A blog set out to explore, archive & relate plastic pollution happening world-wide, while learning about on-going efforts and solutions to help break free of our addiction to single-use plastics & sharing this awareness with a community of clean water lovers everywhere!
World surf champion Kelly Slater is doing something with all the trash in the ocean—he's wearing it.
If Outerknown's new board shorts ever tear after riding too
many waves, you could theoretically recycle them into a new pair.
They're from a new line of men's clothing that is made entirely from
plastic trash. When the clothes wear out, they can be fully upcycled
into a brand-new shirt or jacket.
The clothes, known as the "Evolution Series",
were the brainchild of 11-time world surf champion Kelly Slater. After
spending thousands of hours in the ocean, Slater liked the idea of
recycling plastic fishing nets—a common source of ocean waste—into
clothing. He partnered with Aquafil, an Italian manufacturer that spins
old nets, along with carpet and other nylon waste, into a new yarn
called Econyl.
"We collect the nets from all over the world," says Maria Giovanna
Sandrini, brand manager for Econyl. There are around 640,000 tons of
"ghost nets" abandoned in the ocean, trapping whales, turtles, and other
wildlife. Through a partnership with a Dutch nonprofit, the company's
Healthy Seas Initiative works with volunteer divers who spend free
weekends finding and unentangling the nets.
It took some time for the company to figure out how to best work with
the trashed nets. "It was very difficult in the beginning," Sandrini
says. "When we started, we didn't know anything about fishing nets—this
is not our business. We make yarn for carpet and garments. We started
slow with fishing communities in order to understand with them what was
possible to do...The first shipments were full of sand and other waste."
The company also had to find a way to identify the nets they needed,
because only a certain type of nylon is compatible with their
manufacturing process. "Fishing nets are made from various polymides,"
she says. "But with an infrared gun it was possible to recognize the
right material."
Econyl is also made with a mix of nylon waste from the factory and
from other sources, like nylon carpets and straps. Fishing nets supply
about a third of the plastic.
Perhaps most interesting is the fact that the resulting fabric is
itself infinitely recyclable. "If we take a garment—or fishing net, or
whatever else made from Nylon 6—thanks to this special process, we're
able to come back to the first raw material," Sandrini says. "We
generally buy this material, which is a derivative of oil. Thanks to
Econyl, we're able to reproduce it. It's a never-ending process. It can
be returned to the first building block."
If you drive a car, then you've invariably experienced the insanity
and frustration that potholes can cause. Roads made of asphalt aren't
perfect. They crack and crumble. The longer they go without repairs the
more damage they inflict on our cars (and insurance policies).
One
construction company in the Netherlands thinks it has the solution:
roads made of recycled plastic from the ocean. Scientists at
construction firm VolkerWessels are collaborating with the city of
Rotterdam in Holland to build prototypes of these pre-frabricated strips
of road called PlasticRoad.
The benefits of pre-fab roads made of recycled plastic, as VolkerWessels sees them:
Built in a fraction of the construction time (weeks, not months)
Virtually maintenance free
Can withstand greater extremes in temperature (-40 degrees F to nearly 180 degree F)
They have three times the expected lifespan of traditional asphalt
Have a lightweight design, meaning roadways could more easily be moved or adjusted
PlasticRoad would also have a hollow space that can be used for cables, pipes and rainwater, VolkerWessels says. Check it out:
The
next step in the prototype phase is to test it in a laboratory to make
sure it’s safe in wet and slippery conditions, VolkerWessels says. If
all goes well, the company hopes to lay the first fully recycled roadway
sometime within three years, Rolf Mars, the director of VolkerWessels’
roads subdivision, KWS Infra, said in a recent interview with The Guardian.
One
can only imagine how much more quiet rubber tires on plastic roads
would be than on asphalt. And, sayonara potholes. Good riddance.
Plastic roads may seem more well suited for toy cars, but a Dutch is aiming to take the toy track to the test track.
VolkerWessels announced last week
that it was working on plans to bring the world’s first plastic road to
the Netherlands. The PlasticRoad project is still entirely conceptual,
and the company is looking for partners to collaborate with. However,
VolkerWessels has highly ambitious plans for PlasticRoad with claims
that the project would revolutionize roads.
The company has said that the recycled plastic would be more durable,
require less maintenance and be more resistant to the elements – the
road is said to be able to handle temperatures between about -40F and
176F. The company has yet to start testing, but it said it expects the
lifespan of PlastRoads to be at least 50 years based on the lifespans of
similarly used plastic products for sewage pipes and plastic platforms.
