advent countdown: good news about plastics 2020
/We think its fair to say that this year has had its fair share of tough news so to celebrate the countdown to Christmas we thought we would do a good news advent focusing on plastics. With this year seeing an unplanned high demand for PPE and what feels like a rise in the use of single-use plastics we dug deep into the news archives to find 24 pieces of good news about plastics that happened this year which may have gone unnoticed or simply lost in amongst the tide of Covid-19 news, we hope you enjoy!
The demand for plastics is decreasing ahead of proposed plans by the fossil fuel industry.
We thought for our first piece of good news we would go big! A report by The Future’s Not in Plastics finds that mounting worldwide pressure to reduce the use of plastics could slash virgin plastic demand growth from 4% a year to under 1%, with demand peaking in 2027. While this may not seem all that positive we’re thrilled to see demand is decreasing and think this is a major step in the right direction, surely this decrease will only grow year on year as concern and pressure to rethink plastic grows?! Below2c writes that ‘Policymakers in Europe and China are implementing much more stringent regulatory regimes using the five key tools of taxation, design rules, bans, targets, and infrastructure. Moreover, the COVID shock is likely to reduce plastic demand by around 4% this year and give policymakers more room to act.’ Good news to build on in 2021!
Below2C: The Future of the Oil Industry is Not in Plastics
2. In February of this year Senator Tom Udall in Washington DC introduced the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act – the first comprehensive bill in Congress to address the plastic pollution crisis.
Drawing on stakeholder input from over 200 individuals, environmental groups, businesses, trade associations, aquariums, academics, grassroots organizations, and state and local governments, the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act reduces unnecessary plastic and reforms the broken waste management system in the US. With the US being found as the number 1 polluter of plastic its great to see US state and local governments implementing policies to reduce unnecessary plastic products and shift the huge financial responsibility to producers for managing consumers waste.
3. The UK banned single use plastic straws, stirrers and ear buds in October, and its not alone as various bans come into play around the globe.
Since October of this year cafes, bars and restaurants in the UK must not supply or sell single use plastic or they risk a fine from council inspectors. The ban is aimed at reducing the estimated 4.7 billion plastic straws, 316 million stirrers and 1.8 billion plastic stemmed cotton buds used in England every year. Commenting on the new law ASDA reported it removed a massive 110 million straws from sale! The UK wasn’t the only country banning single use plastic items this year. Kenya prohibited visitors from taking single use plastics into national parks, forests, beaches and conservation areas. China banned single use straws in its restaurant industry (and with a population of 1.4 billion people that will have a massive impact). Thailand banned single use plastic bags at major stores and Indonesia announced that single use plastics are banned from street markets and shopping malls in its capital Jakarta. Major plastic bans happening all around the world, with more on the horizon for 2021 with disposable plastic plates, cups, straws and other products banned in France coming into effect in the New Year and Canada banning plastic grocery bags, straws, stir sticks, six-pack rings, cutlery and food take-out containers that are hard to recycle.
The Telegraph: Plastic straws banned
ASDA: Creating change for better
We Forum: Canada Bans Single Use Plastics
rfi: France single use plastic ban
Sky News: Thailand begins 2020 with plastic bag ban
Metro: Indonesia becomes latest country to ban plastic bags
4. Britain to stop exporting its plastic waste to developing countries under new environment legislation.
Over the past couple of years the UKs terrible recycling habits have been exposed so its fantastic to see the The Environment Bill has been reintroduced to Parliament with new powers to stop plastic waste being shipped out of sight to less developed countries and to boost the UKs domestic recycling system. With plans for a more consistent approach to recycling across England and powers to create deposit return schemes and levy’s on single-use plastics. A new watchdog, the Office of Environmental Protection, will scrutinise laws, investigate complaints and take enforcement action against public authorities to uphold standards. A much needed development in the fight against plastic waste and pollution.
