Excerpts from England Banning Single Use Plastic cutlery and dishes (announced Jan 14, 2023)

 

England Is Banning Single-Use Plastic Cutlery and Plates
A public consultation revealed 96% approval for the decision.

England is set to ban single-use plastic cutlery and dishes. The announcement, which will be officially made on January 14 by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), follows a three-month consultation that gathered public opinions on items such as plastic plates, cutlery, balloon sticks, and extruded polystyrene.1

The idea of a ban was "backed by overwhelming public support," according to the Daily Mail, and Greenpeace UK reports that 96% of the 51,000 consultation participants said they'd support a ban on all of the items under consideration.23

It's estimated that the average person in England uses 18 disposable plastic plates and 37 pieces of disposable plastic cutlery every year, with a mere 10% of that getting recycled.4 This works out to 1.1 billion plates and 4.3 billion pieces of cutlery being used annually, most of which get tossed in landfill after their fleeting usefulness. Litter relating to takeout food and drink packaging dominate plastic waste in the ocean, according to a 2021 study.5 So it seems logical to want to tackle this issue.

The ban will apply to restaurants, cafes, and takeout foods, but not stores or supermarkets, where such single-use plastic is considered to be "primary packaging" and will be addressed by other means. 

Richard Swannell, interim CEO of WRAP, an NGO working to reduce waste, said his organization is in full support of this announcement.

"[It] marks important progress in the wholesale removal of problematic and unnecessary plastics that can end up as plastic pollution. WRAP is working with UK businesses to meet ambitious targets in this important area, and our latest results show an 84% reduction in problematic and unnecessary single use plastics by our UK Plastics Pact members since 2018. We're delighted to see these efforts being backed up by regulation, which will accelerate efforts to keep plastic out of the environment."

This ban follows another that was implemented in England in October 2020, banning plastic straws, stir-sticks, and cotton swabs with plastic stems. Scotland's single-use plastics ban came into effect in August 2022 and similar laws were approved in Wales this past December.

by Katherine Martinko  Published in Treehugger Newsletter on Jan. 13, 2023

Article Sources

1. Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. "Single-use plastic: banning the supply of commonly littered single-use plastic items." Gov.uk.

2. Ellicot, Claire. "Ministers will finally ban throwaway plastic plates, cups and cutlery killing our wildlife by the end of the year." Daily Mail.

3. Sedgwick, Alexandra. "Public tells government to ban polluting single-use plastics now." Greenpeace.

4. Treisman, Rachel. "England will ban single-use plastic plates and cutlery for environmental reasons." NPR.

5. Morales-Caselles, Carmen, et al. "An inshore-offshore sorting system revealed from global classification of ocean litter." Nature Sustainability, vol. 4, June 2021, DOI:10.1038/s41893-021-00720-8

6. 
   

And another article (first printed in 2020) in the same newsletter reminded me that:

 France banned plastic shopping bags as part of a 2015 energy bill, and a ban on plastic produce bags went into effect in 2017.

A Safe and Just Space for Humanity (Updated to include Fig. 1)

 Can we really live within the Doughnut?

The first written use of the Doughnut model by Kate Raworth in an OXFAM paper in 2012, as linked above in it's total 23 pages. 

Here's the first page of the Executive Summary.

This Discussion Paper sets out a visual framework for sustainable development – shaped like a doughnut – by combining the concept of planetary boundaries with the complementary concept of social boundaries. Achieving sustainable development means ensuring that all people have the resources needed – such as food, water, health care, and energy – to fulfil their human rights. And it means ensuring that humanity’s use of natural resources does not stress critical Earthsystem processes – by causing climate change or biodiversity loss, for example – to the point that Earth is pushed out of the stable state, known as the Holocene, which has been so beneficial to humankind over the past 10,000 years. In the lead-up to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in June 2012 (known as Rio+20), and the High-Level Summit on the Millennium Development Goals in 2013, there is a growing debate on how to draw up renewed and expanded global development goals which bring together the twin objectives of poverty eradication and environmental sustainability. Figure I below brings them into a single framework. The social foundation forms an inner boundary, below which are many dimensions of human deprivation. The environmental ceiling forms an outer boundary, beyond which are many dimensions of environmental degradation. Between the two boundaries lies an area – shaped like a doughnut – which represents an environmentally safe and socially just space for humanity to thrive in. It is also the space in which inclusive and sustainable economic development takes place. Figure 1. A safe and just space for humanity to thrive in: a first illustration,

 

 

What really can be recycled?

