Tagged: ocean

Plastics – our dirty addiction

Cofee, games, fitness, Netflix, or beer. It seems to be very human to have your own peculiar addiction. There is one product none of us can’t get enough of: plastic. Once hailed as a revolution, it is now quickly becoming one of mankind’s biggest health hazards. Last week I went to a screening of the documentary ‘A Plastic Ocean’ in Brussels. Preceded by a panel discussion between director Craig Leeson, marine biologist Richard Thompson, activists Hugo Tagholm and Maria Westerbos, and CEO of Klean Kanteen Jim Osgood. It was an eye-opening evening for me. This is what I take away.

The screening of the documentary was preceded by a panel discussion. From left to right: Leeson, Tagholm, Westerbos, Thompson, Oswood, Beck (own photo).

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Photo of the week: Impossible is nothing, dixit Adidas

The famous Boyan Slat has bold ideas about collecting all the plastic in the oceans, but he never revealed what he plans to do with this pile of garbage. Adidas and Parley for the Oceans, an organization that aims to end pollution of the world’s oceans, have came up with something that just might be (part of) the solution. On their General Assembly in New York, Adidas presented a shoe made out of plastics and gillnets recovered from the sea. Those were collected by Sea Sheperd Conservation Society during a campaign against illegal poaching at the African West-Coast.

Adidas will not sell the shoes, but rather wanted to show what is possible with recycled materials from the oceans “when we all put our heads together”, as a spokesman told the Huffington post. Which doesn’t mean it stops here. Next year, shoes partially made out of recycled materials can be found in stores. A good step forward, literally.

 

Adidas presented a shoe made of recovered plastic and gillnets from the oceans (photo: Adidas)

Adidas presented a shoe made of recovered plastic and gillnets from the oceans (photo: Adidas)

Sources

TheHuffintonPost

Photo by epSos.de

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Photo of the week: time for Ocean Cleanup!

We humans are very effective in one thing: ruining all the good things the planet has to offer. On this blog we’ve talked a lot about air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, but the air is not the only place we use as trash can. Every year millions of tons of plastic debris end up in our oceans. In the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, with an estimated density of plastic of 330 000 parts per square kilometer, debris is brought together by the circular ocean current in the higher Pacific Ocean.

Boyan Slat, now a 20-years old Dutch engineering student, presented an idea to clean up the mess a few years ago. At the time, it got a lot of publicity and with a kickstarter campaign he raised 2 billion dollars in no time. Last week, his ngo the Ocean Cleanup announced a first test system will be deployed in the second quarter of 2016 near Tsushima Island, between Japan and South Korea. Within five years, after other deployments of increasing scale and design updates, Slat plans to deploy a 100 km-long system to clean up about half the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, between Hawaii and California.

With the Ocean Cleanup system, Boyan Slat hopes  to put the sea currents at work to collect garbage (graphic: the Ocean Cleanup)

With the Ocean Cleanup system, Boyan Slat hopes to put the sea currents at work to collect garbage (graphic: the Ocean Cleanup)

Altough many people are excited about the idea, not everyone is convinced the system is going to work. Back in 2014, a very thorough technical and scientific review of Slat’s own feasibility study was published. Besides the enormous technical challenges such a floating device poses to engineers, the Ocean Cleanup seems to aim at collecting the larger plastic debris at the top water layer. In fact, the most harmful are the tiny particles floating in lower water layers that are swallowed by sea animals. How the device will cope with this and other feasibility questions remain largely unanswered until today. Let’s hope the test system in Tsushima will bring clarity on what is possible. In the meantime, we better try to reduce our waste footprint anyway.

Sources

the Ocean Cleanup
Review

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