Presented by Stewart Harris - Director, Marine and Environmental Stewardship, Plastics Division at the American Chemistry Council |
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Sep 21, 2017
Seminar: Plastics Producers Solutions on Marine Litter
NEW SPILL TRACKER ENLISTS CROWD TO HELP MONITOR POLLUTION AFTER HURRICANES
Civic Hall: After Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, a nonprofit organization that uses satellite imagery to monitor the environment launched a tool for citizens to report pollution caused by flooding. Built on the crowdmapping platform Ushahidi, the Harvey Spill Tracker maps reports of oil, chemical, or hazardous waste spills and other incidents based on satellite images, eyewitness accounts, and National Response Center alerts. Later today the organization will release an updated version that expands the region covered to parts of the country impacted by Hurricane Irma.
The outpouring of volunteer support for Houston after the city was inundated by floodwaters was mostly in the form of emergency response and recovery—putting residents stranded in their homes in touch with rescuers, and informing them about nearby shelters. Most recently, those volunteers have been in the spotlight for repurposing tools built to respond to Harvey for Miami and other parts of Florida affected by Hurricane Irma. But even though the nation's collective attention span has shifted to the southeast, the clean-up of south Texas has only just begun.
Founded by a geologist named John Amos in 2001, SkyTruth is best known as the organization that first challenged BP's estimate of the oil spill after the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded in 2010. Using satellite images, the SkyTruth team calculated that the rate of flow from the leak was five to 25 times more than BP was reporting. In addition to the ongoing monitoring of oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico, the organization also keeps an eye on mountaintop removal in Appalachia. For years, SkyTruth also used satellite images to blow the whistle on illegal fishing, but one month ago Global Fishing Watch was spun out as an independent project.
The Harvey Spill Tracker—or SkyTruth Spill Tracker, as they have renamed it after expanding to other parts of the country—is similar to the Gulf Oil Spill Tracker SkyTruth launched in 2010 and operated until April of this year, when the team decided a dedicated tracker for the Deepwater Horizon spill was no longer necessary. It collects pollution reports in one place, and makes the information available to the public as well as the relevant authorities.
"We believe if people can easily communicate their needs, organizations and governments can more effectively respond," Amos wrote in a blog post announcing the launch. "We have notified the Texas Railroad Commission about the site, and they (like any user) will be able to download the reports in a standard *.csv format, readable by any spreadsheet or database software. With your help, this should prove to be a useful resource for aiding the response and recovery efforts."
Tracey Foster, SkyTruth's communications director, told Civicist that it is important to keep environmental issues visible even when short-term cleanup and recovery seems more urgent.
"It's an aspect that can sometimes get missed," Foster said. "There's more emphasis than ever before on the human impact of natural disasters but public attention is so short, and everyone is thinking about Irma and nobody's thinking about the toxic stew that people are wading through after Harvey."
Photo: Army National Guard by Lt. Zachary West
There has already been some excellent coverage of some of the environmental hazards in Houston after Harvey—including the Associated Press's survey of Superfund sites—but these issues will need to be revisited again and again in the future to ensure proper cleanup. Foster said SkyTruth's role is to keep the spotlight on the long-term effects "as best we can."
The organization has a small cadre of 571 volunteers who are notified when there are opportunities for chipping in on crowdsourced projects, like scanning satellite images of the ocean for the tell-tale signs of an oil slick, but Foster said Amos would like to grow that base into "a SkyTruthing movement where citizen scientists are using our platform to report and share information."
Scott Eustis, a coastal wetland specialist with the Gulf Restoration Network, has also been monitoring the environmental situation in Texas. He went flying last Monday over Beaumont and Port Arthur, TX, and on Saturday over Houston to look for signs of pollution, and planned to report any oil sheens or other signs to the Harvey Spill Tracker.
Eustis told Civicist that he hopes citizen science can help repair some of the environmental injustices that have occurred in Houston and other parts of Texas. He pointed out that the majority of oil refineries in the area are located in or near primarily poor, minority communities, and those communities will bear the brunt of the pollution.
"Citizen science gives us an opportunity to see that and recognize it and work through a lens of environmental justice," Eustis said. "It's not just we're going to have 2,000 reports. It's not just quantity—it's that you have a whole new quality. You're going to have reports from people who have been silenced in the past."
