Tuesday, February 21, 2017

5 Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About Plastic Waste

Humans have created enough plastic since the second world war to coat the Earth entirely in clingfilm - no joke. It’s time people ditch their dependency on plastics.
Reuse, Reduce, Recycle at HideAway Haven


Though people have heard again and again that humanity’s consumption of plastic is both unsustainable and horrid for the environment, few ever do anything about this fact and change their habits. As a result, plastic now pollutes every corner of the Earth, according to The Guardian. Additionally, findings from an international study have found that humans have created enough plastic since the second world war to coat the Earth entirely in clingfilm.


Obviously, it’s time to retire the obsession with single-use plastic products. Because they break down at a glacial rate, they are a detriment to the environment, wildlife and peoples’ health. The following video, titled “5 Things You Didn’t Know About Plastic,” explains why this is so by using a Rube Goldberg machine to follow the journey a plastic bottle takes from “factory to home.”


It’s shown why throwing a plastic cup, straw, plastic bag, or food container into the trash isn’t an acceptable habit, and why everyone needs to reduce their dependency on plastic and start to use reusable containers.


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Monday, February 20, 2017

Ocean Oxygen Levels Have Dropped Causing Serious Implications For Mankind

Even the smallest change in ocean oxygen levels can have serious impacts on ecosystems.
































Latest analysis data has shown that climate change has caused drastic changes to the chemical make-up of the oceans, decreasing the amount of oxygen in the sea water. These findings are added to the huge impact on the ice caps and glaciers, as well as the increasing levels of carbon dioxide, according to recent reports. The results of the analysis which took place over the past 50 years, gathering data from a range of parameters from ocean salinity to temperature, was published in Nature.

They calculated that over these five decades the world’s oceans have lost an average of two percent of their total oxygen. Whilst this may sound like a reasonably small percentage, researchers have noted that the smallest drop in oxygen concentration in the ocean is enough to completely alter specific ecosystems, which includes the formation of dead zones. The reports state that the crucial reason as to why oceans are losing their oxygen is simply owed to the heating of the water. Reports have stated that “As the oceans warm, their ability to trap dissolved oxygen decreases, which is why colder waters on Earth contain a lower concentration of the gas”. In addition to this, the warming of the ocean is also creating another effect. As the water warming is generally contained to the upper levels of the oceans, it then decreases the density of the water at the surface, which then prevents it from dropping down to the deeper depths and taking the life-giving and essential oxygen with it.

The result of this drop in ocean oxygen could be catastrophic when combined with the array of other impacts that climate change is currently having. As the polar ice caps melt, the increase in fresh water is expected to disrupt the ocean currents, which then, in turn, could be driving the abnormal weather conditions that have been seen in the past few winters over much of Northern Europe and America. Although the increase in carbon dioxide does have some benefit for some organisms, it is likely to be hugely harmful to many others. In addition to this, those creatures who have calcium carbonate shells will simply dissolve away due to the increasing acidity of the water, which will include the vast coral reefs in the tropics.






















Together with the acidity, the rising surface ocean temperatures also directly harm the living organisms and have also been the main factor in creating the worst bleaching event ever recorded on the most biodiverse habitat on Earth; the Great Barrier Reef. The northern latitudes are also severely affected by the rising temperatures, due to the ranges of cold water fish, including cod, trout, and redfish, now thought to be shifting north as they are seeking out cooler waters. An estimation has been given of over 3 billion people that depend on a healthy marine environment for their livelihoods. This means that as climate change begins to radically impact various ecosystems, it will have a drastic knock-on effect on the future of those individuals, which will then go on to seriously affect all of mankind.
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Johnson & Johnson Will Stop Selling Plastic Cotton Buds To Combat Marine Pollution

The plastic cotton buds are the sixth most common type of litter found on our beaches.


Multinational corporation and well-known brand Johnson & Johnson has announced plans to stop selling their plastic cotton buds, which are one of the most common items of litter found on Britain’s beaches. The decision was made following a campaign to cut marine pollution, which largely consists of unrecycled plastics, and promises to stop selling the plastic cotton buds in half of the countries in the world. The company has said that they will use paper as the stick of the buds as an alternative, according to recent reports.





Dr. Clare Cavers from the Scottish environmental charity Fidra, which ran a campaign to persuade people to stop using plastic cotton buds, said,


“We commend Johnson & Johnson for leading this change in product material, it is an important part of the solution to the growing problem of plastic pollution in our seas. A step change in consumer behaviour is needed to ensure people dispose of waste responsibly and only flush toilet paper. The message cannot be strong enough that only the three Ps (pee, toilet paper and poo) should be flushed, and anything else should go in a bin.”

Plastic cotton buds are the sixth most common type of litter that was found on Britain’s beaches throughout 2016, according to recordings made by the Marine Conservation Society. Although guidelines state that cotton buds should always be thrown into a bin, many are flushed down toilets where they then reach the beaches through the sewer system. Plastic does not degrade as paper does, meaning that it is likely to persist in the natural world for centuries, which then attracts and concentrates an array of poisonous chemicals in the sea. When paper cotton buds are used in the place of plastic, they will get waterlogged and settle out of the wastewater before they would reach the beach, before they would then gradually degrade.



The company’s group marketing manager, Niamh Finan, said, “We recognise that our products have an environmental footprint, and that’s why we have actively switched our cotton buds range from plastic to a paper stick.” The United Nations has also warned that plastic debris in the sea poses a serious threat to human health, and experts have warned that plastic should be treated as a toxic substance once it gets into the environment. With the equivalent of one rubbish truck full of plastic being dumped into the ocean every minute, serious changes need to be made before it is too late. Current statistics show that if the rate of the amount of plastic ending up in the ocean continues, there will be more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans by 2050. Despite a multitude of awareness campaigns and prediction reports that are widely publicized about the danger of excessive plastic usage as it is today, only 5 percent of plastics are recycled effectively, whilst 40 percent end up in landfill sites, and a third in fragile ecosystems, which includes the oceans. Conservationists hope to see many other huge corporations follow suit by using environmentally friendly alternatives to their popular products.

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This article (Johnson & Johnson Will Stop Selling Plastic Cotton Buds To Combat Marine Pollution) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and True Activist.