Update — 5 Min Read

Do Not Despair! Six Examples of Progress in the Fight Against Plastic Pollution!

5 Min Read

Do Not Despair! Six Examples of Progress in the Fight Against Plastic Pollution!

Introduction

If you have been keeping up with our latest posts, you are most likely aware of the recent plastic pollution summit in Busan, South Korea which ultimately closed without settling on an agreement.

Do all these constant stories about the ongoing deterioration of our beloved planet make you feel disheartened? Believe us, we can totally relate.

But it’s not all bad news. Amidst all the corruption and apathy, there are tonnes of people tirelessly fighting to keep the heart of the Earth beating all across it.

With that, allow me to share with you six stories on the positive side in the fight against plastic pollution…

The Gambia

The Gambia was one of the leading advocates for a high ambition deal during the Busan summit and despite failure to secure an agreement, the African nation still intends to redouble its efforts to address its plastic pollution crisis.

The country has devised The National Action Plan in collaboration with UK organisation Common Seas with the goal to reduce plastic waste by 86%. The plan is to focus on infrastructure improvement (particularly on potable water access), tightening law enforcement (particularly on the plastic bag ban), educating the public and introducing a phased ban on single-use plastics.

Executive director of the National Environment Agency, Dr. Dawda Badgie has commented, “It is ambitious but ambition builds the world.”

The Gambia Environmental Alliance has reported that 15 NGOs are working to aid in the plastic pollution agenda. These include the likes of Precious Plastics, overseeing the recycling of plastic into household products and Women’s Initiative Gambia, looking to convert waste into handbags.

Among the most active players in this battle we find Amie Sonko, a trained collector motivated by the loss of her 16-year-old daughter to heart disease, which was attributed to burnt plastics, and Makang Gassama, an informal collector who tirelessly works to separate aluminium from plastic bottles to be sold for cleaning, all the while making himself vulnerable to bacterial infection and chemical exposure.

Sonko has stated, “Some people used to mock us, saying ‘You have no job if you are doing plastics.’ Now they know there’s money in it.”

Director of government and business partnerships at Common Seas, Thais Vojvodic has stressed the importance of not losing sight of the source when it comes to solving the problem. She has acknowledged, as a contributor to the national plan, that the “downstream” approaches are but a “part of this jigsaw puzzle”.

In response to the failure of the Busan summit, she has questioned, “Are you going to start mopping, or are you going to close the tap?”

China

While the Chinese government’s efforts against plastic are very limited, as has been showcased from their stance at the Busan meeting, very considerable steps forward have been taken by the Chinese population. These include the recent development of a special sponge found to be able to absorb 99.9% of microplastics in water.

This sponge was made out of cotton and squid bone, both of which are common materials for solutions against pollution, and has been found effective across different media (i.e., irrigation ditches, lakes, seawater, ponds).

This is very significant, as the University of Wuhan has verified this filter’s production is scalable and the raw materials required are cheap and easy to obtain, issues that plagued previous filtration units.

What makes it even better is that it has also been found that the absorption capacity is not significantly affected by the presence of other pollutants and it is a step up from a similar sponge developed by different researchers capable of absorbing 90% of plastic.

Should larger-scale tests prove successful, an industrial scale model and a sponge ready for everyday household use may very well be underway in the coming years…

Ireland

Fionn Ferreira was all too aware of the plastic waste that plagued his country’s shores and seas from a young age, his shock heightened from having spent his childhood in his sheltered hometown of Ballydehob.

Ferreira set out on a path to remove microplastics from water at the age of 12 and one day, while on the beach, the answer reached him in the form of oil. He noticed that oil can be used to attract plastic after observing an oil spill residue with piles of waste deposited in it.

He created a solution of ferrofluid from a concoction of vegetable oil and iron oxide. He applied microplastics from everyday items such as bottles, paint, car tyres and washing machine water and from there, used a magnet to extract the solution, leaving behind only water.

From 5000 tests, Ferreira’s method saw a success rate of 87%. Currently, he is looking into developing a similar system to be applied to waterpipes and ships. He has won a scholarship of $50000 and his initiative has been backed by funding from the Footprint Coalition, which was founded by actor Robert Downey Jr.

Working with US company Stress Engineering, he hopes to refine his invention and design a device using a material that will not generate any plastic pollution (i.e., glass, stainless steel or recycled plastic).

Ferreira expressed a desire to be a role model for young inventors. He stated, “A lot of people don’t trust young inventors. That needs to change. Youth have the power to come up with new creative ideas; they aren’t trained to look down just one tunnel.”

The United States

Like China, the US government have proven themselves very absent from the plastic pollution crisis, once again as witnessed in Busan. Thankfully, also like China, there are warriors on the side of sustainability amongst the American public, including the likes of Victoria Ou and Justin Huang. Their story is one not too dissimilar to that of Ferreira.

After learning of the presence in microplastics in food and water, Ou did a science project on plastic pollution back when she was in fifth grade and shared her discovery with her friend, Huang.

They would go on to invent a water filtration device which made use of ultrasound. The idea is that current physical, chemical and biological methods of filtration can be inefficient, expensive and potentially harmful to humans and the environment. Compare that to ultrasound which is completely non-invasive and adds nothing to the water.

The filtration system itself looks like a thin tube, slightly larger than a pen. As water is pushed through the tube, ultrasound waves block the microplastics like an invisible filter, resulting in clean water. It was found that regardless of tube sizes, flow rates and different microplastic types, the tube was always able to filter out at least 85% of the plastic.

For this invention, they won $50000 at the International Science and Engineering Fair for pre-college students. Their plan is to scale it up and make this model applicable to laundry machines since 35% of primary microplastic pollution in our oceans and waterways comes from synthetic textiles that you wash out with your clothes.

South Africa

Oasis Water has built a reputation for its initiatives in the development of sustainable access to potable water. Among their accomplishments we find the introduction of the first 10-litre PET dispenser bottle in South Africa. This is a significant step forward in the ongoing battle against plastic pollution.

What makes this case distinct is how there is a continuing upward trend in recycling in South Africa – which leads Sub-Saharan Africa on this front – when the plastics industry per se in the country is very small on a global scale.

Polyethene terephthalate (PET) is a material favoured for its durability, lightweight nature and convenience of recycling. It does not degrade during recycling and creates a closed-loop system. Instead of being downcycled into low-quality, low-endurance products, PET bottles can be converted back into PET bottles.

The plan going forth for this year is to push these bottles into circulation and to begin development on conversion of 20-litre bottles to PET.

Thailand

After years of being a major destination for exports of plastic waste for Europe, the US and Japan, Thailand has recently decided that enough is enough and passed a ban out of concern for the health of its citizens.

Director of NGO Ecological Alert and Recovery, Penchom Sae-Tang and plastics campaign researcher at the Environmental Justice Foundation, Punyathorn Jeungsmarn have both commended this law but also warned that it will require proper enforcement by the government and cooperation between industrial, environmental and customs agencies in order for it to have any effect.

Conclusion

And… that last line might be the best way to close this article.

Moral of the story: saving what we have left of our planet from all these environmental crises might appear increasingly impossible but it is precisely that attitude that holds us back from taking action.

If enough people band together, even the impossible can be made a reality. So now, would you care to take a chance?


By Denzel Lanzon, for Esplora