*[Enwl-eng] Feature: Plastic Waste Proves Hazardous to People andPlanet
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Mar 17, 2013, 9:44:13 AM3/17/13
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*The Hazards of Plastic Waste*
Air Date: Week of March 8, 2013
Illustration Omitted:
Plastic debris in the Tijuana River Valley in San Diego (photo:
Chelsea Rochman)
In a recent piece in Nature, a group of scientists called for
reclassifying plastic as a hazardous waste. This would give
environmental agencies more tools and funding to clean up plastic in
ecosystems around the world. One of the authors, Chelsea Rochman, an
marine ecologist at the University of California at Davis, tells host
Steve Curwood about the dangerous pollutants inside many plastic products.
Transcript
CURWOOD: Every year, humans produce nearly 280 million tons of plastic.
And much of that plastic ends up in the environment, harming marine life
and other ecosystems. Now a group of scientists has a potential
solution. Writing in Nature magazine, they argue that reclassifying
plastics as hazardous waste would give regulators more tools and funding
to clean the place up. One of the authors, Chelsea Rochman, a marine
ecologist at the University of California at Davis, says it's clear that
plastics need a new label.
ROCHMAN: Waste is basically separated into two categories, those that
are non-hazardous like grass clippings, and those that are considered a
hazard, which are often based upon this long list of priority
pollutants, or substances that the government deems are hazardous to
organisms. And we found that plastics are associated with 78 percent of
these priority pollutants listed by the US EPA and 61 percent listed by
the European Union, either as a chemical ingredient of the plastic
itself or when the plastic ends up in the aquatic environment; they
absorb these contaminants from the water. And so from that perspective
we thought maybe plastic as a waste product should also be considered as
a hazardous substance.
CURWOOD: What's the danger?
ROCHMAN: We don't know an awful lot about the ecological hazards of
plastics themselves. But we know a lot about the hazards associated with
these priority pollutants. There's a vast amount of peer-reviewed
literature on this. And so we know that these priority pollutants, when
they get into food webs and into ecosystems, that they can cause harm at
organism level, population level and so we're concerned that if these
plastics are another vessel for these priority pollutants to be getting
into habitat, that they also may cause harm.
CURWOOD: Quickly, list for me the priority pollutants.
Chelsea Rochman looking for plastic at sea (photo: Stiv Wilson)
ROCHMAN: So, for the ones that are ingredients of plastics
themselves...so styrene, which is the monomer for Styrofoam, vinyl
chloride which is the monomer, the building block, for PVC, polyvinyl
chloride, those are both considered priority pollutants. And they're
flagged as being carcinogenic - or potentially estrogenic for styrene.
Some of the ones that are absorbing from the environment are things like
toxic metals, like copper or lead, and pesticides such as DDT, that a
lot of us are familiar with from the work of Rachel Carson. And PAHs
which are maybe less familiar, but they're an industrial byproduct that
come from the combustion of oil, and a lot of them are considered either
carcinogenic or they can cause harm to the reproduction system - depends
on the chemical what their hazard is.
CURWOOD: So what are you recommending?
ROCHMAN: So what we're recommending is to start off with a policy change
that will enable a domino effect. So what we're expecting first is that
if we consider these plastics as a hazardous substance or hazardous once
they end up in the environment, certain policies like in the US, for
instance, CERCLA or Superfund, would be able to actually use funding to
go in there and clean it up. So, for example, let's take the Hawaiian
Islands where a lot of the plastic from the middle of the gyres, of the
garbage patches are washing up. And so we know there's large
accumulations of plastic items on the beaches there. If plastics are
considered a hazardous substance, the EPA then has legislation to go in
and clean up that area and use funding and litigation to prevent further
debris from accumulating.
CURWOOD: Let's talk some numbers of plastics. How much plastic do we
produce every year, and how much of it is not taken care of?
ROCHMAN: So at the moment, in 2011, we produced 280 million tons of
plastic, and that's globally. That same year, the World Bank reported
that they collected in the waste stream, so they accounted for either in
landfills or recycling, 130 million tons of plastic. So that leaves 150
million tons unaccounted for. Now obviously, some of that plastic is
still on our feet as shoes or on our computers, in our houses, but not
all of it can still be in use. So if you wonder where is that 150
million tons of plastic...and so we know there's large accumulations in
the environment. So I think that's troublesome because how much are we
adding every year, and that's the question we don't know the answer to yet.
