September 18, 2013
By Jen Hayden
...China's demand for low-cost recycled raw materials (click here) has meant waste shipments from Europe, the US, Japan and Hong Kong have arrived thick and fast, with scrap becoming the top US export to China by value ($11.3bn) in 2011.
China controls a large portion of the recycling market, importing about 70% of the world's 500m tonnes of electronic waste and 12m tonnes of plastic waste each year. Sudden Chinese policy changes therefore have a significant impact on the global recycling trade, which puts pressure on western countries to reconsider their reliance on the cost-effective practice of exporting waste, a habit that's reinforced by a lack of domestic recycling infrastructure and a lower demand for secondary raw materials....
There needs to be a chain of custody to the recycling from recycling centers to final destination. People need to know these programs are effective and keeps the recycled items out of the oceans.
No more floating bundles of trash tumbling off the ships in the middle of the ocean.
Fishermen (click here) set out amid floating garbage off the shore of Manila Bay in the Philippines on June 8, 2013.
December 11, 2014
By Charles Omedo
Researchers (click here) are surprised that humans generate as much as 10 trillion pieces of plastic wastes the world over, and that about 5.25 trillion find their ways into oceans and rivers, and weigh as much as 269,000 tons to keep on floating across ocean surfaces.
The co-founder of 5 Gyres Institute, Dr. Marcus Eriksen, led a team of researchers aboard ships to scour the surfaces of oceans and collected thousands of plastic wastes among other discarded items like toys, bags, toothbrushes, bottles, disused fishing nets and buoys, and other floating trash and debris....
By Jen Hayden
...China's demand for low-cost recycled raw materials (click here) has meant waste shipments from Europe, the US, Japan and Hong Kong have arrived thick and fast, with scrap becoming the top US export to China by value ($11.3bn) in 2011.
China controls a large portion of the recycling market, importing about 70% of the world's 500m tonnes of electronic waste and 12m tonnes of plastic waste each year. Sudden Chinese policy changes therefore have a significant impact on the global recycling trade, which puts pressure on western countries to reconsider their reliance on the cost-effective practice of exporting waste, a habit that's reinforced by a lack of domestic recycling infrastructure and a lower demand for secondary raw materials....
There needs to be a chain of custody to the recycling from recycling centers to final destination. People need to know these programs are effective and keeps the recycled items out of the oceans.
No more floating bundles of trash tumbling off the ships in the middle of the ocean.
December 11, 2014
By Charles Omedo
Researchers (click here) are surprised that humans generate as much as 10 trillion pieces of plastic wastes the world over, and that about 5.25 trillion find their ways into oceans and rivers, and weigh as much as 269,000 tons to keep on floating across ocean surfaces.
The co-founder of 5 Gyres Institute, Dr. Marcus Eriksen, led a team of researchers aboard ships to scour the surfaces of oceans and collected thousands of plastic wastes among other discarded items like toys, bags, toothbrushes, bottles, disused fishing nets and buoys, and other floating trash and debris....