 Asheville's Recycling Info.

What is Recyclable

 

Guidelines below explain what items may be placed in your blue recycling carts. For information about bulky items, hazardous household waste, or other hard to recycle items, see how to dispose of large, seasonal, or unusual items.

 

Yes! Recycle Right

• Plastic – including bottles, tubs, jugs, and jars (please empty)
• Metal – including metal cans (please empty)
• Glass – including glass bottles and jars (please empty)
• Paper – paper including all paper, cartons, and cardboard (please flatten boxes)

 

Please Don’t Bag Your Recyclables.

 

Know Your No’s

• no styrofoam or peanuts
• no plastic wrap, pillows, or bags
• no tanglers like cords, hoses, wires
• no scrap metal
• no clothing or textiles
• no food waste
• no hazardous or medical waste
• no receipts, shredded paper, paper towels, or napkins

 

Keep these items out

• all batteries
• aluminum foil
• ceramic items
• diapers
• disposable cups or lids (plastic and coffee)
• electronics
• household glass or mirrors
• scrap metal and wood
• straws
• tires
• toys

Black Mountain may have at least one difference! We are required to jam all our recyclables into a blue (no other color please) plastic garbage bag. It is collected every 2 weeks.

I'm calling Black Mountain Town to find out what other differences we may have. The posted list that I have reflects when the Asheville refuse company was picking up our trash and recycling. I know  since then that Town of Black Mountain decided to do their own.

OK, you never need to call any more, just go to their web site, and ask for recycling info...and there you have it. Now I just need to figure out how to put a PDF doc into this blog...OK, screen shots it is!

What I'm glad to read is to put tops on bottles and jars. Yay, since I've been doing that.

Camels who swim

 Why not? From around the world from me, in India.

A nice video to share (perhaps for a change from all the serious stuff).

Sorry about the ads. They are part of YouTube these days.

Cost of damages of human-caused climate change.

 The U.S. endured 18 separate billion-dollar disasters fueled by climate change costing $165 billion total in 2022. The shocking number highlights the growing damages of human-caused climate change. 

A town-flattening hurricane in Florida. Catastrophic flooding in eastern Kentucky. Crippling heatwaves in the Northeast and West. A historic megadrought. The United States endured 18 separate disasters in 2022 whose damages exceeded $1 billion, with the total coming to $165 billion, according to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The annual report from the nation's premier meteorological institution highlights a troubling trend: Extreme weather events, fueled by human-caused climate change, are occurring at a higher frequency with an increased cost — in dollars and lives.

"Climate change is creating more and more intense, extreme events that cause significant damage and often sets off cascading hazards like intense drought, followed by devastating wildfires, followed by dangerous flooding and mudslides," said Dr. Rick Spinrad, NOAA's administrator, citing the flooding and landslides currently happening in California.

In five of the last six years, costs from climate and weather-related disasters have exceeded $100 billion annually. The average number of billion-dollar disasters has surged over that time, too, driven by a combination of increased exposure of people living in and moving to hazardous areas, vulnerability due to increasing hazards like wind speed and fire intensity, and a warming climate, the NOAA report said.

Climate-fueled hurricanes, in particular, are driving up damages. Hurricane Ian, which killed at least 150 people and pancaked entire neighborhoods when it made landfall in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane, cost $112.9 billion alone.

"There are, unfortunately, several trends that are not going in the right direction for us," said Adam Smith, an applied climatologist at NOAA. "For example, the United States has been impacted by a landfalling Category 4 or 5 hurricane in five out of the last six years."

Other worrying trends are clear too

The rise in frequency and intensity of extreme weather events mirrors a rise in global temperatures. The last eight years have been the warmest in modern history, European researchers said on Tuesday. Average global temperatures have increased 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.1 degrees Fahrenheit) since the Industrial Revolution, when humans started the widespread burning of fossil fuels to power economies and development.

