the kidneys and bones. When aluminum is ingested via food, its toxicity is low and for healthy people, the kidneys do a good job of excreting it. However, people with chronic kidney disease may not be able to get rid of aluminum as readily and it can accumulate in the body.

Six years ago, a study looked at the amount of aluminum absorbed through the skin from the use of antiperspirants, but the data at that time was considered to be unreliable and a need for further research was identified.

Recently, the results of two new studies have been published by a German research institute that quantifies the absorption of aluminum salts through the skin. The results were that significantly less aluminum is absorbed through the skin than previously calculated and that a significant absorption of aluminum from antiperspirants is unlikely.

The total burden of aluminum from all sources can be high among some population groups, but it appears that use of aluminum-containing antiperspirants is not an important contribution to that burden.

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Aluminium in antiperspirants: Low contribution to the total intake of aluminium in humans

Photo courtesy of NutritionFacts.org.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Microplastic Hotspots In The Ocean | Earth Wise

June 4, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Many of us are aware of the infamous ocean “garbage patches” of floating plastic. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is roughly the size of Texas. But over 10 million tons of plastic waste enter the oceans each year and the floating patches only account for 1% of that total. The remaining 99% of the plastic ends up in the deep ocean, generally in the form of microplastics – tiny fragments of large plastic debris that have broken down as well as manufactured polyethylene beads used in various products.

According to a new study published in the journal Science, there are actually microplastic hotspots on the ocean floor, formed by deep-sea currents that act as conveyer belts moving the tiny plastic fragments around. One of these hotspots – in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the west coast of Italy – contained 1.9 million microplastic pieces in just one square meter of seafloor. This is the highest reported value for any place in the world.

Because of their small size, microplastics can be ingested by organisms across all levels of the marine food chain and eventually find their way into human diets.

The spatial distribution and ultimate fate of ocean microplastics are strongly controlled by near-bed thermohaline currents. These are deep-ocean currents driven by differences in water density, which is controlled by temperature and salinity. Thermohaline currents are known to supply oxygen and nutrients to the flora and fauna found at the ocean bottom. As a result, deep sea biodiversity hotspots are likely to be in same places where there are microplastic hotspots.

The discovery of these deep- sea hotspots is just another reason why we need behavior and policy interventions to limit the flow of plastics into natural environments.

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Seafloor microplastic hotspots controlled by deep-sea circulation

Photo, posted September 6, 2012, courtesy of Oregon State University via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Strategies To Promote Green Products | Earth Wise

March 26, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Green products are environmentally-friendly products with features that are less harmful to people and the planet. For instance, green products may require fewer resources to produce, consume less energy, contain non-toxic ingredients, or create fewer emissions. Some examples include biodegradable waste bags, LED light bulbs, low-flow shower heads, organic cotton clothing, and reusable coffee cups and water bottles.

But according to new research from two universities in the United Kingdom, companies looking to promote their latest environmentally-friendly product should actually downplay its greenness if they want consumers to buy it.

The study, by researchers from the University of East Anglia and the University of Leeds, found advertising that highlights a product’s green attributes can lead consumers to associate it with weak performance. The findings, which were recently published in the Journal of Advertising, indicate that companies should downplay a product’s green qualities and instead promote it on more traditional aspects.

An example of these two distinct advertising strategies – green emphasis versus green understatement – can be found in the auto industry. Car manufacturer Toyota prominently highlights the low emissions and low fuel consumption features of the Prius, employing what the researchers term as ‘explicit signals’. In contrast, automaker Tesla reduces the prominence of its green attributes, focusing instead on its cars’ acceleration, handling, and other performance-related characteristics. This is known as the ‘implicit signals’ marketing approach.

After conducting two experiments, the research team found that the implicit, rather than explicit, marketing approach about greenness leads to higher performance evaluations and purchase intent.

Consumers appear more likely to engage in pro-social actions when it’s accompanied by some form of personal benefit.

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Highlighting product greenness may put consumers off buying

Photo, posted December 21, 2019, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A New Membrane For Converting Carbon Dioxide | Earth Wise

March 24, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Methanol is a valuable chemical used as fuel in the production of countless products. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that is produced by countless industrial processes. Carbon dioxide can be converted into methanol, which is one way all that CO2 can be put to good use instead of causing harm.

In research recently published in Science, chemical engineers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a process that converts CO2 to methanol in a more efficient way by using a highly effective separation membrane they produced.

The chemical reaction responsible for the transformation of CO2 into methanol also produces water, which severely restricts the continued reaction. The Rensselaer team has found a way to filter out the water as the reaction is happening, without losing other essential gas molecules.

They produced a membrane made up of sodium ions and zeolite crystals that was able to carefully and quickly permeate water through small pores — known as water-conduction nanochannels — without losing gas molecules. The sodium ions effectively only allow water to go through. When water was effectively removed from the process, the team found that the chemical reaction was able to happen very quickly. By removing the water, the equilibrium shifts, which means more CO2 will be converted and more methanol will be produced.

The team is now working to develop a scalable process and a startup company that would allow this membrane to be used commercially to produce high purity methanol. This membrane could also be used to improve a number of other reactions.

In industry there are many reactions limited by water and this RPI membrane could be an important enhancement for many of them.

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Water-Conducting Membrane Allows Carbon Dioxide To Transform into Fuel More Efficiently

Photo courtesy of RPI.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Carbon Capture As Big Business

December 26, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Removing greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere is an essential part of the overall effort to achieve zero net carbon emissions and stabilize the climate. Since we have not been able to reduce emissions fast enough to do the job, it is important to find ways to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

There are many ways to do it, but they tend to be rather expensive and, so far, the need to mitigate climate change does not seem to provide sufficient incentive. A new study by researchers at UCLA, the University of Oxford, and five other institutions, analyzed the possibility of creating a large global industry based on capturing carbon dioxide and turning it into commercial products.