Telegraph: Britain to stop exporting plastic waste to developing countries
5. Millions of plastic bottles will be offset as remote town in the Philippines gets renewable drinking water created from sunlight!
SOURCE Global together with Conservation International are delivering sustainable, clean drinking water to the Indigenous people of Palawan in the Philippines thanks to sunlight powered SOURCE hydropanels that create more than 40,000 litres of renewable safe drinking water each year that will offset more than two million plastic water bottles. Its reading news stories like this that provides hope for a renewable and sustainable future!
Good News Network: Plastic Bottles Offset as Remote Town Gets Renewable Drinking Water
6. One of the UKs largest housing providers, Your Housing Group, has partnered with Changing Streams in a project to reduce the amount of plastic from its building practices.
Almost a quarter of all plastic made in the UK is created by the construction industry and the sector is the second largest producer of plastic waste in the UK, after packaging. It is estimated the building trade produces 50,000 tonnes of plastic waste each year, 40% of which is sent to landfill. With bad plastics stats like this its exciting to see a major housing group commit to reducing plastics from their buildings. Your Housing Group aims to swap plastic materials for biodegradable alternatives. Measures will include simple swap-outs, such as changing fixtures and fittings; reducing the use of plastic wrapping for building materials; as well as more complex long-term strategies to phase out materials containing plastic. The Changing Streams Research Centre is actively pursuing research and innovation into the development and use of sustainable alternatives which represent a significant reduction in plastic.
Your Housing Group has pledged to embed these practices and changes across its ambitious programme of new housing developments and all new contractors will be obliged to adhere to its plastic reduction pledge before being appointed, helping to drive change at every level of the construction process.
Having large companies take on the plastics issue is essential for any real progress and to have a major player in one of the worst performing sectors looking to make real change is great to see, we’re looking forward to hearing more about this project next year.
Changing Streams: Your Housing Group joins Changing Streams
Telegraph: Major Housebuilders Ditch Plastic
The Guardian: Builder aims to help UK construction industry to kick its plastic habit
7. Scientists have made plastic waste more valuable by turning it into hydrogen and high-value carbons.
A team of scientists and research groups have developed a simple method for retrieving valuable chemicals from plastic waste, so that recyclers may have a means of making more money from collecting plastic waste and produce clean fuel in the process. Oxford University writes that ‘This rapid one-step process for converting plastic to hydrogen and solid carbon significantly simplifies the usual processes of dealing with plastic waste and demonstrates that over 97% of hydrogen in plastic can be extracted in a very short time, in a low-cost method with no CO2 burden. The new method represents an attractive potential solution for the problem of plastic waste; instead of polluting our land and oceans, plastics could be used as a valuable feedstock for producing clean hydrogen fuel and value-added carbon products.’ Sounds good to us! The team used only a small sample set of plastic waste in their studies, however, they believe the process can scale meaningfully to an industrial level. We hope so!
Oxford University: Turning plastic waste into hydrogen and high-value carbons
Good News Network: Scientists make plastic more valuable
8. ASDA becomes latest supermarket to trial refill station in Leeds and Tesco partners with Loop.
This year has seen two more supermarkets get in on the refill act. ASDA are trialling a refill section in their Leeds branch. The chain said its move had been triggered by customers' changing shopping habits, and will decide whether to take the initiative nationwide depending on how successful it is. Tesco have decided to team up with Loop, a company set up by Terracycles Tom Szaky, offering customers the chance to refill certain branded goods in branded reusable containers. We’re firm believers in the more that refill is out there the better. The more people see it, the more it will become the normal way of shopping!
Telegraph: ASDA trials refills
Tesco: In partnership with Loop
9. College students invent device that curbs microplastics emitted from tires!
Microplastics emitted from vehicle tires as they wear down is a growing pollution problem, currently they are the second largest microplastic pollutant in our oceans. Luckily four students have come up with a solution. Designing a device that is fitted to the wheel of a vehicle it uses electrostatics to collect charged particles as they fly off the tire. Based on the results from their test rig, the group believes their prototype can collect 60% of all airborne particles from tires. Once collected the fragments can be reused in new tires or even in other materials such as ink. It inventions like these that remind you how great humans can be! The students are from Imperial College London and founded the Tyre Collective study during their course Innovation Design Engineering. The design was the winner in the prestigious James Dyson Awards.
