The dreary rounds of negotiation to the endless proliferation of waste plastics go on and on. Steve Fletcher of The Conversation [1] reports from Busan ,South Korea on the fifth and latest (count ’em, folks, five!) stage in the UN Environment Assembly, designed to come up with a treaty to end this stuff. One that is more than a scrap of paper, that is. Because last year alone we dumped more than 400 million fresh tonnes into our life support systems – our fields, seas and atmosphere. Now, at the price of a modest cough, we have been adverting the dangers of all these plastics for years (LSS passim). Most recently we cited their risks as endocrine disruptors, and to the effectiveness of our last remaining antibiotics. There are plenty more reasons to be gloomy, we just haven’t got space to list them.
But there is a tiny ray of hope. It comes from Japan, and it tries to address the problem of all the plastic waste fouling up the seas. A team led by Aida Takuzo has come up with a new class of material which they call supramolecular plastic. It’s clear, it’s strong, it behaves a bit like polypropylene: but get this. It breaks down in seawater. An ecologists dream you might say, but even more so for those of us who live by the sea and whose daily walk consists in negotiating endless mounds of bottles, lids, bags, packets, vapes ,ropes, nets and fender buoys. Which are not only an ecological hazard but an acute source of aesthetic shame.
If you want progress, expect it from the educated and the scientific, toiling ingeniously in their laboratories. Certain nations seem about to forget that simple truth.
[1]https://theconversation.com/time-is-running-out-for-a-treaty-to-end-plastic-pollution-heres-why-it-matters-242165?utm_
[2]https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20241122_11/#:~:text=An%20international%20team%20led%20by%20a%20Japanese%20
biodegradables #plastic #United Nations #pollution #ecology
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