Author: Mathilda Davies

Mountains of Scottish rubbish are shipped every minute to developing countries that have been found to dump or burn recyclable waste illegally. The authorities exported about 350,000 tonnes of refuse, equivalent to almost five years of recycling, from Edinburgh last year to plants in Malaysia, India, Morocco and Pakistan, among others, in a practice condemned as “waste colonialism” and “environmental racism”.

Author: Elizabeth Claire Alberts

The more we learn about plastic, the more we find it everywhere. Research has shown that tiny microplastic particles litter the world’s oceans and rivers, from the Arctic and Antarctic. Microplastics are in the soils where fruits and vegetables grow. They’re found in the internal organs of wildlife. Scientists have even detected plastic in human blood, brains and placentas. A growing body of research has also shown that microplastics — particles less than 5 millimeters, or about 0.2 inches, in size — are being blown up into the atmosphere by wind and sea spray, then falling from the sky in rain. So it would only make sense that plastic is also present in clouds.

Author: Savannah Coombe

The Environment Agency has launched a public consultation on updating current charges for regulating notified international waste shipments.  It intends the new scheme to be more reflective of and proportionate to the activities the Environment Agency carries out. Currently, the cost of the Agency’s regulatory activities is greater than the fees it charges to waste importers and exporters.

Author: SDG Knowledge Hub

Following an all-night negotiating session and years of talks, the fifth International Conference on Chemicals Management (ICCM5) formally adopted a new global framework for the integrated management of chemicals and waste beyond 2020, the ‘Global Framework on Chemicals – For a planet free of harm from chemicals and waste.’ The Conference also adopted the Bonn Declaration, a political statement drafted over months of informal consultations and agreed to in the final hours.

Author: Katarina Anđelković

October 4, 2023 – About 40 minutes after midnight, a fire broke out in the yard of the Drava International company in the Osijek suburb of Brijest. As the police reported, it is plastic mass and packaging that are burning. About 50 firefighters are putting it out, and in case you are in or near Osijek, here is what you need to know about the Osijek fire.

Author: Center for International Environmental Law

BONN, GERMANY — The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) welcomed the adoption of the Global Framework on Chemicals and Waste (GFC*), on September 30 at the Fifth International Conference on Chemicals Management (ICCM5) in Bonn, Germany. The new framework, for a planet free of harm from chemicals and waste, is a successor of the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM), organized by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Author: Frank Landymore

A cave that's been closed off to human visitors for 30 years has been found to contain high concentrations of microplastics — and that should worry you. Such were the findings of a pair of new studies, the most recent of which was published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, that used the cave's hermetic seclusion as a way of gauging just how far microplastics have penetrated the environment, and more specifically, subsurface water systems.

Author: Sean Seddon

A ban on some single-use plastic products will come into force across England on Sunday. Shops and hospitality businesses will no longer be able to supply plastic cutlery, balloon sticks and polystyrene cups under the new rules. The government says the move will "tackle the scourge of litter and protect the environment from plastic pollution". But councils have warned that some firms are not ready for the change.

Author: Tom Wilfer

Yesterday the Bundestag decided on the levy rates for the new single-use plastic fund. With the majority of the government factions of the SPD, Greens and FDP, Parliament approved the disposable plastic fund regulation presented by the Federal Environment Ministry without any changes. This not only fixed the amount of the single-use plastic tax to be paid by manufacturers, but also defined the points system for disbursing funds to the public waste disposal authorities to eliminate littering.

Author: Recycling Product News Staff

The ISRI Board of Directors is considering changes to the Guidelines for Recycled Plastic that were approved by the ISRI Plastics Division on September 20, 2023. The deliberations will take place at ISRI's upcoming fall board meeting in Denver, Colorado on October 18, 2023.

Author: Schuyler Mitchell

Head south on State Highway 96, past a stretch of soybean crops and tobacco fields, and you’ll arrive in Zebulon, North Carolina, population 8,665. There, on a quiet stretch of Industrial Drive, sits a nondescript commercial building. It’s easy to miss; the name on the front door is barely legible. But atop that humble three-acre lot lies a leading solution to the global plastic pollution crisis — well, according to the plastic industry.

Author: Esmé E Deprez

Kyla Bennett, an ecologist and attorney in Easton, Massachusetts, subscribes to a school of thought called antispeciesism, which considers the preferential treatment of any animal species over another, humans included, to be unethical. So she’s long railed against the use of chemicals to kill insects, especially over a 26-square-mile stretch of freshwater wetlands and soggy woodlands near her home. For thousands of years, the Wampanoag people sought refuge and sustenance in the area and considered it alive with spirits. Today it’s called the Hockomock Swamp and retains lore of the paranormal, with reported sightings of Bigfoot and UFOs, but it’s mostly a place to walk dogs and paddle canoes.

Author: Chris Voloschuk

This week, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Congressman Lloyd Doggett of Texas reintroduced legislation that, if enacted, would impose a 20-cent-per-pound fee on the sale of virgin plastic resin used to make single-use plastics. The Rewarding Efforts to Decrease Unrecycled Contaminants in Ecosystems (REDUCE) Act was first introduced by Whitehouse in 2021 with the goal of creating an incentive to recycle plastic and help reduce plastic waste he says “is disrupting coastal economies, overwhelming ecosystems and threatening public health.”

Author: Reilly Sullivan

Ten fire trucks and 100 firefighters are currently battling a blaze in Sydney’s west which has engulfed a plastics factory. The fire broke out on Thursday about 4am at a factory on Woodpark Rd in the suburb of Smithfield, in the city's west. The facility is believed to have been operational at the time the blaze started with about 30 workers inside the building.