Good News Network: College students invent device that curbs microplastics
Imperial College London: Students tackle harmful tire emissions
10. Ocean Voyages Institute sets record for largest haul of plastic removal from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
During a 48 day expedition earlier this year the team successfully removed 103 tons of fishing nets and consumer plastics from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, using GPS satellite trackers to find ghost nets and other ocean pollution, a fantastic effort! The team is committed to 0% ending in any landfill and is sending the sorted debris to recycling companies to be turned into insulation, energy and used in other projects.
Good News Projects: Hawaii group sets record
11. First of its kind carbon-free journey to raise awareness of recycling
Closer to home, Cornwall based Clean Ocean Sailing delivered 1 ton of beach plastic to Ocean Recovery Project in a carbon free journey from Cornwall to Exeter powered by sail. The beach plastic pollution will be recycled into kayaks by Odyssey Innovation! The south west at its finest! A super effort by all involved!
Clean Ocean Sailing: Instagram
East Devon News: Ocean Recovery Project
12. Start up in Uganda recycles plastic bottles into PPE face shields for hospitals.
We were very pleased to read a piece of good news surrounding PPE in light of plastic use. Two Ugandan entrepreneurs working to upcycle plastic waste into building materials altered their production to tackle the shortages of personal protective medical equipment. After the government ordered all non-essential businesses to close, Peter Okwoko and Paige Balcom, co-founders of Takataka Plastics, continued working in their plastic recycling facility recycling the plastic waste into face shields for medical workers. Its a 2 day process to make the face shields, workers sort, clean, shred, melt and mould the waste plastic and then they attach an adjustable strap, sometimes made from slices of old bicycle innertubes. They have made about 1,200 of the recycled plastic face shields, about 500 have been sold at low cost to NGOs and private health facilities and an additional 700 donated to public hospitals.
Good News Network: Start up in Uganda
Reuters: Ugandans melt plastic waste into protective shields
Takataka Plastics: Response to Covid-19
13. Supermarkets shun single use plastics in their Christmas ranges.
British retailers Morrisons, Waitrose and John Lewis removed glitter from their Christmas ranges this year to cut down on microplastics. Morrisons said they would be removing 50 tonnes of plastic from shelves this festive season, including no longer using plastic toys in crackers and reducing single-use plastic packaging on cards and decorations. Tesco has made a similar announcement removing over 20 million pieces of plastic from their Christmas range. Crackers, lights, cards and puddings have all been produced using less single use plastic. Awesome commitments from these major supermarkets.
We Forum: UK retailers ban glitter
14. New solar pavement driveways made from plastic bottles can power the average household and other great innovators fighting plastic pollution.
Hearing of great, useful recycling projects is really encouraging and this one sounds very exciting. For the last five years, Patio Solar has been developing new ways of implementing solar technology into urban spaces and one of their latest developments is a residential solar panelled driveway made out of recycled plastic bottles. Each ‘Patio Solar Paver’ is made from 400 PET bottles, one of the most common forms of consumer plastic. Compressed into pavers, the material becomes more durable than concrete while still being non-slip and sustainable. The system is the first to generate power from the pavements of a residential household and can either be used to generate electricity for the house or to power an electric car. According to Patio Solar the driveway system has the capacity to cover the yearly energy consumption of an average household! Plastic bottles put to great use!
Other projects doing great things with plastic waste are Genusee, who are putting the plastic water bottles used by residents in Flint in the US to good use by making spectacle frames as well as bringing much needed employment to the area. Monks in Thailand are creating their iconic orange robes from recycled plastic, recycling 40 tons of plastic they have collected.