The study investigated the potential future scale and cost of 10 different ways to use carbon dioxide, including in fuels and chemicals, plastics, building materials, soil management, and forestry. The study looked at processes using carbon dioxide captured from waste products that are produced by burning fossil fuels as well as by simply capturing it directly from the atmosphere. The study also looked at processes that use carbon dioxide captured biologically by photosynthesis.

The conclusions of the study were that on average each of the ten utilization pathways could use about half a billion tons of carbon dioxide that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere. Thus, theoretically, these various pathways could take more than five billion tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere. Currently, fossil fuel combustion emits about 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide.

The authors of the study stress that there is no silver bullet in the fight against climate change. It will require multiple approaches – including CO2 removal for industrial use – to make real progress

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Carbon dioxide capture and use could become big business

Photo, posted September 18, 2015, courtesy of Tony Webster via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Reducing Emissions From Natural Gas Processing

December 4, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Qatar, a small country in the Middle East with a population of about 2.5 million has the highest per capita income of any country in the world. This is largely a result of being one of the world’s top producers of natural gas. The upshot of that is that the tiny country has the dubious honor of being the world’s leading emitter of CO2 per capita.

Texas A&M University has a campus in Qatar and researchers there in collaboration with colleagues at the main campus in College Station, Texas have developed a new reactor technology that can help Qatar process its wealth of natural gas while reducing the country’s carbon footprint.

The technology processes natural gas and captured CO2 to produce both syngas – which is a valuable precursor for many products – and high-quality carbon nanotubes, all without releasing CO2 into the atmosphere.

Natural gas reforming is a process by which syngas – a feedstock for liquid hydrocarbons and ultraclean fuels- is produced. The process requires lots of heat and emits CO2. The new technology adds a novel CARGEN (or CARbon GENerator) reactor that advances the natural gas reforming process and includes a catalyst that captures the CO2 emissions and produces nanotubes. The reactor can be driven by either electric or solar power, eliminating the need to burn fuel that ordinarily results in more carbon emissions.

The result is that Qatar’s CO2 emissions would be converted into two products that are important to its economy. In particular, carbon nanotubes are very expensive and extremely versatile, and can be used to manufacture products such as computers and other high-quality materials.

The next step for the researchers is to partner with industry collaborators to further scale up the technology.

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Qatar Researchers Develop Natural Gas Processing Technology That Could Reduce Qatar’s Carbon Footprint

Photo, posted September 30, 2012, courtesy of Jimmy Baikovicius via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Another Bad Year For Bees

August 6, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The latest annual nationwide survey of beekeepers in the US revealed that honeybees are still dying off at an alarming rate. According to the survey, beekeepers across the country lost 40.7% of their honey bee colonies from April 2018 to April 2019.

This annual loss represents a slight increase over the average annual loss of 38.7%. Of greater concern is that winter losses of 37.7% were the highest reported since these annual surveys began 13 years ago and are almost 9% higher than the survey average.

These results are very troubling considering that the elevated losses are continuing even after a decade of intense work trying to understand and reduce colony loss. Evidently, there has not been much progress.

The number one concern among beekeepers is varroa mites, which are lethal parasites that can readily spread from colony to colony. These mites have been decimating bee colonies for years. Products developed to remove mites seem to be getting less and less effective.

But mites are not the only problem for bees. Land use changes have resulted in reduced availability of pollen sources for bees. Add to that pesticide exposures, environmental factors, and even problems with beekeeping practices. In addition, extreme weather conditions such as wildfires and floods are only adding to the problems facing bees.

The tools that used to work for beekeepers seem to be failing and they are already stretched to their limits trying to keep their bees alive. Honey bees pollinate $15 billion worth of food crops in the United States each year. The problems facing bees are a problem for all of us.

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U.S. Beekeepers Suffered Higher than Average Colony Loss Last Year, with Winter Losses the Highest Recorded, According to UMD-Led Annual Survey

Photo, posted June 3, 2009, courtesy of Jennifer C via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

New Nutrition Labels

February 26, 2019 By EarthWise 1 Comment

Food and beverage packaging in this country has included a Nutrition Facts panel for nearly 25 years. Over 700,000 products have the labels which provide consumers with information like serving sizes, calories per serving, ingredients, and nutritional content.

Surveys indicate that 77 percent of all U.S. adults claim to use the labels at least some of the time. Whether the labels are actually useful is somewhat debatable. A couple of years ago, the FDA released a proposal to update the labels to make them more useful and to reflect more recent nutritional research. The new labels are finally going to be implemented and food manufacturers with annual sales exceeding $10 million have until January of 2020 to update their packaging with the new labels.

One of the biggest changes is that the “serving size” section of the label will be changed to more accurately reflect the actual portions consumed by the typical American. For example, a 20-ounce soft drink will now be labeled as a single serving because most people will drink the whole bottle in one sitting.

The new labels will no long list the amounts of Vitamin A and C, because recent research shows most Americans are not deficient in these nutrients. Instead, the amount of Vitamin D and potassium will be listed, two nutrients lacking in many diets. New labels will also show amounts of “added sugars”, defined as caloric sweeteners with no nutritional value. The new labels will also display the calories per serving in much large type making that piece of information far more noticeable.

There is surely more to be done to make food labeling more transparent and useful for consumers, but the new changes at least seem to be in the right direction.

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