Category Archives: Waste

Meet Mr Trash Wheel – and the other ingenious tools that eat river plastic

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From ‘bubble barriers’ to floating drones, a host of new projects aim to stop plastic pollution before it ever reaches the ocean

The Great Bubble Barrier is just that – a wall of bubbles. It gurgles across the water in a diagonal screen, pushing plastic to one side while allowing fish and other wildlife to pass unharmed.

The technology, created by a Dutch firm and already being used in Amsterdam, is being trialled in the Douro River in Porto, Portugal, as part of the EU-supported Maelstrom (marine litter sustainable removal and management) project.

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‘Waste colonialism’: world grapples with west’s unwanted plastic

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Germany and UK are big exporters of plastic, much of which lies rotting in ports in Turkey, Vietnam and other countries

One hundred and 41 containers filled with rotting plastic waste have been on a journey for more than a year. Scattered between Turkey, Greece and Vietnam, far from their origins in Germany, the containers’ voyage sheds light on the hidden global trade in plastic waste.

Arriving in Turkey in late 2020, shortly before a ban on mixed plastic waste imports came into force, the containers quickly became the centre of a battle between traders, a shipping line, multiple governments and environmental campaigners demanding their return.

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Win for Tunisian town facing landfill crisis as government backs down

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After demonstrations see police use teargas and the death of one man, work begins to clear waste in Sfax after decision to move site

Work has begun to clear 30,000 tonnes of household rubbish from the streets of Tunisia’s “second city” of Sfax after the government backed down in a long-running dispute over a landfill site.

Residents and activists in Agareb, where the current dump is located, said the site, opened in 2008 near the El Gonna national park, was a risk to human health. In recent weeks, unrest in the region has escalated, with access to the site blocked and police using teargas against demonstrators from the town. One man, Abderrazek Lacheb, has allegedly died after being caught up in the demonstrations, although the police have denied his death was due to teargas.

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Single-use plastic plates and cutlery could be banned in England

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Ministers launch public consultation and will also investigate limiting wet wipes, tobacco filters and sachets

Single-use plastic items such as plates, cutlery and polystyrene cups could be banned in England as the government seeks to eliminate plastic waste.

Under proposals in a 12-week public consultation, businesses and consumers will need to move towards more sustainable alternatives.

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‘It comes from bacteria, and goes back to bacteria’: the future of plastic alternatives

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Making a biodegradable material strong enough to replace plastic is a tough task. But scientists are trying to do just that

When people think about plastic waste, they often think of the packaging that swaddles supermarket fruits and vegetables – shiny layers that are stripped away and thrown in the bin as soon as the produce is unloaded at home.

It’s a wasteful cycle that California-based company Apeel says it can help end. The firm has developed an edible, tasteless and invisible plant-based spray for fruits and vegetables that works as a barrier to keep oxygen out and moisture in, increasing shelf life without the need for single-use plastic.

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‘They call us bewitched’: the DRC performers turning trash into art – photo essay

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Dolls found in rubbish dumps, radio parts and discarded flip-flops are among items used to create surreal costumes by a Kinshasa collective highlighting political and environmental issues

As a child, Shaka Fumu Kabaka witnessed the atrocities that took place during the six-day war between Ugandan and Rwandan forces in his home town of Kisangani in June 2000.

“It was not even our war, but a war between two foreign armies,” he said.

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Environmental impact of bottled water ‘up to 3,500 times greater than tap water’

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Researchers also find impact of bottled water on ecosystems is 1,400 times higher than that of tap water

The impact of bottled water on natural resources is 3,500 times higher than for tap water, scientists have found.

The research is the first of its kind and examined the impact of bottled water in Barcelona, where it is becoming increasingly popular despite improvements to the quality of tap water in recent years.

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‘Enough with the burning’: EU executive accused of sacrificing forests

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Campaigners criticise European Commission strategy that allows continued burning of trees for fuel

The EU executive has been accused of “sacrificing forests” after it published proposals that would allow trees to continue to be burned for fuel.

The charges of “accelerating climate breakdown” through wood-burning were made on Friday as the European Commission unveiled its forest strategy, which includes a goal to plant 3bn trees across the EU by 2030.

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Scientists convert used plastic bottles into vanilla flavouring

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Production of chemical could help make recycling more attractive and tackle global plastic pollution

Plastic bottles have been converted into vanilla flavouring using genetically engineered bacteria, the first time a valuable chemical has been brewed from waste plastic.

Upcycling plastic bottles into more lucrative materials could make the recycling process far more attractive and effective. Currently plastics lose about 95% of their value as a material after a single use. Encouraging better collection and use of such waste is key to tackling the global plastic pollution problem.

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Takeaway food and drink litter dominates ocean plastic, study shows

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Just 10 plastic products make up 75% of all items and scientists say the pollution must be stopped at source

Plastic items from takeaway food and drink dominate the litter in the world’s oceans, according to the most comprehensive study to date.

Single-use bags, plastic bottles, food containers and food wrappers are the four most widespread items polluting the seas, making up almost half of the human-made waste, the researchers found. Just 10 plastic products, also including plastic lids and fishing gear, accounted for three-quarters of the litter, due to their widespread use and extremely slow degradation.

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Turkey to ban plastic waste imports

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Greenpeace investigation revealed British recycling left to burn on beaches and roadsides

Turkey is banning the import of most plastic waste after an investigation revealed British recycling was left to burn or be dumped on beaches and roadsides.