Good News Network: Solar driveways made from PET
We Forum: How one US city turned bottle water into eyewear
Good News Network: Monks create orange robes from recycled plastic
15. The Plastic Free July campaign had an estimated 326 million participants worldwide, all choosing to refuse single-use plastics for the month.
The team calculate that this resulted in 7 million tonnes of plastic waste being avoided this year! Great news from a campaign that is now 10 years old and continues to grow year on year.
16. There’s 100 accredited Plastic Free Communities!
Plastic Free Coastlines was born in the summer of 2017 with the launch of the Surfers Against Sewage Wasteland campaign. Highlighting ocean plastic pollution as one of the biggest global environmental threats it called for a community response. Communities were asked to take action on single-use plastics and throwaway culture. The target was to have 125 communities working on the plan by 2020, but this target has been smashed! This year SAS has had their 700th sign up to the Plastic Free Communities program and in January they accredited their 100th Plastic Free Community. A fantastic job! Encouraging to know there are 100 communities who have all taken action against single use plastic and a further 700 working on it!
On top of this SAS are providing their accredited communities a brand new toolkit to take the fight against single use plastic and plastic pollution further up the chain with actions that target government and industry, empowering the communities and creating a collective, national voice that can’t be ignored. Amy Slack, SAS Head of Campaigns and Policy says “The Plastic Protest has been an opportunity to ensure that action on the ground turns into action in parliament. And its working. MPs are listening to their constituents, and support for tackling plastic pollution through reduction targets is growing amongst parliamentarians from all parties.”
Surfers Against Sewage: 100 plastic free communities
Surfers Against Sewage: Grassroots community action
17. Scientists create super enzyme that can eat plastic bottles six times faster than previous enzymes.
Enzymes produced in the stomachs of certain bacteria found during several high-profile discoveries have been combined by English scientists to create a super enzyme, reducing the time it takes for these chemicals to depolymerize, or breakdown plastic from weeks into mere hours. By combining two previously discovered enzymes scientists discovered that the enzyme “cocktail” broke down plastics six times as fast, while simultaneously putting the plastic on the next step to being reused with the enzymes converting the disconnected plastic polymers to plastic monomers—a base material ready to be used for recycling. The University of Portsmouth said the breakthrough created an opportunity to recycle plastic infinitely and reduce both plastic pollution and greenhouse gases. The discovery could also be key to recycling tricky mixed materials; it could be possible to combine the plastic-eating enzymes with existing ones that break down natural fibres that would allow mixed materials to be fully recycled.
The discovery is being further developed by the team with them researching how to further quicken the process and also how to scale and take outside of the lab with the hope that the enzymes could be used for recycling within a year or two. While it is often said that we can’t recycle our way out of the plastics crisis, its important that our recycling of material already here is as efficient as possible enabling us to move away from creating new virgin plastic and instead using what has already been created and turning it into something useful!
Good News Network: Scientists create super enzyme
MRW: Enzyme could bring ‘infinitely recyclable’ plastic
18. Ella Daish End Period Plastic campaign is still going strong with 4 major wins this year.
Ella Daish’s campaign to end period plastic started in 2018 and is still going strong and showing no signs of slowing down! This year Aldi removed plastic applicators from its own range, saving 14 tonnes of single-use plastic, Superdrug did the same and launched an own-brand eco friendly range saving 418kg of single-use plastic annually and both Morrisons and Lil-lets launched their own eco-friendly ranges, all because of the campaign, truly demonstrating that we have power as consumers! Go Ella and everyone who has signed the campaign to help make this happen!
19. The Indian school where students pay for lessons with plastic waste.
This is such a heart warming story! Every morning, students in Assam’s Pamohi village go to school with a bag of plastic waste, in exchange for their day’s lessons. Akshar School, founded by husband and wife team Mazin Mukhtar and Parmita Sarma, have turned their students into ecowarriors by waiving school fees and helping to stop local people burning used plastic. The village’s toxic bonfires were causing such an environmental hazard, children were coughing and wheezing in their classrooms. “When we asked the parents to send their household plastic with their children on the school bus, almost none of them complied. They preferred to burn their plastic at home. So my wife told them we would start charging fees. Fees which they could pay in cash, or in plastic waste from their homes,” says Mukhtar.