“Plastic offers all kinds of advantages compared to current road
construction, both in laying the roads and maintenance,” VolkerWessels’
director of roads subdivision KWS Infra Rolf Mars said.
The roads, which would be hollow for cables, pipes and rainwater,
would also feature modular construction with a lightweight design to
make construction easier. Individual sections could simply be made in
the factory before being shipped for assembly. The company claims
PlasticRoads could “be built in weeks instead of months.”
VolkerWessels is also claiming that the PlasticRoads would be more
environmentally friendly than the traditional aggregates paving the
road. As it is, asphalt causes 1.6 million tons of carbon emissions each
year. 100 percent of the plastic used to create PlasticRoads would come
from the the eight billion kilograms of plastic trash floating around
the ocean – plastic trash that is normally burned, further damaging the
environment. Additionally, all of the PlasticRoads can be recycled for
use on a new road once their expiration date has passed.
When the project is ready for testing in approximately three years,
the Dutch city of Rotterdam has already volunteered to help run the test
trial on the city’s “street lab.”
“As far as I know we’re the first in the world [to try this],” Mars
said. “It’s still an idea on paper at the moment; the next stage is to
build it and test it in a laboratory to make sure it’s safe in wet and
slippery conditions and so on. We’re looking for partners who want to
collaborate on a pilot – as well as manufacturers in the plastics
industry, we’re thinking of the recycling sector, universities and other
knowledge institutions. Rotterdam is a very innovative city and has
embraced the idea. It fits very well within its sustainability policy
and it has said it is keen to work on a pilot.”
- See more at:
http://www.aggman.com/is-plastic-the-new-pavement-netherland-company-plans-for-road-surface-made-of-recycled-plastic/#sthash.3aaHNBqR.dpuf
Grocery shopping will never be the same—in Hawaii at least. On July 1, the state became the first in the U.S. to ban plastic checkout bags, after Oahu joined the rest of the Hawaiian islands in prohibiting them.
Although California was the first state to pass a law in
2014 prohibiting retailers from handing out plastic bags to customers,
the ban was put to a referendum
after pro-plastic trade groups opposed the move. The statewide ban in
Hawaii requires businesses to stay away from bags made from noncompostable plastic or else pay $100 to $1,000 in penalties.
For a country that threw away 3.4 million tons
of plastic bags, sacks, and wraps in 2012, as estimated by the
Environmental Protection Agency, the ban in Hawaii is undoubtedly a
major step toward sustainable packaging. But the ban is limited in its
approach: it applies only to bags made from noncompostable plastic.
Retailers are free to use compostable plastic bags, recyclable paper
bags, and reusable bags.
Moreover, the list of bags excluded
from the ban runs long. Plastic bags used for carrying fruit,
vegetables, frozen foods, coffee, meat, and fish inside the store have
escaped the ban. Retailers who use plastic bags for carrying takeout
food, newspapers, laundry, and prescription drugs have also been spared.
Nonetheless, the ban represents what could be the start of a
game-changing trend.
Supermarkets use layers and layers of flimsy plastic bags to pack purchases. The average American takes home about 1,500 plastic bags
a year, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. So it's no
surprise that the U.S. figures in the list of top 20 offenders
contributing to plastic debris in the oceans, according to a 2015 study. Plastic bags, in fact, are the fourth most commonly littered item on the coasts, as found by Ocean Conservancy.
Plastic bags may trump the eco-friendly paper bags and totes
when it comes to cost and convenience, but the Earth suffers. This is
because polyethylene—the most common type of plastic seen in
supermarkets—doesn't wear down easily. It takes plastic bags ages to
decompose, up to an estimated 500 years. A Swedish study found that
chemicals used in plastic could increase the risk of diabetes.
All of those bags have helped give the Pacific Ocean a debris monument twice the the size of the continental U.S. The so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch is full of plastic, which kills sea turtles
and other marine life. If other states follow Hawaii's example, it
could turn the tide against plastic in the rest of the country—and the
world.
Desktop
3D printers are capable of fabricating objects out of simple plastics —
usually PLA or ABS — providing designers with the ability to take a
concept, idea or model and turn it into a real tangible product in a
matter of hours. Without a doubt, the technology has, and will continue
to, revolutionize prototyping, product development and innovation in the
future.