Read full by BY: JESSICA MCKENZIE
https://civichall.org/civicist/new-spill-tracker-enlists-crowd-help-monitor-pollution-hurricanes/
Interns: A secret weapon to curb corporate pollution
GLRPPR: In 1990, Congress passed the Pollution Prevention Act. Pollution Prevention (P2) Week, celebrated during the third week of September each year (September 17-23, 2017), highlights the efforts of EPA, its state partners, industry, and the public in preventing pollution right from the start. Here at GLRPPR, we'll be publishing a P2 related blog post each day (starting Monday) and will also be spreading the P2 message on Twitter using the hashtag #P2Week.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have information about events occurring throughout the country. The National Pollution Prevention Roundtable also has a handy P2 Week Toolkit from 2014 for organizations looking for ways to participate.
Within the region, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management will hold its 20th Annual Pollution Prevention Conference and Trade Show on September 19-20 in Plainfield, IN. The theme is "Celebrating 20 Years of Pollution Prevention in Indiana." The conference will also include presentations of the Governor's Awards for Environmental Excellence. Managing Risk Through Pollution Prevention, a full-day workshop held on the day before the IDEM conference, will lead companies to a better understanding of environmental risk management and how to reduce those risks with pollution prevention techniques. The day will combine lecture with hands on exercises to lead the group towards identification of specific practices they can undertake at their facilities to reduce risk.
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has compiled a P2 Week Planner, which includes a sample resolution and press release.
Is your organization doing something for P2 Week? Let us know in the comments.
A cruise ship's emissions are the same as 1 million cars: report
CBC Radio: A luxury cruise vacation may sound like a perfect dream holiday, but a German environmental organization says that in terms of environmental impact, the industry is an absolute nightmare.
Nabu has just released its annual report on cruise ship pollution. It looked at dozens of vessels travelling in Europe, and decided not to recommend any of them.
Dietmar Oeliger is one of the authors and head of transport policy at Nabu. He spoke with As it Happens host Carol Off from Berlin. Here is part of their conversation.
Dietmar Oeliger is head of transport at Nabu, a German environmental association. He co-authored a study that gives a failing grade to the cruise ship industry's environmental management. (Twitter)
Were there really no cruise ships that you looked at that you could recommend?
Unfortunately not. We found out that pollution from the cruise ship industry is still massive, even despite that they claim newer vessels are clean and green. We made measurements at quite a few cruise lines, and it proves that nearly all of them, their attitude to the environment is still poor.
Why are they so bad for the environment?
All of them run on the dirtiest fuel you can imagine. It's heavy fuel oil, it's quite toxic. It's a residual of the petrol industry, and it contains a lot of dirty stuff.
'The cruise companies know what they are doing, and they know about the problems. But still, they order new ships and don't install emission abatement systems.'- Dietmar Oeliger
And on top of that, nearly all of the cruise ships don't have a catalyst or a particulate filter, [like] trucks and cars. That, altogether, sums up to really poor environmental situations.
The report says that a mid-sized cruise ship can use as much as 150 tonnes of fuel each day, which emits as much particulate as one million cars. Is that right?
That's correct. And the reason for this is that their engines run 24/7. Even if they're in the ports, they have to keep running their engines, because it's not only a transport mode, it's a hotel facility. They have a spa on board, restaurants ... and that needs a lot of energy — more or less the same energy a mid-sized city needs.
- AS IT HAPPENS: Oil billionaire funds ship to remove plastic from ocean
What does it mean for those who are actually cruising around on the boats themselves?
Unfortunately, we were not allowed as an organization to have measurements on board. Therefore, we helped two major TV stations from Germany and one from France to go undercover on board and take measurements with our help. It showed that the amount of emissions that passengers breathe on board is more than twenty times higher than on a main road with a lot of pollution.
You write in the report that the cruise ship companies "show contempt for their customers." What do you mean by that?
The cruise companies know what they are doing. And they know about the problems that result from their emissions.
But, still, they order new ships and don't install emission abatement systems on their ships. Most of the newest ships, that cost about a billion dollars, they don't even have an emission abatement system that would cost about a million. I would say this is really irresponsible.
A group prepares to take a polar plunge in the Bering Sea in front of the luxury cruise ship Crystal Serenity (which was not included in the NABU report). (Mark Thiessen/The Associated Press)
This is a competitive industry, they're all cutting costs where they can. So is it really the companies themselves that should be making these changes, or should this be legislated?
Can Congress cut food waste? It depends on the success of this bill @codyboteler
(WASTE DIVE) by Cody Boteler: For decades, the federal government has regulated how landfills operate, how air and water are protected and how dangerous sites are cleaned up. However, the federal government has yet to implement a national policy on how to handle food waste.