The alternative school fees policy quickly resulted in 100% compliance from parents who also signed a pledge to stop burning plastic. The school now collects around 10,000 pieces of plastic each month, which is transformed into eco-bricks for construction. The clouds of toxic smoke from plastic burning which used to plague the school have decreased significantly.
Mukhtar and Sarma have now signed with the Guwahati authorities to implement the Akshar model in five government schools.
Guardian: The Indian school where students pay for lessons with plastic waste
Bloom in Doom Mag: 7 good news stories
20. India's railways bring back tea in clay cups in bid to banish plastics
At all 7,000 railway stations in the country, the plan is to serve tea in traditional earthen cups known as kulhads. These are made from clay and are biodegradable and environment-friendly, which is why the country’s railways minister, Piyush Goyal, has said they will replace plastic cups as part of the government’s goal of making India free of single-use plastic, in a move to cut down on toxic waste and boost incomes of village potters.
Pre-pandemic, 23 million people travelled on India’s trains every day, so not only does that mean the plan will save a huge amount of single-use plastic waste but also an astronomical number of kulhads will be needed. This, politician and handicrafts expert Jaya Jaitly said, could generate income for 2 million potters. The plan is not without its issues and has already been tried by a past rail minister so needs to be implemented correctly to succeed, we’ll keep our fingers and toes crossed for this project as would be great to see tradition triumph over plastic!
Guardian: India's railways bring back tea in clay cups in bid to banish plastics
21. Innovative packaging awards to reduce the use of single-use plastics
BeyondPlastic.Net is a global initiative dedicated to reducing the use of single-use plastic products in order to decrease plastic pollution. Open to students, designers, engineers, makers, creators, inventors, and artists. Anyone who has an idea, concept, project, prototype, or solution already in market to support less plastic use is welcome to take part. There are 4 categories; most practical impact to reduce single-use plastics, most innovative design, most beautiful design and best initiative in education, journalism or campaigning. All celebrating fantastic ideas that will help us move away from single-use plastics.
Winning the gold award for most practical impact to reduce single-use plastics was Unpack Less, Peel More from Brazil. A packaging system created for handmade personal care products that are manufactured locally with natural ingredients. Following circular design guidelines. The packaging system is fully compostable, made from renewable sources, and has a fast growth rate. Silver was awarded to Coolpaste, a sustainable packaging design for toothpaste and Bronze to Waxy by Ecosoc, an innovative recycling technology creating environmentally friendly building materials.
In the most innovative category gold was won by Wastebased, The Item Bag 2.0 from the UK. Upgrading the humble plastic polybag used by fashion retailers by creating a biodegradable, non-toxic, carbon-negative storage bag that dissolves harmlessly in water, if you’ve bought from Cornish brand Finisterre you would have seen these bags in use! Silver went to Shellworks, again from the UK who create packaging for the cosmetic, beauty, fashion, and retail industries from food waste. And bronze went to another UK based company PLANT plASTIC! Packaging that at the end of its use takes on a new life form by growing into a house plant.
Gold in the most beautiful category was awarded to German company Shell Homage. A biodegradable composite material that’s made from egg and nut shells, it can be used in several industries such as product design, interior design, 3D filament consumable goods, and jewellery design. Silver went to Aqua Faba Foam, a material innovation from German designer Paula Nerlich who is developing a bioplastic based on aquafaba from chickpeas as part of her research into circular, compostable biomaterials. Winning bronze was Desintegra.me, designed by Chilean industrial designer Margarita Talep, who intends to replace single-use plastics with a new material extracted from algae.
