The Dirt on Plastic Waste

As an economic information publisher, Thomson Reuters Foundation siad that China imported 7.3 million tonnes of plastic waste in China, accounting for 56 of the world s total plastic waste import.

We must make the utmost effort to reduce the use of plastic packaging, and also to recycle all waste plastic.

And in their area they had a lot of shops and restaurants that were producing lots of food, cardboard and plastic waste.

Because of that, waste is being put into plastic or metallic barrels, sealed by concrete mixture and buried deep in the ground.

Capt. Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation first discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch an endless floating waste of plastic trash. Now he's drawing attention to the growing, choking problem of plastic debris in our seas.

Less than 10 of plastic trash is recycled compared to almost 90 of metals because of the massively complicated problem of finding and sorting the different kinds. Frustrated by this waste, Mike Biddle has developed a cheap and incredibly energy efficient plant that can, and does, recycle any kind of plastic.

Given that most of these items are not biodegradable, and are not recycled, plastics waste is building up with serious environmental consequences. While governments have begun to implement new (and often quite strict) regulations aimed at managing plastics waste for example, China banned lightweight plastic shopping bags in 2008 they are inadequate to address the world s growing plastics waste problem.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May made a pledge to the public on the 11th that the UK government will implement a 25 year plan, and will eradicate avoidable plastic waste pollution by 2042.

It's plastic pollution.

Recycling of plastic in many developing countries means the incineration of the plastic, the burning of the plastic, which releases incredible toxic chemicals and, once again, kills people.

I'm also concerned about the plastic in the refrigerator, and I'm concerned about the plastic and the toxins that leach from plastic into us and into our bodies.

It's a plastic bag.

And both in the production of plastic, the use of plastic and the disposal of plastic, the people who have the bull's eye on their foreheads are poor people.

It's a bad thing that plastic breaks down into smaller little bits, because it's always still plastic.

Controls your 3D plastic printer

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And that's a plastic polymer.

It's not just that gyre of plastic that I'm concerned about it's the gyre of plastic in the supermarket.

There's a waste of time there's a waste of space there's a waste of energy and there's a waste of waste.

Now look at that plastic chair.

Everything came in plastic, in cardboard.

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Mike Biddle We can recycle plastic

These boxes are made of plastic.

This chair is made of plastic.

This chair is made of plastic.

This plastic chair is very cheap.

And these are just a few examples of companies that are buying our plastic, replacing virgin plastic, to make their new products.

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Eben Bayer Are mushrooms the new plastic?

Van Jones The economic injustice of plastic

Talk about more plastic bags than plankton.

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Dianna Cohen Tough truths about plastic pollution

Plastic explosives Other explosives and their precursors.

E. Waste disposal and waste management

And the last material I'm going to talk about today is plastic, and, of course, my toaster had to have a plastic case.

They have thousands and thousands of plastic bags.

Plastic just is not going to do it.

Capt. Charles Moore on the seas of plastic

We had to replace them with recyclable plastic.

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A plastic dish will melt on the stove.

So a lot of people remember the plastic bottle anyway, but we really talked about marine debris and plastic in the course of that one.