CURWOOD: Where is this worst? What ecosystems are being threatened by this?
More plastic debris in the Tijuana River Valley (photo: Chelsea Rochman)
ROCHMAN: Unfortunately at the moment we don't know. We still need a lot
of research to determine this. The areas where we find a lot of plastic
debris are, of course, we hear a lot about it in the middle of the open
ocean; but there's a lot of it near the coasts. So what I would argue is
that your coastal ecosystems is probably where we want to concentrate
because that's where we have the largest accumulations of these
pollutants in the water which could potentially store to this plastic as
it enters the water. And so we find plastics in these coastal ecosystems
that are near urban areas that are gonna be associated with large
concentrations, of say pesticides and the PAHs I talked about earlier
and toxic metals.
CURWOOD: So you remember famously in the movie The Graduate, Dustin
Hoffman is told, "Plastics, young man, plastics." So what would we tell
Dustin Hoffman today, his character? What would we replace plastic with?
ROCHMAN: I am so happy that you asked that question. It used to be how
we began and ended the paper. So there's a famous line in that movie
that says, "plastics are the future", right, or "the future is
plastics"? And I would say that that's not necessarily untrue. I still
think there is a great future in plastics. And I don't think plastics
are evil and that we should ban them all, but I think we should start
thinking about making plastic materials that are benign by design, and
use our innovation strategies to make products that are recyclable,
reusable and durable, and that are safe for people and the planet.
CURWOOD: Chelsea Rochman is a marine ecologist who studies toxicology at
the University of California at Davis. Thank you so much.
ROCHMAN: Thank you.
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=13-P13-00010&segmentID=6
*** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this
material is distributed, without profit, for research and educational
purposes only. ***
From: "Yahoo Newsgroups" <vasi...@ramapo.edu>
Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2013 12:14 PM
Subject: Feature: Plastic Waste Proves Hazardous to People and Planet
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Air Date: Week of March 8, 2013
Illustration Omitted:
Plastic debris in the Tijuana River Valley in San Diego (photo:
Chelsea Rochman)
In a recent piece in Nature, a group of scientists called for
reclassifying plastic as a hazardous waste. This would give
environmental agencies more tools and funding to clean up plastic in
ecosystems around the world. One of the authors, Chelsea Rochman, an
marine ecologist at the University of California at Davis, tells host
Steve Curwood about the dangerous pollutants inside many plastic products.
Transcript
CURWOOD: Every year, humans produce nearly 280 million tons of plastic.
And much of that plastic ends up in the environment, harming marine life
and other ecosystems. Now a group of scientists has a potential
solution. Writing in Nature magazine, they argue that reclassifying
plastics as hazardous waste would give regulators more tools and funding
to clean the place up. One of the authors, Chelsea Rochman, a marine
ecologist at the University of California at Davis, says it's clear that
plastics need a new label.
ROCHMAN: Waste is basically separated into two categories, those that
are non-hazardous like grass clippings, and those that are considered a
hazard, which are often based upon this long list of priority
pollutants, or substances that the government deems are hazardous to
organisms. And we found that plastics are associated with 78 percent of
these priority pollutants listed by the US EPA and 61 percent listed by
the European Union, either as a chemical ingredient of the plastic
itself or when the plastic ends up in the aquatic environment; they
absorb these contaminants from the water. And so from that perspective
we thought maybe plastic as a waste product should also be considered as
a hazardous substance.
CURWOOD: What's the danger?
ROCHMAN: We don't know an awful lot about the ecological hazards of
plastics themselves. But we know a lot about the hazards associated with
these priority pollutants. There's a vast amount of peer-reviewed
literature on this. And so we know that these priority pollutants, when
they get into food webs and into ecosystems, that they can cause harm at
organism level, population level and so we're concerned that if these
plastics are another vessel for these priority pollutants to be getting
into habitat, that they also may cause harm.
CURWOOD: Quickly, list for me the priority pollutants.
Chelsea Rochman looking for plastic at sea (photo: Stiv Wilson)
ROCHMAN: So, for the ones that are ingredients of plastics
themselves...so styrene, which is the monomer for Styrofoam, vinyl
chloride which is the monomer, the building block, for PVC, polyvinyl
chloride, those are both considered priority pollutants. And they're
flagged as being carcinogenic - or potentially estrogenic for styrene.