Greenpeace visited 10 sites in the southern city of Adana in March. Investigators found waste including British supermarket packaging in waterways, on beaches and in illegal waste mountains.

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‘It’s terrifying’: the English village overwhelmed by landfill stink

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For miles around Walleys Quarry in Silverdale, people have reported waking up in the night struggling to breathe

It may have been labelled the country’s smelliest village but it is much more than a bad stench making life miserable for the residents of Silverdale in Staffordshire.

For miles around Walleys Quarry landfill near Newcastle-under-Lyme, people have reported waking up in the middle of the night struggling to breathe, with itchy eyes and sore throats. Those with asthma have had their medication increased, and some have reported nosebleeds.

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‘Monster’ fatberg blocks Birmingham sewer

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Mass weighing 300 tonnes not expected to be cleared until June, says water company

Engineers are working around the clock to clear a “monster” fatberg 1km long which is clogging a sewer in Birmingham.

The blockage is not expected to be removed until June, water services company Severn Trent said in a statement, adding that the fatberg was about four miles east of the city centre in Hodge Hill.

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Scientists find way to remove polluting microplastics with bacteria

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Sticky property of bacteria used to create microbe nets that can capture microplastics in water to form a recyclable blob

Microbiologists have devised a sustainable way to remove polluting microplastics from the environment – and they want to use bacteria to do the job.

Bacteria naturally tend to group together and stick to surfaces, and this creates an adhesive substance called “biofilm” – we see it every morning when brushing our teeth and getting rid of dental plaque, for example. Researchers at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) want to use this sticky bacteria property and create tape-like microbe nets that can capture microplastics in polluted water to form an easily disposable and recyclable blob.

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Australian dogs poo the weight of the Sydney Harbour Bridge each month. Where should it go?

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Pathogenic and methane-producing, poo is the worst part of pet ownership. But in South Australia, a group of enterprising pet owners are piloting solutions

I’ve always picked up my dog’s droppings with bittersweet feelings. There’s the gratification of doing the right thing, and the guilt for contributing to plastic waste. This was eased somewhat by using biodegradable bags, but there’s more work to be done.

Animal Medicine Australia estimates there are 5.1m dogs in Australia. A single dog produces approximately 340 grams of waste per day. That means Australia’s dogs drop a mind-boggling weight in poo, 1734 tonnes – equivalent to nine empty jumbo jets every day, or a Sydney Harbour Bridge’s worth monthly.

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Net gains: how India trawlers’ plastic catch is helping to rebuild roads

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The waste caught by fishing boats used to be thrown back into the sea but in Kerala it is now turned into black gold

For years, plastic caught by fishing communities on the Kollam coast in India’s southern state of Kerala was thrown back into the water, damaging aquatic ecosystems and killing fish.

But fishers are spearheading an innovative initiative to clean up the ocean – along with their daily hauls of fish, they pull in and collect the waste that gets enmeshed in their nets.

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Trapped in gloves, tangled in masks: Covid PPE killing animals, report finds

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Mask and gloves protect people but harm animals from penguins to dogs when discarded, researchers say

The masks and gloves protecting people from coronavirus are proving a deadly threat to wildlife when thrown away, a report has found.

A fish trapped in the finger of a rubber glove in the Netherlands, a penguin in Brazil with a mask in its stomach and a fox in the UK entangled in a mask were among the victims.

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Chariots of steel: Barcelona’s hidden army of scrap recyclers

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Thousands of migrants play a key role in collecting Catalonia’s waste but must live on the margins

They are everywhere and yet they are almost invisible, living below the social radar as they crisscross the city pushing supermarket trolleys piled with metal tubing, old microwaves and empty beer cans.

The chatarreros are Barcelona’s itinerant scrap-metal collectors, and there are thousands of them. Most are undocumented migrants and so there is no official census, but Federico Demaria, a social scientist at the University of Barcelona who is conducting a study of the informal recyclers in Catalonia, believes there are between 50,000 and 100,000 in the region. About half are from sub-Saharan Africa; the rest are from eastern Europe, elsewhere in Africa and Spain.

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Thames Water hopes to harness human ‘poo power’ to heat homes

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Company says sewage plan would avoid 105,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions over 30 years

Thousands of homes in south-west London could soon be warmed by the waste from their local sewage works as part of England’s first poo-powered district heating scheme.

Thames Water hopes to harness the heat of human waste from its treatment plant in Kingston upon Thames to warm more than 2,000 new homes that form part of a regeneration plan for the borough’s Cambridge Road estate.

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What a dump! Why ‘wild toileting’ has become a big pandemic problem

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The number of people doing their business alfresco has shot up. But what else can you do when nature calls and there aren’t any public loos?

Name: Wild toileting.

Age: Dates back to Homo erectus. Urinating and defecating are part of the human condition – “I shit, therefore I am” (“Coshito, ergo sum”), as Descartes almost said – and were undomesticated until the Mesopotamians invented toilets almost 4,500 years ago.

Appearance: Don’t even think about it.

Is there a lot of it about? According to the Lulworth Estate, which manages Durdle Door and the surrounding coastline in Dorset, far too much. It says it saw a huge increase in “wild toileting” when lockdown was lifted last summer. It is calling on Boris Johnson to make responsible tourism a priority when travel restrictions ease this spring.

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