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Paper Cups Are Not So Great | Earth Wise

October 4, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Paper cups are not as innocent as they seem

The environmental cost of plastic waste is a highly visible global issue.  The response has been a growing effort to replace plastic items with alternative materials.  One very visible change of this sort has been the replacement of plastic cups with paper cups at coffee shops.  But a new study at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden has found that this solution has problems of its own.

Researchers studied the effects of disposable cups in the environment on the larvae of the butterfly mosquito.  They placed disposable cups made from different materials in wet sediment and water for a few days and observed how the chemicals leached from the cups affected the growth of the larvae.  It turned out that all of the different kinds of cups had negative effects.  The concern is not specifically about mosquito larvae; it is the fact that more environmentally friendly drinking cups are still potentially harmful to living things.

Paper is neither fat nor water resistant, so paper cups need to be treated with a surface coating.  The most common coating is polylactide, which is a type of bioplastic.  It is generally considered to be biodegradable, but the study shows that it can still be toxic.  Bioplastics still contain many different chemicals and the potential toxicity of each of them is not well known.

The UN is trying to develop a binding agreement by the world’s countries to end the spread of plastics in society and nature.  For such an agreement to be effective, the plastics industry will need to clearly report what chemicals all products contain, including such mostly invisible products as the coating on paper drinking cups.

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Paper cups are just as toxic as plastic cups

Photo, posted October 23, 2016, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

More Extreme Weather | Earth Wise

November 23, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

the costs of extreme weather

If it seems like natural disasters happen more frequently than they used to, that is because they do.  A new report from the United Nations entitled “The Human Cost of Disasters 2000-2019” provides the facts.  From 2000 to 2019, there were 7,348 natural disasters around the world, compared with 4,212 natural disasters from 1980-1999. 

The culprit is the climate.  Climate-related disasters increased from 3,556 events during the 1980-1999 period to 6,681 in the past 20 years, again an increase of more than 3,000.

The global economic losses associated with natural disasters have been staggering.  The earlier 20-year period saw $1.63 trillion in losses while the recent period resulted in $2.97 trillion in losses.   Disasters killed 1.19 million people in the earlier period and 1.23 million in the recent period.  It is a testimonial to the skills and efforts of disaster management agencies, civil protection departments, fire brigades, public health authorities, the Red Cross and Red Crescent, and many NGOs that the cost in human lives was not much greater over the past 20 years.

According to a statement from the UN, human society is being willfully destructive.  They draw that conclusion in light of reviewing the disaster events over the past 20 years and seeing the failure of society to act on science and early warnings to invest in prevention, climate change adaptation, and disaster risk reduction.  

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Extreme Weather Events Have Increased Significantly in the Last 20 Years

Photo, posted September 18, 2020, courtesy of the National Guard via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Whom Should We Save?

April 27, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/EW-04-27-18-Whom-Should-We-Save.mp3

The list of endangered species continues to get longer around the world and society is increasingly faced with the nearly impossible decision of which ones to take off life support.

[Read more…] about Whom Should We Save?

Making Self-Driving Cars Safer

March 6, 2018 By EarthWise 1 Comment

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/EW-03-06-18-Making-Self-Driving-Cars-Safer.mp3

We hear quite a bit about self-driving cars these days.  More and more cars on the road have at least some ability to do things on their own (steer, brake, or park) and some can do much more.

[Read more…] about Making Self-Driving Cars Safer

Removing Heavy Metals From Water

September 7, 2017 By EarthWise

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/EW-09-07-17-Removing-Heavy-Metals.mp3

Clean and abundant water is the most essential need for all human societies and the supply of it is threatened by increasing populations and volatile climate patterns.   The quality of water is threatened by a host of contaminants, most of our own making.

[Read more…] about Removing Heavy Metals From Water

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