Tuesday, November 12, 2013

and the research continues...


I then referenced three more articles that had to do with:

-The challenges and opportunities of recycling

-The accumulation and fragmentation of plastic debris in global environments

&

-The plastics, the environment and human health: current consensus and future trends

Instead of you having to read over 30 sum pages, I will give you a summary on each of these, extremely interesting, articles. 
The links are attached in case you choose to read and found out more about it. 

In the first article: 
Plastics recycling: challenges and opportunities
Jefferson Hopewell, Robert Dvorak and Edward Kosior


This article was published in 2009. It cites 27 other articles, and deals with environmental science.

Some interesting phrases taken from the article:

"Plastics are inexpensive, lightweight and durable materials, which can readily be moulded into a variety of products that find use in a wide range of applications. As a consequence, the production of plastics has increased markedly over the last 60 years. However, current levels of their usage and disposal generate several environmental problems."

"Around 4 per cent of world oil and gas production, a non-renewable resource, is used as feedstock for plastics and a further 3–4% is expended to provide energy for their manufacture. A major portion of plastic produced each year is used to make disposable items of packaging or other short-lived products that are discarded within a year of manufacture. These two observations alone indicate that our current use of plastics is not sustain- able. In addition, because of the durability of the polymers involved, substantial quantities of discarded end-of-life plastics are accumulating as debris in landfills and in natural habitats worldwide."

"Recycling is one of the most important actions currently available to reduce these impacts and represents one of the most dynamic areas in the plastics industry today. Recycling provides opportunities to reduce oil usage, carbon dioxide emissions and the quantities of waste requiring disposal. Here, we briefly set recycling into context against other waste-reduction strategies, namely reduction in material use through downgauging or product reuse, the use of alternative biodegradable materials and energy recovery as fuel."

 "While plastics have been recycled since the 1970s, the quantities that are recycled vary geographically, according to plastic type and application. Recycling of packaging materials has seen rapid expansion over the last decades in a number of countries. Advances in technologies and systems for the collection, sorting and reprocessing of recyclable plastics are creating new opportunities for recycling, and with the combined actions of the public, industry and governments it may be possible to divert the majority of plastic waste from landfills to recycling over the next decades."

Second Article:

Accumulation and fragmentation of plastic debris in global environments
David K. A. Barnes, Francois Galgani, Richard C. Thompson and Morton Barlaz


This article was published in 2009. It cites 76 other articles, and deals with environmental science.

Some interesting phrases taken from the article:


"While plastics typically constitute approximately 10 per cent of discarded waste, they represent a much greater proportion of the debris accumulating on shorelines. "

"The longevity of plastic is estimated to be hundreds to thousands of years, but is likely to be far longer in deep sea and non-surface polar environments. Plastic debris poses considerable threat by choking and starving wildlife, distributing non-native and potentially harmful organisms, absorbing toxic chemicals and degrading to micro-plastics that may subsequently be ingested."

"Well-established annual surveys on coasts and at sea have shown that trends in mega- and macro-plastic accumulation rates are no longer uniformly increasing: rather stable, increasing and decreasing trends have all been reported. The average size of plastic particles in the environment seems to be decreasing, and the abundance and global distribution of micro-plastic fragments have increased over the last few decades."

"Less than 60 years ago, the mass production of plastics started and now most items that people use, virtually anywhere on the planet are partly or wholly made of this inexpensive, durable material. Plastics have trans- formed the surface of the planet, far beyond areas of human population density—fragments of all sizes are ubiquitous in soils to lake beds, from remote Antarctic island shores to tropical seabeds."

"Plastics turn up in bird nests, are worn by hermit crabs instead of shells and are present in turtle stomachs. Humans generate considerable amounts of waste and the quantities are increasing as standards of living and the population increase."

"Further, we have made little progress in reducing the release of plastic to the environment (see discussion in Thompson et al. 2009). Temporal trends of macro-plastics on remote islands suggest that regulations to reduce dumping at sea have been successful to some extent. However, our sustained demand for plastic means that contamination of the environment by micro-plastic pieces seems set to increase."

Third Article:

Plastics, the environment and human health: current consensus and future trends
Richard C. Thompson, Charles J. Moore, Frederick S. vom Saal and Shanna H. Swan



This article was published in 2009. It cites 52 other articles, and deals with Ecology, and health and disease an epidemiology.
 Some interesting phrases taken from the article:

"Plastics have transformed everyday life; usage is increasing and annual production is likely to exceed 300 million tonnes by 2010."

"It is evident that plastics bring many societal benefits and offer future technological and medical advances. However, concerns about usage and disposal are diverse and include accumulation of waste in landfills and in natural habitats, physical problems for wildlife resulting from ingestion or entanglement in plastic, the leaching of chemicals from plastic products and the potential for plastics to transfer chemicals to wildlife and humans."

"Plastic debris causes aes- thetic problems, and it also presents a hazard to mari- time activities including fishing and tourism (Moore 2008; Gregory 2009). Discarded fishing nets result in ghost fishing that may result in losses to commercial fisheries (Moore 2008; Brown & Macfadyen 2007). Floating plastic debris can rapidly become colonized by marine organisms and since it can persist at the sea surface for substantial periods, it may subsequently facilitate the transport of non-native or ‘alien’ species (Barnes 2002; Barnes et al. 2009; Gregory 2009)."

"Over 260 species, including invert- ebrates, turtles, fish, seabirds and mammals, have been reported to ingest or become entangled in plastic debris, resulting in impaired movement and feeding, reduced reproductive output, lacerations, ulcers and death (Laist 1997; Derraik 2002; Gregory 2009)."

"A range of chemicals that are used in the manufacture of plastics are known to be toxic."

"The greatest concerns with exposure to BPA are during develop- ment; BPA appears to affect brain development leading to loss of sex differentiation in brain struc- tures and behaviour (Talsness et al. 2009). A further important observation regarding adverse responses to developmental exposures of animals to very low doses of BPA is that many relate to disease trends in humans. Less has been published on effects of the flame retardant TBBPA, but there is evidence of effects on thyroid hormones, pituitary function and reproductive success in animals (Talsness et al. 2009)."





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