Separating Aspirations from Reality 360dialogues engaging graphic treatment examines circularity’s promise as a silver bullet for the planet’s problems and finds it wanting. With engaging visuals, it evaluates the claims from a scientifically informed perspective, illustrating the difference between possible and non-possible solutions for a more sustainable economy and provides a more pragmatic foundation on which …
Here is what you can do instead. I’m sure I’m not the first person to tell you that the world’s plastic problem is at a critical level today. From the Stone Age to the Iron Age to the Steel Age, we delineate society’s epochs by their primary material for fabrication. Ours will most likely be called …
I’m an Environmental Scientist, and I Don’t Care If You Recycle Read More »
Apologies for the click bait headline, but what really caught our attention this month was the call for a global treaty to end production of ‘virgin’ plastic by 2040. The original article in Science Magazine is co-authored by fourteen scientists from respected institutions across the world who are calling for a binding global agreement to …
Bioplastics seemed to be the answer to all our problems, yet have had some bad press in recent years, mainly for reasons of a misperception about what they actually are and what they promise. The reason is that bioplastics are often labeled ‘biodegradable’ and ‘compostable’, and while bioplastics do decompose in nature more quickly than …
“I’m a Barbie girl, in the Barbie world… Life in plastic, it’s fantastic”. Some of you may remember the catchy Eurodance track by Aqua. Some of you won’t (it was over 20 years ago, after all!). Anyway, the point is, it’s true. Not the bit about being a Barbie girl, the bit about plastic being …
Annual global consumption of plastic bottles will top half a trillion by 2021, with a projected jump in production of 20% this year alone. Isn’t it time we starting looking for an alternative? Up until recently, switching to glass production, with or without a deposit return scheme in place, was accepted as the preferred eco …