Despite international pledges to cut climate-warming emissions and to move the world's economy to cleaner energy sources, global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. A report by the nonpartisan research firm Rhodium Group found that greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. rose 1.3% in 2022. It was the second consecutive year emissions in the U.S. rose, after a pandemic-driven dip in 2020, despite the Biden administration's goal of cutting U.S. emissions in half by the year 2030.

The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate bill in U.S. history, was a "turning point," the Rhodium Group report said. "However, even with the IRA, more aggressive policies are needed to fully close the gap [to halve emissions] by 2030."

More extreme weather is expected in 2023

The frequency of billion-dollar disasters has increased greatly in recent years and the trend is expected to continue.

An analysis from the nonprofit Climate Central earlier this year found that between 2017 and 2021 the U.S. experienced a billion-dollar disaster every 18 days, on average. The average time between those events in the 1980s was 82 days.

The less time between events, the fewer resources there are to respond to communities affected, the Climate Central report noted.

To reduce the threat of deadly and costly weather events, scientists say the world needs to limit warming by urgently cutting climate-warming emissions. But as evidenced by recent events, the impacts of climate change are already here and adaptation efforts are needed as well.

"This sobering data paints a dire picture of how woefully unprepared the United States is to cope with the mounting climate crisis and its intersection with other socioeconomic challenges in people's daily lives," said Rachel Cleetus, a policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists said in a statement. "Rather than responding in a one-off manner to disasters within the U.S., Congress should implement a comprehensive national climate resilience strategy commensurate with the harm and risks we're already facing."

By Nathan Rott, NPR NEWS Jan 10, 2023

This was a wonderful speech

 Hakeem Jeffries speech to House of Representatives...start at 4:15 after all his thanks.

Recycle plastic - WHAT?

 Plastic packaging is a serious global problem. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) says that 300 millions tons of plastic are produced annually—"nearly equivalent to the weight of the entire human population"—and half of that is for single-use items. A vast majority (91%) does not get recycled (because recycling is largely a myth), but rather ends up in landfills or the natural environment.

1. Lindwall, Courtney. "Single-Use Plastics 101." National Resources Defense Council.

So I'm among those wanting to see a movement in my town to limit single-use plastics. We're calling it Zero Plastic Black Mountain. 

I may have mentioned this before, when my friend Linda Tatspaugh shared about this new movement, in conjunction with Asheville's Zero Plastic aim, and our county, Buncombe County's efforts. The three civic organizations have yet to make any progress at this time, These are efforts to follow in the footsteps of San Francisco and New York City which recently banned the use of plastic shopping bags.

In another community they have to pay ten cents to purchase a plastic bag at the grocery store. One grocery here will sell reusable cloth tote bags, and others offer paper bags.

Many of us voluntarily have stopped bringing home plastic grocery bags...carrying our own tote bags back and forth. I still use the plastic bags I already have as trash can liners. And I unfortunately have a rule at my apartment complex to use a plastic garbage bag for all my garbage, and a blue garbage bag for my recyclable items, which are only collected every 2 weeks.

But the Zero Plastic Black Mountain movement told me the believable sad truth. We all are suffering from the micro plastics in the air and water and food we eat...to the extent that we consume a credit card's worth of plastic each week of our lives.

Let's see if we can't do something about this.

What do yout think about this?

 

Spray-on Biodegradable Produce Coating Could Replace Plastic Packaging
It rinses off with water and prolongs shelf life significantly.

Imagine if you could buy fresh produce that didn't come swaddled in disposable plastic packaging. Instead, it came covered in a thin gauzy layer of something that could be rinsed off under the tap, revealing a perfectly intact fruit or vegetable beneath. No rotten bits for your compost bin, no added plastic in your trash.

This description is closer to reality than you realize. Last year, a group of scientists from Rutgers and Harvard organized a study and came up with a spray-on antimicrobial and biodegradable food covering that rinsed off with water. It could replace single-use plastic packaging, they said, by guarding against spoilage and transportation damage.1

Plastic packaging is a serious global problem. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) says that 300 millions tons of plastic are produced annually—"nearly equivalent to the weight of the entire human population"—and half of that is for single-use items. A vast majority (91%) does not get recycled (because recycling is largely a myth), but rather ends up in landfills or the natural environment.2