For one couple, Jennifer Gadient and Fabian Wyss, they see 3D
printing as not only a miraculous technology that spurs innovation, but
also a means of cleaning up the planet, reducing litter on our beaches,
and ultimately providing for the recycling of waste. The Swiss couple
has taken to the road in a mini-van lab that they’ve created. This lab
features an Ultimaker 3D printer, a plastic shredder, and a filament
extruder; all the tools needed to turn plastic waste into useful
products.
“Ultimaker [the 3D printer manufacturer] gave us a
printer, and in exchange we give them feedback on their machine and
content,” explained Gadient to Wamda.com.
“I think what interested them was that idea of recycling, and mobility.
What does it mean if someone doesn’t have a factory, but travels with
it?” added Wyss.
During the journey, which has taken them to France, Spain and now
Morocco, they have collected plastic waste in the form of water and soda
bottle lids, shampoo bottles and other objects that happen to be made
up of polyethylene and polypropylene. Then, using their plastic
shredder, they shred these objects before putting it into their filament
extruder, to create feedstock for their 3D printer. From there, they
can print whatever designs they would like, which so far includes surf
wax combs, charms, sunglasses and more.
The project, which they call ProjectSeafood
has provided for an interesting learning experience while also showing
the potential that 3D printing has on the future of recycling.
Finding the plastic doesn’t seem to be a problem for the couple, as
apparently our planet’s beaches are littered full of the necessary
feedstock for their 3D printer.
“We quickly have a bag full of plastic bottle lids,” says
Gadient. “And the more we go South, the more we find.” Some of these
bottle lids were left by tourists, she explains, but much more were
drawn by the sea current.”
The
Ultimaker 3D printer that they use, has slightly been modified so that
it can be used from the convenience of the mini-van while also standing
up to the potentially windy and cold weather that the couple frequently
runs into, in addition to other environmental factors along the way.
They’ve enclosed the printer with windows on the sides, moved the motors
to the outside of the machine and even created their own custom
flexible “textile rooftop” that follows the movements of the printhead.
Because
of the various colors associated with recovered waste, there is no
knowing what the end filament will look like. Much of it is
rainbow-colored or grayish-brown due to the mixture of colors.
“To transform the granules into filament, we use a Noztek
filament extruder in combination with a lasers ensored winder. As the
size, quality and meltpoint of recycled polyethylene-flakes varies,
extruding a filament from multiple objects like bottlecaps in constant
diameter is quite a challenge and some filament has to be re-recycled
due to large diameter variations,” the couple explains.
The printable material, which is referred to as HDPE (high-density
polyethylene) is not quite as easily printed as more traditional PLA and
ABS filaments. The biggest problem that the couple runs into is with
the material’s first layer adhesion when extruded onto the printers
build plate. HDPE has a tendency to warp and delaminate, even when a
heated bed is used. To help combat this problem, they have discovered
that using a cloth covered build platform works quite well.
While
this endeavor has not made the couple wealthy by any means, they are
enjoying their time together, meeting a lot of interesting people along
the way, and ultimately taking a step to clean up our planet. At the
same time, they are proving that 3D printing can be a very useful tool
in the recycling of certain types of plastics.
“We never expected to make a lot of money,” says Wyss,
“But there was this hope to find a way to make it sustainable. What we
gained is human experiences, technical exchange, and meeting great
people.”
What do you think about this interesting endeavor? Do you think more
people should be looking into 3D printing with waste? Discuss in the ProjectSeafood forum thread on 3DPB.com.
Posted on 06. Jul, 2015 by Alison Crick in Jilard News
While plastic debris like these bottles may be visible, much more is broken down into microscopic particles.
German sportswear maker Adidas is planning to make the ultimate
eco-friendly footwear. The company has created the world’s first shoe
from plastic waste found in the oceans.
Adidas announced a new partnership with Parley for the Oceans, an
organization founded in 2013 that raises awareness of the dangers to the
world’s oceans while promoting projects that protect and conserve the
oceans. While Adidas has worked on other sustainability efforts in the
past, this is the first time they have made a shoe out of waste plastic
from the oceans.
Eric Liedtke from Adidas and Cyrill Gutsch from Parley for the Oceans
revealed their new initiative at a United Nations event last week. The
pair unveiled a prototype shoe with the upper part make entirely from
recycled ocean waste and deep-see gillnets which are used to illegally
catch fish. All the plastic for this particular pair of shoes was
collected during a 110-day Sea Shepherd expedition that tracked an
illegal poaching vessel off the coast of West Africa. Sea Shepherd is a
conservationist group that partnered with Parley for the Oceans on this
particular project. The sole of the shoe is not plastic but is made from
other sustainable materials.
