Skip to main content

The Plastic Problem - A PBS NewsHour Documentary

 


Click here to watch PBS NewsHour Documentary - The Plastic Problem


By 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans. It’s an environmental crisis that’s been in the making for nearly 70 years. Plastic pollution is now considered one of the largest environmental threats facing humans and animals globally.

In “The Plastic Problem: PBS NewsHour Presents”, Amna Nawaz and her PBS NewsHour colleagues look at this now ubiquitous material and how it’s impacting the world, why it’s become so prevalent, what’s being done to mitigate its use, and what potential alternatives or solutions are out there. This hour-long program travels from Boston to Seattle, Costa Rica to Easter Island to bring the global scale of the problem to light.

From an expert on the world’s garbage patches to an industrial ecologist who quantified exactly how much plastic has ever been produced, Nawaz tracks how the world is grappling with plastic. She also sits down with two of the world’s biggest plastic producers — The Coca-Cola Company and Unilever — to find out what they’re doing to address the problem.

Since its widespread use began after World War II — everything from band-aids to parachutes — over 9 billion metric tons of plastic has been created. And because it doesn’t degrade and instead breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, much of that plastic is still here on earth. The problem is clear: too much plastic. But finding solutions is a murkier proposition.

Recycling for decades has been one of the so-called solutions. Nawaz tries her hand at sorting waste at a recycling facility. But an expert says the way we currently recycle is actually a part of the problem. Much of America’s plastic waste was being sent to China. But now China has shut its doors to plastic waste, which could result by 2030 in more than 100 million tons of trash with nowhere to go. Markets are shifting, prices are tanking and now all that plastic scrap has been diverted to other southeast Asian countries, opening up a host of illegal markets. One of those is Malaysia, where our teams found countless examples of plastic waste from western nations at both legal and illegal recycling or incineration sites.

Bans on plastic have become one attempt at addressing the problem. Seattle is one of the first major American cities to ban single-use plastics. Nawaz visits a compost heap, a noisy and busy recycling facility, the Seattle Mariners ballpark and an iconic Seattle seafood chain — all are playing their part in finding solutions to the plastic problem. Nawaz also meets a young scientist who discovered a bacteria that eats plastic ; a young inventor who has made an alternative to plastic wrap out of the by products of beer brewing ; a startup making plastic roads ; and a trash can that goes underwater to collect plastic waste. On a smaller scale, she meets a family in Toronto, Canada trying to reduce their plastic footprint by shopping at a new zero-waste grocery store.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NOAA and NASA Report Ozone Hole Over Antarctic Getting A Little Smaller And Improving

  Ozone is a form of oxygen that shows up in our atmosphere. Instead of two atoms bound together, which is the form we breath, this is three atoms that bind under certain circumstances. The contradiction is that it is toxic for us to inhale, but is vital to protecting life on Earth. The toxic form of ozone is a form of pollution that occurs more commonly in the summer when pollution interacts with high angle sunlight and high temperatures. This is also one component of smog. This is why we have ‘Ozone Action Days’ sometimes during a heat wave. The essential form of ozone is much higher in the sky in the stratosphere. This is above the weather portion of our sky and above the normal flight path of commercial planes between 10 and about 30 miles above the ground.   This is a more natural location for that molecule, where it serves to block harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Without it, most life on our planet could not exist.    So basically, we need this. The...
1 comment
Read more

Charcoal sales more lucrative at Christmastime, but officials warn against the many dangers

  By Romardo Lyons Charcoal burning is hailed as a dependable source of income by those who do it, especially at Christmastime when there is increased demand. Officials maintain and warn that not only is the practice illegal, but it poses serious threats to the environment, which is home to over 300 endemic species of trees, as at 2021. Jamaica is now only 30 per cent (336,000 hectares) forested lands, with the rate of deforestation being about 350 hectares per year – another reason why officials shun charcoal burning. But a St Thomas-based vendor said he chops thousands of wood to burn from 50 to 100 bags of charcoal from coal kilns, and described it is an easy job. "It take me all two weeks fi done everything. I get the wood from anywhere in woodland… anywhere mi can find some wood. But it depends on the size and the amount of wood. If it is a big kiln, I can get 50, 100 bag of coal from it when everything done. Me hear sehh we nuffi cut down tree and dem thing deh. It look like...
Post a Comment
Read more