The lack of federal guidance on food waste has left the U.S. with a patchwork of food waste solutions, with some states, like New Jersey, pursuing ambitious food waste goals — while others seem to all but ignore the issue. Now with the introduction of the Food Recovery Act (H.R. 3444), a vision of what could become the first national food waste policy is taking shape. A similar measure was introduced in 2015, but did not make it out of committee.
Rep. Chellie Pingree introduced the legislation at the end of June, and it has been referred to half a dozen House committees. Sen. Richard Blumenthal introduced the same legislation in the Senate a few days later. While some time may pass before either measure comes to a vote — especially since Congress is now in recess — even a trimmed-down version of the introduced measures would have wide-ranging implications for how the U.S. handles food waste. Featured here is a breakdown of some of the impacts of the legislation, if enacted into law.
Implications for anaerobic digestion (AD)
One of the biggest implications from the bill is the new requirements it would put on anyone seeking a grant or a loan from the federal government to install an anaerobic digester. In order to qualify for the loan or grant, the AD operator would have to submit two items to the Department of Agriculture: a written agreement to adhere to the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) food recovery hierarchy and a written plan on what to do with the digestate that's left behind after biogas is produced from AD.
The law would also prohibit the Department of Agriculture from issuing loans to AD operations that use only manure, and require the department to give preference to AD operations that use "primarily" food waste. This requirement could prove to be a boon for energy production, as food scraps and other food waste have a much higher energy potential than manure from any animal.
Implications for schools
Schools will be encouraged — though not required — to purchase "lower-price, nonstandard-size or -shape produce." Put more simply: Schools will be encouraged to purchase ugly food for their nutritional programs.
"Ugly food," which is largely made up of misshapen or slightly damaged produce, is just as healthy and safe as conventional-looking produce. However it often goes to waste on a retail-level because grocery stores don't want to stock it and turn off customers. By introducing ugly food in schools, the education system would not only help combat the food waste issue, but would also expose a younger generation to accepting and eating food that may look unconventional.
Implications for the private sector
Date labels, a longtime bane of food waste advocates, would finally be standardized on the federal level. Under the legislation, if a labeler wants to include a "quality" label, they must use the phrase "BEST if Used By." Any food that could expire, or would otherwise require a safety label, will need to have the phrase "USE By." This mandated distinction will, ideally, lead to fewer consumers tossing out food if they're unsure whether it's safe to consume. An optional "Freeze By" label would also be permissible.
The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act would be lightly amended to further protect those whom food is being donated to. The law would be amended to specify that "apparently fit" grocery products and "apparently wholesome" food meet "safety and safety-related" standards, not just "quality and labeling" standards as the law currently reads.
It would also become easier to donate food. The passage of the date on a date label would be codified as not being a barrier to legal protection after donating food.
Implications for the federal government
Sep 19, 2017
Chemical Safety Board Releases Final Report into 2016 Refinery Fire that Seriously Injured Four Workers
Excellent new paper on health effects from Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
Our Bodies Are Becoming Plastic
Dr. Mercola: With plastics now entering the farthest reaches of the globe, what does that mean for the environments where these pollutants are known to accumulate? Mismanaged waste is particularly problematic in China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines, which together make up the top five countries for plastic pollution.3 In the U.S., one of the top waste-generating countries, littering is a major issue, especially in the form of single-use plastics, like soda bottles, drinking straws and potato chip bags.
According to environmental advocacy group Ocean Conservancy, some plastic products persist for so long, even in salty ocean water, that they'll still be recognizable after 400 years.4 However, an equally alarming problem is the plastics that do get broken down into tiny pieces. Microplastic particles, which are less than 5 millimeters long, are literally clouding the oceans in spots.
Carried along with the ocean's currents, swirling gyres of "plastic smog"5 now cover about 40 percent of the world's ocean surfaces.6They're being eaten by fish and other marine life — that is well-known. But only recently did researchers take the logical next step to determine that it's not only marine life ingesting plastic — you probably are too.
94 Percent of US Tap Water Contains Plastic Fibers
Research commissioned by media outlet Orb revealed alarming data about plastic pollution in tap water, with 83 percent of samples tested worldwide coming back as contaminated. In the U.S., 94 percent of tap water samples were found to contain plastic — the most out of all the locations tested. According to Orb:7
"Fibers in tap water … are both a discovery and a marker — a visceral sign of how far plastic has penetrated human life and human anatomy. We can't see the long-chain molecules of pollutants like polyfluoroalkyl chemicals, even if they do reside in more than 98 percent of the population. But when fibers are filtered in a laboratory and enlarged by a microscope, the contamination becomes real.
