Plastic

A whale is a mammal; all mammals need water; do whales ingest 1000’s of litres of salt water as a consequence of simply eating? — The Swarm — Taking Revenge on Man. Enter the YRR We swap a lot of books in our family, and I spent many hours reading “The Swarm,” translated from the German and written by Frank Schatzing. …

Plastic straws have become an emblem of our throwaway culture, contributing to the staggering amount of plastic waste that pollutes our planet. These simple utensils do not biodegrade and accumulate in landfills and the oceans. …

I thought I had until my daughter was five years old until she’d ask for a birthday party but, much to my chagrin, she announced her desire for a Frozen themed shindig when she turned three. Dutifully, my husband and I took to Amazon to order all manner of Elsa…

Thinking Citizen Blog — Wednesday is Climate Change, the Environment, and Sustainability Day Today’s Topic: The Other Side of Plastic — the Miracle of It Last week, the dark side of plastic. This week the bright side. “Plastics made possible the development of computer, cell phones, and most of the…

Summertime is great for a lot of things: getting outside, soaking up the sun, and spending time with family and friends. But it can also be a time when your skin takes a beating. Between the hot weather, sunscreen, bugspray, and plastic, your skin can become dried out and full…

Fossil Fuels infiltrate our lives, and we need to replace them with sustainable alternatives everywhere. “All will be one will be one this year wings and ice will be one in the world all will be changed in the world”, writes the Danish poet Inger Christensen in her poem Winter…

The United Nations is considering a global agreement to eliminate plastic pollution by 2030. A huge problem with few easy answers, and that cannot start with the total elimination of the manufacture of plastics. Instead, the idea is to work on suitable substitutes for the functions of a technology that…

Thinking Citizen Blog — Wednesday is Climate Change, the Environment, and Sustainability Day Today’s Topic: “Plastic Is Not Cheap” (Veronica Greenwood, Boston Globe) Should all plastic be banned? How about plastic bags? Bottles? If not all, how about some? which some? Why? What is the worst thing about plastic? Today…

The gigantic floating mass of ocean plastic debris has now become home to hundreds of plant and animal species. While an interesting phenomenon, it’s not exactly something to celebrate. — Humans have influenced the natural world for as long as we’ve existed, but only a handful of man-made inventions have impacted the planet as much as plastic. A major phenomenon created by our plastic obsession is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP). We’ve discussed it in detail on Thred before…