The Dirt on Plastic Waste

Now most people think that's because plastics are a throw away material, have very little value.

We must make the utmost effort to reduce the use of plastic packaging, and also to recycle all waste plastic.

As an economic information publisher, Thomson Reuters Foundation siad that China imported 7.3 million tonnes of plastic waste in China, accounting for 56 of the world s total plastic waste import.

So a lot of people remember the plastic bottle anyway, but we really talked about marine debris and plastic in the course of that one.

Given that most of these items are not biodegradable, and are not recycled, plastics waste is building up with serious environmental consequences. While governments have begun to implement new (and often quite strict) regulations aimed at managing plastics waste for example, China banned lightweight plastic shopping bags in 2008 they are inadequate to address the world s growing plastics waste problem.

Closed loop recycling, in which plastics waste is used to make another product, thus carries significant environmental benefits, such as reduced energy and oil consumption. But the process of separating the petroleum based recyclable plastics from other kinds of plastics and solid waste is difficult, costly, and labor intensive, so only a small proportion is recycled.

Preparation of technical guidelines on the environmentally sound management of wastes resulting from surface treatment of metals and plastics (Y17)

Because of that, waste is being put into plastic or metallic barrels, sealed by concrete mixture and buried deep in the ground.

Such developments would encourage industry to re use or recycle more parts. Although all 40 kinds of plastics used in a North American automobile can be recycled, the need to separate and clean them makes using them more expensive than using virgin plastic resins.

Although all 40 kinds of plastics used in a North American automobile can be recycled, the need to separate and clean them makes using them more expensive than using virgin plastic resins. This translates into a higher proportion of plastics in the remnants of shredded end of life automobiles a contaminated mixture of plastics and non plastics that is usually disposed of through some combination of landfilling, incineration, and secondary recycling.

It is down cycled and turned into lesser things, while a glass bottle can be a glass bottle again or can be used again a plastic bottle can never be a plastic bottle again.

A teacher told me how to express the under five percent of plastics recovered in our waste stream.

At the end of this process, we have a mixed plastic composite many different types of plastics and many different grades of plastics.

In fact, they may threaten the secondary recycling of petroleum based plastics, owing to possible contamination during sorting of mixed streams. And critics have expressed concern about the environmental impact of corn and other crops grown for industrial purposes, such as plastics and ethanol production, not to mention the potential effects on global food prices.

Increasing the proportion of re used plastics is a crucial step toward more sustainable plastics consumption. To this end, some automobile manufacturers have adjusted their designs to allow for easy disassembly of parts made of compatible plastics, while governments have set recycling target proportions for end of life vehicles.

It's a bad thing that plastic breaks down into smaller little bits, because it's always still plastic.

There were plenty of models for that, in Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, and many artists who were making beautiful art and sculpture with junk materials.

He's given a little bottle massage, a little bottle medal.

Upon educating myself a little further about plastics, I actually realized this was a bad thing.

Whenever possible, refuse single use and disposable plastics.

I'm also concerned about the plastic in the refrigerator, and I'm concerned about the plastic and the toxins that leach from plastic into us and into our bodies.

It's plastic pollution.

Moreover, most plastic products are made from so called petroleum based commodity thermoplastics. Given that a non renewable resource forms the basis of many plastic products most of which will not last long current plastics usage patterns are not sustainable.

And if you really look into it, particularly when it comes to plastic bottles, most of it is only down cycled, or incinerated, or shipped to China.

Now because the plastics are so plentiful and by the way, those other methods don't lead to the recovery of plastics, obviously but people do try to recover the plastics.

One is if 80 to 90 percent of what we're finding in the ocean of the marine debris that we're finding in the ocean is plastic, then why don't we call it what it is.

It's not just that gyre of plastic that I'm concerned about it's the gyre of plastic in the supermarket.

Waste materials

Adopts on an interim basis the technical guidelines on the environmentally sound management of wastes resulting from surface treatment of metals and plastics (Y17)

And both in the production of plastic, the use of plastic and the disposal of plastic, the people who have the bull's eye on their foreheads are poor people.

Plastic just is not going to do it.

Recycling of plastic in many developing countries means the incineration of the plastic, the burning of the plastic, which releases incredible toxic chemicals and, once again, kills people.

According to two studies made in 1976 and 1978 in the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska, 40 to 60 per cent of bottom trawls collected plastic and metal debris.

And the last material I'm going to talk about today is plastic, and, of course, my toaster had to have a plastic case.

I've been working with plastic bags, which I cut up and sew back together as my primary material for my artwork for the last 20 years.

It's mostly many types of plastics and many types of metals.

Plastics have taken the place of many conventional materials.

And in the process, we started recreating how the plastics industry makes plastics.

It's a plastic bag.

Solid waste

But if we were to be able to follow that little bottle on its journey, we would be shocked to discover that, all too often, that bottle is going to be put on a boat, it's going to go all the way across the ocean at some expense, and it's going to wind up in a developing country often China.

In the area, litter is found in the form of plastics, metal containers, wood, abandoned fishing gear, broken fishing nets, tyres and even entire automobiles in certain places.

We're using mushrooms to create an entirely new class of materials, which perform a lot like plastics during their use, but are made from crop waste and are totally compostable at the end of their lives.

Now look at that plastic chair.