Some of the ones that are absorbing from the environment are things like
toxic metals, like copper or lead, and pesticides such as DDT, that a
lot of us are familiar with from the work of Rachel Carson. And PAHs
which are maybe less familiar, but they're an industrial byproduct that
come from the combustion of oil, and a lot of them are considered either
carcinogenic or they can cause harm to the reproduction system - depends
on the chemical what their hazard is.
CURWOOD: So what are you recommending?
ROCHMAN: So what we're recommending is to start off with a policy change
that will enable a domino effect. So what we're expecting first is that
if we consider these plastics as a hazardous substance or hazardous once
they end up in the environment, certain policies like in the US, for
instance, CERCLA or Superfund, would be able to actually use funding to
go in there and clean it up. So, for example, let's take the Hawaiian
Islands where a lot of the plastic from the middle of the gyres, of the
garbage patches are washing up. And so we know there's large
accumulations of plastic items on the beaches there. If plastics are
considered a hazardous substance, the EPA then has legislation to go in
and clean up that area and use funding and litigation to prevent further
debris from accumulating.
CURWOOD: Let's talk some numbers of plastics. How much plastic do we
produce every year, and how much of it is not taken care of?
ROCHMAN: So at the moment, in 2011, we produced 280 million tons of
plastic, and that's globally. That same year, the World Bank reported
that they collected in the waste stream, so they accounted for either in
landfills or recycling, 130 million tons of plastic. So that leaves 150
million tons unaccounted for. Now obviously, some of that plastic is
still on our feet as shoes or on our computers, in our houses, but not
all of it can still be in use. So if you wonder where is that 150
million tons of plastic...and so we know there's large accumulations in
the environment. So I think that's troublesome because how much are we
adding every year, and that's the question we don't know the answer to yet.
CURWOOD: Where is this worst? What ecosystems are being threatened by this?
More plastic debris in the Tijuana River Valley (photo: Chelsea Rochman)
ROCHMAN: Unfortunately at the moment we don't know. We still need a lot
of research to determine this. The areas where we find a lot of plastic
debris are, of course, we hear a lot about it in the middle of the open
ocean; but there's a lot of it near the coasts. So what I would argue is
that your coastal ecosystems is probably where we want to concentrate
because that's where we have the largest accumulations of these
pollutants in the water which could potentially store to this plastic as
it enters the water. And so we find plastics in these coastal ecosystems
that are near urban areas that are gonna be associated with large
concentrations, of say pesticides and the PAHs I talked about earlier
and toxic metals.
CURWOOD: So you remember famously in the movie The Graduate, Dustin
Hoffman is told, "Plastics, young man, plastics." So what would we tell
Dustin Hoffman today, his character? What would we replace plastic with?
ROCHMAN: I am so happy that you asked that question. It used to be how
we began and ended the paper. So there's a famous line in that movie
that says, "plastics are the future", right, or "the future is
plastics"? And I would say that that's not necessarily untrue. I still
think there is a great future in plastics. And I don't think plastics
are evil and that we should ban them all, but I think we should start
thinking about making plastic materials that are benign by design, and
use our innovation strategies to make products that are recyclable,
reusable and durable, and that are safe for people and the planet.
CURWOOD: Chelsea Rochman is a marine ecologist who studies toxicology at
the University of California at Davis. Thank you so much.
ROCHMAN: Thank you.
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=13-P13-00010&segmentID=6
*** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this
material is distributed, without profit, for research and educational
purposes only. ***
From: "Yahoo Newsgroups" <vasi...@ramapo.edu>
Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2013 12:14 PM
Subject: Feature: Plastic Waste Proves Hazardous to People and Planet
------------- * ENWL * ------------
Ecological North West Line * St. Petersburg, Russia
Independent Environmental Net Service: http://www.bellona.ru/enwl/
Russian: ENWL(discussions), ENWL-inf(FSU information), ENWL-misc(any topics)
English: ENWL-eng (world information)
en...@lew.spb.org, enwl...@lew.spb.org, en...@lew.spb.org, en...@lew.spb.org
Subscription, Moderator: vf...@lew.spb.org or en...@enw.net.ru
Archive: http://enwl.bellona.ru/pipermail/
and http://groups.google.com/group/enwl/
SEE ALSO: http://www.bellona.org (English)and http://www.bellona.ru
(Russian)
RSS: http://groups.google.ru/group/enwl/feeds?hl=ru
(C) Please refer to exclusive articles of ENWL
-------------------------------------
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Enwl...@enwl.bellona.ru
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