The final category is best initiative in education, journalism or campaigning. Gold was awarded to two projects. U-RETAIN based in Zambia, an environmental initiative that seeks to use plastics as purchasing power for educational basics like books, pencils, and school bags. The collected plastics are sold to recycling companies at a reasonable monetary amount. Bulgarian community initiative Choose the Reusable Cup, was the other gold winner, who are looking to replace single-use plastics used in kindergarten with reusable options. Silver was awarded to an experimental biomaterials lab located in the south of Chile. LABVA aims to bring science closer to the community, focusing especially on new materials or open biomaterials and creating a culture around these new materials. And bronze was awarded to Dopper, a Dutch Social Enterprise who organise competitions for children encouraging them to come up with solutions for plastic pollution.
All fantastic ideas that we hope will see a reduction in single-use plastic dependence in future years.
Luxiders: 2020 beyond plastics awards
22. Derry and Strabane commits to becoming the first Zero Waste City in the UK and Ireland.
The Derry City and Strabane District Council area has officially become the first Zero Waste Municipality in the UK and Ireland to join Zero Waste Cities. Zero Waste Cities is a program set up by Zero Waste Europe, who are dedicated to help cities and communities transition towards zero waste. It brings together a European-wide collective of expert knowledge, as well as providing mentoring and recognition for municipalities wishing to implement zero waste strategies. They join a group of 400 European municipalities committed to the vision of a zero waste circular economy.
Mayor of Derry City and Strabane District Council, Councillor Brian Tierney, said “This is a significant milestone in our work towards a Circular Economy Zero Waste District and I am proud that we are the first Council area in these islands to achieve this designation. Everyone can play their part in that journey and we have been working closely with local businesses to increase awareness of waste reduction and to make them aware of how they can use and recycle their waste more economically.”
Working towards zero waste is the key to ridding ourselves of single-use plastic so this is fantastic to hear about and we hope the program gains further momentum and more Councils within the UK look to join! Anyone reading from Cornwall Council?!
Zero Waste Cities: This is the story
Zero Waste Cities: 2020 report
Zero Waste Cities: A local economic revolution
23. UK support plans for new global treaty to 'turn tide' on plastic pollution
Looking ahead to next year we were pleased to hear that after initially staying silent on the plans for a new global agreement to tackle the plastics crisis that the UK Government has now come forward to show their support.
Speaking via Zoom at a virtual World Trade Organization event, hosted by the UK in collaboration with the Global Plastic Action Partnership, Lord Goldsmith, minister for the Pacific and the Environment, said: “Plastic in the ocean is set to treble by 2025. The challenge we face is immense and urgent. We believe its time to negotiate a new global agreement to coordinate action on marine plastic litter and microplastic, one that goes far beyond the existing frameworks. With two-thirds of UN member states already on board we have a chance now to create an unstoppable momentum to tackle plastic pollution in a way that the Paris agreement has done for climate change and the Montreal protocol has done for ozone depletion. I hope many, many other nations will join us as well.”
The UK will be hosting the G7 and the Cop26 in 2021 and Lord Goldsmith has said that the UK “is committed to doing all it can for nature and to “turn the tide” on plastic waste.” We hope so, here’s looking forward to positive action in 2021 to build on all the great efforts we’ve seen this year!
Guardian: UK support plans for new global treaty to 'turn tide' on plastic pollution
24. Refill shoppers avoid 24,479 pieces of plastic in one year!
We couldn’t leave you folks out of our good news advent calendar! We wanted to let you know, by our very approximate calculations, that this year you have avoided 24,479 pieces of single-use plastic packaging by refill shopping! You have also avoided at least a further 2874 pieces of plastic by switching to plastic-free and reusable items. And through buying those lovely 1tree cards and wrapping paper have helped plant 200 trees! You folks are amazing!
And with that comes the end of our advent of good news, we want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a healthy, happy and plastic free New Year! Thank you so much for your support and joining us on this plastic-free journey.