The innovative protective coating, described in detail in a study published in the journal Nature Food, was made using pullulan, an edible polysaccharide fiber that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says is "generally recognize[d] as safe" (GRAS).3 The pullulan was spun using a technology called focused rotary jet spinning that had previously been used for tissue engineering and was likened by one scientist to a cotton candy machine.4

According to a Rutgers press release: "Like the webs cast by the Marvel comic book character Spider-Man, the stringy material can be spun from a heating device that resembles a hair dryer and 'shrink-wrapped' over foods of various shapes and sizes, such as an avocado or a sirloin steak. The resulting material that encases food products is sturdy enough to protect bruising and contains antimicrobial agents to fight spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms such as E. coli and listeria."5

The antimicrobial agents include thyme oil and citric acid, both of which are naturally derived, and nisin, a bacterially produced compound used as a food preservative. All are deemed safe for human consumption in the quantities used for this coating.

The researchers used avocados to test the coating, as these fruits are prone to uneven ripening and quick decay. When the time came to remove the coating, it could be washed off in water in a matter of seconds, and was found to extend an avocado's shelf life by 50%.1 This was likely due to bacteria being unable to infiltrate the coating, thus reducing the rate of natural decay.

Not everyone is convinced it's a surefire solution to the plastic pollution problem. Duke University environmental toxicologist Nishad Jayasundara said he's excited about any biodegradable alternatives to plastic, but that we need to understand more about the rinsing method of disposal, i.e. asking whether this could cause nontoxic materials to break down in potentially harmful ways.

"As a toxicologist," he told Scientific American, "the primary thought whenever you see a newly synthesized product is 'Do we know enough about it?' ... When we first thought about plastics, they were deemed pretty safe molecules. But over time we realized, 'Oh, actually, no, that's not the case.' Now we know that plastics at all levels, regardless of the size, have cellular-level effects, molecular-level effects and ecosystem-level effects."4

The scientists behind the spray-on coating remain optimistic. As they point out in the study, the use of micro- and nanofibers for food packaging has been limited up until now due to their reliance on non-GRAS materials and chemical processes. They see this new development as a valuable breakthrough: "This study demonstrates a scalable fibre spinning system for sustainable food packaging technology that enables the one-step synthesis and direct coating of antimicrobial fibres onto fresh foods without further treatment."1

While this solution won't work for every kind of food, it's certainly good news for a plastic-ridden world. We need all the help we can get to phase out single-use plastics and come up with alternatives for preserving food to reduce food waste. It will be interesting to see what comes of this particular discovery.

By

Katherine Martinko

   Published in Treehugger Newsletter - January 5, 2023 01:00PM EST

Article Sources:

1. Chang, Huibin, et. al. "High-throughput coating with biodegradable antimicrobial pullulan fibres extends shelf life and reduces weight loss in an avocado model." Nature Food, vol. 3, June 2022, pp. 428-436, DOI:10.1038/s43016-022-00523-w

2. Lindwall, Courtney. "Single-Use Plastics 101." National Resources Defense Council.

3. "Agency Response Letter GRAS Notice No. GRN 000645." U.S. Food & Drug Administration.

4. Jones, Sam. "Spray-On, Rinse-Off Food ‘Wrapper’ Can Cut Plastic Packaging." Scientific American.

5. MacPherson, Kitta. "Rutgers Scientist Develops Antimicrobial, Plant-Based Food Wrap Designed to Replace Plastic." Rutgers Today.

How we ended up with all those square states!

 A huge mistake in America (way back in 1878) not Keven McCarthy in the House of Representatives.**

America's Big Mistake - Watershed Democracy Rejected...only 12 minutes on You Tube!

** It took 15 votes before the GOP could get together and get enough concessions from him before he was "elected" Speaker of the house. For someone holding the gavel, McCarthy is totally transparent and devoid of any worth.

No comment

  

Today's quote:

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
 

—Carl Sagan
Pale Blue Dot

Another approach to climate change

How our perception of time shapes our approach to climate change

January 4, 2023

Rebecca Hersher

Most people are focused on the present: today, tomorrow, maybe next year. Fixing your flat tire is more pressing than figuring out if you should use an electric car. Living by the beach is a lot more fun than figuring out when your house will be underwater because of sea level rise.
That basic human relationship with time makes climate change a tricky problem.
"I consider climate change the policy problem from hell because you almost couldn't design a worse fit for our underlying psychology, or our institutions of decision-making," says Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
Our obsession with the present obscures the future
Those institutions — including companies and governments that ultimately have the power to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions — can be even more obsessed with the present than individuals are.
For example, says Leiserowitz, many companies are focused on quarterly earnings and growth. That helps drive short-term behavior, such as leasing new land to drill for fossil fuels, that makes long-term climate change worse.