The first studies into the health effects of microscopic plastics on humans are only just now beginning; there's no telling if or when governments might establish a 'safe' threshold for plastic in water and food. Even farther away are studies of human exposure to nanoscale plastic particles, plastic measured in the millionths of a millimeter."
Orb found, for example, 16 fibers in tap water taken at the visitor's center in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., along with fibers in samples taken from Trump Tower in New York. Plastic fibers were also found in water taken from Indonesia, India, Ecuador, Uganda, England and Lebanon.
Where Are the Primary Sources of Microplastic?
Orb noted six primary sources of "invisible plastics,"8 one of which is synthetic microfibers from synthetic clothing like fleece, acrylic and polyester. Microfibers from clothing are released during washing, to the tune of 1 million tons a year. It's unknown what the environmental effects of microfiber pollution may be, but their irregular shape may make them harder for marine life to excrete than other microplastics (like microbeads).
According to the Mermaids (Mitigation of Microplastics Impact Caused by Textile Washing Processes) project, whose goal is to cut microfiber shedding during washing by 70 percent, the apparel industry has been slow to respond in taking steps to stop microfiber pollution.9
A Mermaids report suggested special coatings may help to stop the loss of microfibers during washing, as well as recommended laundry detergents be reformulated to minimize fiber shedding. However, as it stands Orb estimated that more than half of the microfibers released during the wash are missed by water treatment plants and end up in the environment.
Microbeads — those tiny plastic pellets you may have seen in your face wash or hand soap — are another primary source. Microbeads are so small they get flushed right down the bathroom drain and travel through wastewater treatment plants easily, because the filters used are too small to catch them. Research has only begun to reveal the extent of environmental pollution that microbeads have caused.
In a 2012 survey of the Great Lakes, it was found that the area has "some of the highest concentrations of microplastic found in the environment, and microbeads were prevalent."10 One-third of the fish caught in the English Channel also contain microbeads, as do 83 percent of scampi sold in the U.K. 11 Bans on microbeads have taken place in the U.S. and Canada, but not yet in the EU. Orb estimated that more than 8 trillion microbeads ended up in U.S. waterways in 2015. Other sources noted in Orb's report include:12
- Tire dust, which contains styrene butadiene rubber. According to Orbit, "Cars and trucks emit more than 20 grams of tire dust for every 100 kilometers they drive."13
- Paints: Microplastics are distributed in paint dust, which comes from house paint, ship paint, road markings and more.
- Secondary microplastics: Single-use plastics like forks, bags, straws and takeout containers also litter the environment, with 8 million tons washing into waterways each year. Eventually, these items get broken down into microplastics.
- Airborne plastic fibers: This is a new area of research, but it's thought that your limbs brushing against each other may be enough to release synthetic fibers into the air, which can be inhaled as well as float down to further contaminate the environment. In Paris, airborne microplastics have been found to fall to the ground at rates of up to 10 tons a year.14
Toxic Microplastics May Be Transferred to Farmland
Much of the research on microplastic pollution focuses on marine environments, but the toxic bits are also likely accumulating on land. According to research published in Science of the Total Environment, "Annual plastic release to land is estimated at four to 23 times that released to oceans."15 The use of sewage sludge, or biosolids, as fertilizer may be particularly problematic. It's basically made up of whatever's left over after sewage is treated and processed.
Writing in Environmental Science & Technology, researchers reported that in Europe and North America, about 50 percent of sewage sludge is used for agricultural purposes. Using data from farm areas, population and sewage sludge usage, along with microplastic emission estimates, they found that between 125 and 850 tons of microplastics per million inhabitants may be added to European agricultural soils each year.
When factoring in the range of sludge application rates, and assuming data from certain other countries with similar plastics usage are comparable, the study found a "total yearly input of 63,000 to 430,000 and 44,000 to 300,000 tons of microplastics to European and North American farmlands, respectively …
This would be an alarmingly high input," the researchers noted. "Comprehensively, this exceeds the total accumulated burden of 93,000 to 236,000 tons MPs [microplastics] currently estimated to be present in surface water in the global oceans."16 In a related publication, the researchers called for an urgent investigation to "safeguard food production," considering the finding that large quantities of microplastics are likely being transferred to agricultural land via sewage sludge.17,18
Plastic Particles Smell Like Food to Fish
It's long been known that fish are eating plastic debris, but a disturbing study revealed this isn't occurring by happenstance. Instead, fish may be actively seeking out plastic particles in the ocean to eat, mistaking them for food because of their odor. When microplastics exist in the ocean, they form a biological covering made of algae and other materials that smell like the food the fish would normally eat.19
The study is the first to reveal not only that anchovy use odors to forage, but also that the odor of microplastic in the ocean induces foraging behaviors in schools of the fish. The Center for Biological Diversity noted that fish in the North Pacific are known to ingest 12,000 to 24,000 tons of plastic every year and, in a study of fish markets in California and Indonesia, one-quarter of the fish were found to have plastics in their guts.20
Plastics and other man-made debris was also found in 33 percent of shellfish sampled.21 The Orb report even reported that plastic particles less than 50 nanometers long have been shown to collect in plankton, potentially blocking their gastrointestinal tract, as well as accumulating in the many creatures that depend on plankton as a food source. It's yet another route of plastics exposures to humans, because if the fish are eating plastic, so, too, are the creatures that end up eating the fish.
