October 2018

Photo Credit: "What Goes Around, Come Around" by Bonnie Monteleone Last year, my 6th and 7th grade students collected a series of articles and videos that focus on New Energy Technologies That Reduce Climate Change. This year, I teach only 6th grade and this year's students are tackling the problem of plastic. It is floating in the world's ocean and filling landfills across many continents. This human-made waste is harming the environment, and especially the world's wildlife (including nearly 700 species in our oceans). The following articles and videos (shown with a red link) provide some ideas on how we can mitigate, or reduce, this problem. New Products to Replace Plastic Products Spoons you can eat Water bottle pods Recycled paper, water bottle; decomposes in 3 weeks Reusable stainless steel water bottles (offered by many different companies, as well) Reusable straws Benjamin Stern (age 14) makes shampoo pods; Benjamin on Shark Tank Cloth diapers Biodegradable garbage bags Biodegradable dog waste bags Plastic free protective phone cases Wool/sugar cane shoes Laundry detergent w/o packaging (At the Beaverton Farmer's Market, they sell their soap in cloth bags) Bamboo toothbrushes Compostable plates Wooden watches Wooden sunglasses Bamboo iPhone speakers Plastic/Other Films Made From Other Materials Than Oil (less pollution; biodegradable) Elif Bilgin (16 years old) makes bio-plastic from bananas Biodegradable film & packaging made from milk proteins; 500 times stronger than plastic Using Microorganisms to Break Down Plastic Enzymes from bacteria Biodegradable materials do not break down well in the landfill. Reduce My plastic free life (a blog with tips and tricks that focus on living life without purchasing plastic, especially single-use plastic) Reuse Plastic waste used to make houses out of bricks like Legos Roads made of plastic waste Turning flip-flops into art Reusable sandwich wraps Reusable baby food pouch TerraCycle products Reusable produce bags Reusable grocery bags (many brands to choose from) Reusable bread bag Recycle Current recycling efforts Problems with trash contamination Coke-Cola wants to recycle one can/bottle for each one that it sells, by 2030 Recycled plastic rugs Pens made from recycled water bottles Honest Kids uses recyclable box for beverages, instead of plastic/aluminum pouch that cannot be recycled (like Caprisun) TerraCycle Toys made from recycled plastic Umbrellas made from recycled plastic Sea2See recycled plastic sunglasses Repair Repair Cafes Bans or Removal of Plastic Products Portland, Oregon bans plastic bags California banned single use plastic bags in most stores in 2016, and in 2019 the state banned straws in sit-down restaurants, unless a customer asks for one, or they take their order to go Washington D.C. bans plastic foam products used in businesses & restaurants (ex: polystyrene/Styrofoam); Plastic foam bands around the nation National Parks ban sale of plastic bottles; reduces waste by 112,000lbs/year McDonald's uses alternatives to plastic straws in select restaurants Coffee shops offer reusable silicone cups (as a replacement for disposable paper cup with plastic lid) National ban on microbeads Clean-up Boyan Slat (age 18) at 2012 TEDx Talks, Boyan Slat discusses progress in cleaning garbage patch in 2017 Trash clean up in Chile. SOLVE beach clean up 4Ocean sells products, which fund cleanups of plastic. An estimated 16 billion pounds of plastic enters the ocean each year, and 4Ocean has helped to pull nearly 1 1/2 million pounds of it, back out. Australia uses drain-nets to collect 815lbs. of trash & debris, including lots of plastic Support Organizations That are Tackling the Problem Ocean Conservancy SOLVE Upstream Jr. Ocean Guardians (started by Shelby O'Neil, age 16) (started letter writing campaign to companies that use disposable plastic, to educate them) Save Save Save Save

Month: October 2018

Protecting the World From Plastic