And there are also big incentives for political leaders to think short-term. "The President gets elected every four years. Members of the Senate get elected every six years. And members of the House get elected every two years," Leiserowitz points out, "so they tend to operate on a much shorter time cycle than this problem, climate change, which is unfolding over decades."

There are deadlines looming for those elected leaders. The Biden administration pledged to cut emissions in half by 2030. By 2050, humans need to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions entirely in order to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change later this century.

Fortunately, our collective focus on the present also offers hints, psychologists say, about how to harness that hyperfocus on the present to inspire action.

To spur action, speed up the psychological rewards for addressing climate change now

For example, there are ways to highlight the quick payoff for addressing climate change. In the political realm, that could mean that an elected official gets more votes because they support policies that reduce emissions. The promise of a benefit in the next election may be more galvanizing than the goal of protecting future generations, even if the latter has more moral weight.

"The benefits that we get today are more salient, and we want them more than benefits that may be larger, but will accrue in the future," explains Jennifer Jacquet, a researcher and associate professor of environmental studies at New York University who studies the psychology of collective action, including on climate change.

Jacquet says the huge spending bill passed last year by Congress, called the Inflation Reduction Act, is another example of using our focus on the present to drive climate-conscious behavior. The bill includes financial incentives for people who buy electric vehicles or install solar panels.

"They're trying to speed up the benefits," says Jacquet. "That's smart. That's good. That plays into how we think about things."

Extreme weather is starting to catch everyone's attention

In some ways, our focus on the present is less and less of a problem as climate change makes itself more and more obvious today — in our daily lives. Everyone on Earth is experiencing the effects of a hotter planet. That makes it a problem of the present, not of the future.

That immediacy is already showing up in how Americans view climate change, according to Leiserowitz, who has been leading an annual poll on the topic for more than 15 years. As extreme weather is becoming more common, he says support for climate policies is also growing, especially at the local level.

For example, the vast majority of respondents in a September 2021 poll said they support local governments providing money to help make homes more energy efficient, to increase public transportation and to install bike lanes. And the majority of respondents supported investments in renewable energy.

There's no time to waste

Widespread public support for climate policies can help push politicians and corporate leaders to act quickly – which is important, because scientists warn that greenhouse gas emissions need to drop dramatically, and immediately, to avoid runaway warming later this century.

"We have big societal choices to make," says Leiserowitz, and those changes need to happen now. In the present. "People working together to demand action by their leaders is going to be an absolutely critical piece."
This story is part of our periodic science series "Finding Time — taking a journey through the fourth dimension to learn what makes us tick."

SOURCE of article: NPR News

Three stages in my past

  

Reformatted with the "portrait" mode of an iPhone camera taking a shot of a computer screen...thus everyone is 6 feet tall and pencil thin. I was sort of, not that tall, but those were my thin days. 1963 Pan Am Flight Attendants training class. I'm second from right front row. Many of those not in uniform were the trainers.

A few years later, married and visiting New York's World's Fair with my sister-in-law Carolyn (on l.)

And between the first and second photos above, I had my first son. It was an incredible experience.

Thanks to my second son for taking these photos from my ex-hubby's computer and sharing them with me.

That's three stages in my life within just 3 years! No comments about all the following years!

Today's quote:

CHAOS IS WHAT WE'VE LOST TOUCH WITH. THIS IS WHY IT IS GIVEN A BAD NAME. IT IS FEARED BY THE DOMINANT ARCHETYPE OF OUR WORLD, WHICH IS EGO; WHICH CLENCHES BECAUSE ITS EXISTENCE IS DEFINED IN TERMS OF CONTROL.
—TERENCE MCKENNA

Happy New Year

 Happy wishes for all of your endeavors in 2023.

For myself I wish good health and abundance, great food and friendships, and a lot of communication with others!