What effects this will ultimately have on human health remains unknown, but chemical contamination is a real concern. Once in the water, microplastics easily absorb endocrine-disrupting and cancer-causing chemicals like PCBs. Plastics may concentrate such toxins at levels 100,000 to 1 million times higher than the levels found in seawater.22 It's even possible that plastic particles may end up in places in your body other than your gut. Orb reported:23
"If plastic fibers are in your water, experts say they're surely in your food as well — baby formula, pasta, soups, and sauces, whether from the kitchen or the grocery. Plastic fibers may leaven your pizza crust, and a forthcoming study says it's likely in the craft beer you'll drink to chase the pepperoni down. It gets worse.
Plastic is all but indestructible, meaning plastic waste doesn't biodegrade; rather, it only breaks down into smaller pieces of itself, even down to particles in nanometer scale — one-one thousandth of one-one thousandth of a millimeter. Studies show particles of that size can migrate through the intestinal wall and travel to the lymph nodes and other bodily organs."
- 1 Polar Biology October 21, 2015
- 2 AWI October 22, 2015
- 3 The Huffington Post April 27, 2017
- 4 Ocean Conservancy, Stemming the Tide
- 5 Huffington Post May 24, 2017
- 6, 20 The Center for Biological Diversity, Plastics Pollution
- 7, 8, 12, 13, 23, 24, 25, 26 Orb, Invisibles: The Plastic Inside Us
- 9 The Guardian May 13, 2017
- 10, 22 Microbeads - New York Attorney General - New York State
- 11 Daily Mail August 28, 2016
- 14 SETAC Europe 2015
- 15 Science of the Total Environment May 15, 2017
- 16 Environmental Science & Technology September 29, 2016
- 17 Nature September 21, 2016
- 18 The Guardian September 6, 2016
- 19 Proceedings of the Royal Society B August 16, 2017
- 21 Scientific Reports September 24, 2015
Sep 18, 2017
National Preparedness Month — September 2017
- CDC. In an emergency you can't respond effectively if you are not ready. Atlanta, GA: US Department of Health and Human Services, CDC; 2017. https://www.cdc.gov/phpr/whatwedo/emergency.htm
- Redd SC, Frieden TR. CDC's evolving approach to emergency response. Health Secur 2017;15:41–52. CrossRef PubMed
- Federal Emergency Management Agency. Preparedness in America. Washington, DC: US Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency; 2014. https://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/1409000888026-1e8abc820153a6c8cde24ce42c16e857/20140825_Preparedness_in_America_August_2014_Update_508.pdf
Sep 14, 2017
UVic scientist says peak contamination levels from Fukushima disaster are now known
The disaster created concern over the potential impact on marine life and human health, but UVic chemical oceanographer Jay Cullen said contamination never reached a level where it was a significant threat to marine or human life in this area of the North Pacific. According to Cullen, radioactive isotopes from Fukushima were first detected in June 2012 and the highest levels reached offshore B.C. in 2015 and 2016.
"At their highest levels, contamination from Fukushima reached about one-tenth of what was seen in the North Pacific in the late 1950s and 1960s, before the ban of above-ground nuclear weapons tests," Cullen said in a statement. "We are now seeing levels of Fukushima-related contamination similar to levels in the 1970's and expect these to further decline in 2017-2018."
Cullen leads Fukushima InFORM (Integrated Fukushima Ocean Radionuclide Monitoring), a network that monitors marine radioactivity at distances up to 1,500 kilometres off the coast of B.C. the project is funded by the Marine Environmental Observation Prediction and Response Network.
Data from samples collected in January and February of this year indicate that the coastal average concentration of cesium-137 is now at 2.7 Bq per square metre. While that is nearly 300 per cent of the pre-Fukushima levels, Fukushima InFORM's observations are "extremely low" when compared to the 10,000 Bq per square metre drinking water limit set by Health Canada's Radiation Protection Bureau.