Along with the new shoes, Adidas is planning to release plans for
other products made of ocean plastics later this year. They also plan to
phase out the use of plastic bags in their retail stores to prevent
more plastic from ending up in the ocean. Their prototype ocean plastic
shoe, however, does not yet have a name and may be released to stores in
a different form than its current look.
With the new shoes and other products, Adidas is recycling at least a
small part of the plastic waste that litters the world’s oceans while
showing that waste can be turned into something cool. More importantly,
though, they are raising awareness of a growing problem.
Plastic waste in the oceans is a bigger problem than many would
think. According to UNESCO estimates in 2006, every square mile of ocean
contains 46,000 pieces of plastic floating in the water. This ranges
from large, visible pieces of plastic like shopping bags and water
bottles to microscopic plastic pieces that have broken down in the
water. They say that more than a million fish, sea birds, marine
mammals, and other sea life die every year as a result of this plastic
pollution, and there may be many more deaths that scientists are just
not aware of.
There are a few ways that plastic pollution in the oceans can affect
wildlife. Deep-sea nets and plastic bags can tangle around a fish or
mammal. As well, even tiny pieces of plastic can be eaten by fish who
think they are food. With a belly full of non-nutritional plastic, these
fish then starve to death. Chemicals in the plastic can also affect
hormones in the aquatic creatures and expose them to pollutants like PCB
and DDT that the plastic has absorbed from the water.
Because of ocean currents, these plastic debris often clump together
in huge ocean patches, such as the Great Pacific garbage patch in the
North Pacific Ocean. Estimates of that plastic gyre’s size range from
270,000 to 5,800,000 square miles. Plastic waste also washes up on
beaches, looking unsightly and taking away habitat and breeding grounds
from shore creatures.
Some of the plastic comes from marinas and rivers, and other plastic
comes from ocean-borne ships. Still more plastic comes from abrasive
microbeads in cleaning and beauty products, which is washed down the
drain and is too small to be trapped by water treatment plants. The tiny
plastic beads then make their way into rivers and oceans.
Some organizations have organized measurement of the ocean plastic
problem along with cleanup efforts, although the huge amount of plastic
floating in the oceans makes this effort daunting. Others are focusing
on raising awareness of the issue and urging reductions in plastic use
on land. Parley for the Oceans says it is hoping to partner with even more businesses to help the world’s oceans.
If knitted sneakers sound like a strange concept, it may sound even stranger that they come from trash found in the ocean.
The
German-based shoe company Adidas paired with conservation group Parley
for the Oceans to develop a sneaker design made by knitting illegal gill
nets and other waste found at the bottom of the ocean, according to an
Adidas group statement.
The conservation effects of this method
are twofold: using recycled nets removes existing waste from the
environment, and knitting results in creating less new waste.
"Knitting in general eliminates waste, because you don't have
to cut out the patterns like on traditional footwear," Eric Liedtke,
Adidas Group executive board member of global brands, said according to Fast Coexist. "We use what we need for the shoe and waste nothing."
The yarns and filaments from the nets and other ocean waste
form the shoe upper, the Adidas statement said. Parley partner
organization Sea Shepherd collected the nets used for the prototype shoe
on a 110-day expedition tracking an illegal poaching vessel.
"It's
a fishing net that was spanning the bottom of the sea like a wall, and
killing pretty much every fish passing by," Parley for the Oceans
founder Cyrill Gutsch told Fast Coexist. "They confiscated this net, and
we're bringing it back to life."
The shoe is not for sale – and it probably will not be anytime soon. An Adidas spokeswoman told The Huffington Post
that, at least for now, the focus of the project has not been on
marketing and mass producing, but rather on simply showing it can be
done.
“This is not a plan, this is an action,” she said. “We did
this to show what we are capable of doing when we all put our heads
together.”
Though this shoe might never hit markets, Adidas is one of many
companies that has sought to create sustainable footwear. Adidas touts its use of recycled materials
to make more efficient use of patterns, and the company also
participates in donation programs for used shoes. New Balance also created a sneaker made from recycled plastic in 2011. Hiking boot manufacturer Timberland uses an eco-friendly rubber compound in its soles and recycled plastic water bottles in its linings and laces.
While
reusing plastic helps keep it out of the ocean and other waste
destinations, Mr. Gutsch acknowledged that the concept still faces
sustainability problems. The shoes are still made of plastic, and even
if this plastic is no longer killing fish, it will eventually become
waste again when the shoes are thrown out, and may end up back in the
ocean.
"We're going to end ocean plastic pollution only if we're
going to reinvent the material," Gutsch told Fast Coexist. "We need a
plastic that is not the current plastic—it's a design failure. It causes
a lot of problems. Plastic doesn't belong in nature, it doesn't belong
in the belly of a fish, it doesn't belong out there. The ultimate
solution is to cut into this ongoing stream of material that never dies,
is to reinvent plastic."
Musician and surfer Jack Johnson
may seem laid back, but not when it comes to fighting plastic
pollution. Aboard the Mystic Schooner on a research expedition with
plastic pollution experts The 5 Gyres Institute, Johnson took a hard jab at The Bag Monster, alter-ego of Andy Keller, founder and president of Chico Bags.
Keller, who invented a reusable bag that folds into its own pocket,
becomes The Bag Monster when he dons a costume made of 500 plastic
shopping bags, the average number of bags used annually by a shopper who
accepts plastic shopping bags. Johnson and Keller are both part of the
5 Gyres 2015 SEA (Science, Education, Action) Change Research
Expedition which set sail from Miami with stops in Eleuthera, Bahamas
and Bermuda before voyaging across the Atlantic to New York City. The
explorers aboard the Mystic are trawling the seas to collect and study
microplastics, fragments of our plastic civilization that are not
contained and have spilled into our environment with significant impacts
on sea creatures and our food chain.
Johnson lives in Hawaii, the first American state to ban plastic bags. His Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation
supports 5 Gyres, a research, education and policy institution
committed to stopping plastic pollution. 5 Gyres is located in
California, where Governor Jerry Brown signed a plastic bag ban this
year.
Citizen Scientists aboard the Mystic Tall Sail Ship with
5 Gyres conduct hourly trawls for microplastics and keep a visual check
for larger floating pieces of plastic pollution on the ocean surface.
Jack Johnson was shocked at what he saw on his shift. As reported to
the students of a local Bahamian school, The Island School, he saw 47 pieces of plastic go by during the first ten minutes of his hour watch, well outside the Atlantic Gyre.
Also contributing to the voyage, participating in research, and giving presentations aboard the vessel are Celine Cousteau, Dan and Keith Malloy, champion surfers and filmmakers; Kimi Werner, champion spearfisher and freediver; Mark Cunningham, legendary body boarder and subject of the Malloy brothers' film Come Hell or High Water,
which was screened at The Island School to students who participated
in a 5 Gyres produced Youth Summit on plastic pollution. Students
shared their own research projects including a study of plastic pollution chemical impacts on fish flesh in the Bahamas.
5 Gyres co-founder and research director Marcus Eriksen is the lead author of recent research
on the amount of microplastics in world oceans.
The amount, more than 5
Trillion Plastic Pieces weighing over 250,000 Tons afloat at sea, is
surprising because subtracting the amount of plastic that is recycled,
landfilled and burned leaves a huge amount of plastic unaccounted for
by the global estimate in our ocean's surface waters. One study estimates
the amount of plastic waste lost at sea at 8 million metric tons: the
equivalent of "five plastic grocery bags filled with plastic for every
foot of coastline in the world."
Eriksen hypothesizes that the lost
plastic has entered the food chain as it is consumed by marine life and
is also settling to the benthos at the bottom of the ocean. 5 Gyres'
research shows that 95% of the marine plastics at the surface of the
ocean are smaller than a grain of rice, and thus enter the food chain as
easily as plankton. The small pieces of plastics have been tested and
found to adsorb oily chemicals persistent in the aquatic environment
such as petroleum, flame retardants, and even PCBs and DDT that persist
even though banned decades ago. The microplastics have been shown to accumulate these toxins in percentages a million times higher than the surrounding waters.
The
Mystic Schooner is set to dock in New York City on June 23rd. All the
participants of the Sea Change Expedition have direct evidence of
humankind's impact on the 70 percent of the earth's surface that is
ocean. The explorers know for certain now that there is no "away" in
our "throw away" culture of single use plastics. Used for brief
moments, our disposable plastics persist in our environment
indefinitely.
