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Nappies, tampons and wet wipes – dirty!

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Nappies

The liner or topsheet – made of the plastic polymer polypropylene – sits next to the baby’s skin and protects against wetness. From this layer, fluids flow down through the pulp-based tissue layer and into the core.

The core contains fluff pulp and SAP, an absorbent polymer to draw in and contain the baby’s urine and faeces.

Leakage from the nappy is minimised by a plastic bottom layer and the elastic barriers that hold the nappy around the child’s waist. The nappy is thrown away after it is soiled.

The average baby will go through 5,000 nappies. As 85 per cent of people are using disposables, they now form 4 per cent of all household waste, costing the taxpayer £40m each year to dispose of them.

Of the approximately eight million disposable nappies used in the UK every day, around 7.5 million end up in landfill sites.

Disposable nappies use three and a half times more energy than real nappies to produce, eight times more non-renewable materials and 90 times more renewable resources.The ecologist

7 million trees are cut down every year just to make disposable nappies Green Box Day

Menstrual Products

Along with cotton buds, tampons, applicators and panty liners make up 7.3 % of items flushed down the toilet in the UK.3

For every kilometre of beach included in the Beachwatch survey weekend in 2010, 22.5 towels/panty liners/backing strips, and 8.9 tampon applicators, were found.
According to the Sewer Network Action Programme, even products that are described as flushable or biodegradable can contribute to more than half (55%) of sewer flooding due to blockages in sewers.

In the UK alone, we buy more than 3 billion items of menstrual lingerie every year, spending £349 million in 2010 on sanitary and ‘feminine hygiene’ products.

About 90% of the materials used to make sanitary pads and liners are plastic and include polyethylene, polypropylene and polyacrylate super absorbents.

Every year, over 45 billion feminine hygiene products are disposed of somewhere.

Commercial production of superabsorbent polymers began in Japan in 1978 for use in sanitary pads. In the 80’s, using crude oil derived raw materials, European manufacturers enhanced the polymer so that it now absorbed 30 times it’s own weight under pressure. By the mid 90’s, production of SAP jumped to a massive 700 million tons. 75% used in diaper production, 10% in incontinence products, 10% in sanitary pads, and the rest in meat trays, etc.

Sources

natracare and womens environmental network

Items such as nappy liners, ‘flushable’ wipes and toilet seat liners cause many problems. But the main pest are women’s sanitary items.

The council says every single one has to be removed and sorted by hand by workers at waste stations.

Oh Yuck! Jesse Peach went to check out the undesirables in Wellington that haunt drains beneath our feet. Read more: 

Find out How to Menstruate Plastic Free here

plastic plankton
As we already know from this blog,tiny sea creatures, the bedrock of the food chain, ingest these micro plastics. You can see plankton hoovering up plastic here.  There is increasing evidence that this is not a healthy diet.

Best to cut back on synthetics especially  those items that may get get washed into the sea.

 

 

You can find out about natural fibres here

 

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Reports & Statistics Index

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Post Index

Wasting Away – how much rubbish do we create globally
Definitions You can find definitions, clarifications and explanations here

Number CrunchingFor nasty stats go to  Statistics
Reports

Find all reports here  or by look by category below.

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For the latest news, reports on and about plastic plus statistics to shame any one who still thinks disposable carrier bags are a good idea!

Check out these scary stats: Wasting Away – how much rubbish do we create globally

Definitions

Don’t know your P.E.Ts from your pets? You can find definitions, clarifications and explanations here

Number Crunching

“Our previous work had suggested that bottled water production was an energy-intensive process, but we were surprised to see that the energy equivalent of nearly 17 million barrels of oil are required to produce the PET bottles alone,” Cooley told PhysOrg.com.

For more nasty stats go to  Statistics

Reports

Check out the latest scientific reports on plastic and the effects it is having on everything from plankton to elephants

Find all reports here  or by look by category below.

And the latest new reports as rounded up by Fabiano of www.globalgarbage.org are here. Thank you for all his hard work.

By Category

How much does plastic cost us

Everlasting Litter & Plastic Pollution

Seas Of Rubbish

Micro plastic trash 

Plastic and Animals

Chemicals in plastics 

People Who Know

Expert Opinions from people who have studied the subject and kindly submitted guest posts in People Who Know.

All Reports

Marine debris ingestion by coastal dolphins:

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What drives differences between sympatric species?,

This study compared marine debris ingestion of the coastal dolphins Pontoporia blainvillei and Sotalia guianensis in a sympatric area in Atlantic Ocean.

Among the 89 stomach contents samples of P. blainvillei, 14 (15.7%) contained marine debris. For S. guianensis, 77 stomach contents samples were analyzed and only one of which (1.30%) contained marine debris.

The debris recovered was plastic material: nylon yarns and flexible plastics. Differences in feeding habits between the coastal dolphins were found to drive their differences regarding marine debris ingestion. The feeding activity of P. blainvillei is mainly near the sea bottom, which increases its chances of ingesting debris deposited on the seabed. In contrast, S. guianensis has a near-surface feeding habit.

In the study area, the seabed is the main zone of accumulation of debris, and species with some degree of association with the sea bottom may be local bioindicators of marine debris pollution.

Ana Paula Madeira Di Beneditto, Renata Maria Arruda Ramos,

(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X14002008)

 

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Endocrine disruption, fish & polyethylene

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Early warning signs of endocrine disruption in adult fish from the ingestion of polyethylene with and without sorbed chemical pollutants from the marine environment,

Abstract: Plastic debris is associated with several chemical pollutants known to disrupt the functioning of the endocrine system. To determine if the exposure to plastic debris and associated chemicals promotes endocrine-disrupting effects in fish, we conducted a chronic two-month dietary exposure using Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes) and environmentally relevant concentrations of microplastic (< 1 mm) and associated chemicals. We exposed fish to three treatments: a no-plastic (i.e. negative control), virgin-plastic (i.e. virgin polyethylene pre-production pellets) and marine-plastic treatment (i.e. polyethylene pellets deployed in San Diego Bay, CA for 3 months). Altered gene expression was observed in male fish exposed to the marine-plastic treatment, whereas altered gene expression was observed in female fish exposed to both the marine- and virgin-plastic treatment. Significant down-regulation of choriogenin (Chg H) gene expression was observed in males and significant down-regulation of vitellogenin (Vtg I), Chg H and the estrogen receptor (ERα) gene expression was observed in females. In addition, histological observation revealed abnormal proliferation of germ cells in one male fish from the marine-plastic treatment. Overall, our study suggests that the ingestion of plastic debris at environmentally relevant concentrations may alter endocrine system function in adult fish and warrants further research.

Keywords: Plastic debris; Endocrine disruption; Japanese medaka; Germ
cells; Gene expression

Chelsea M. Rochman, Tomofumi Kurobe, Ida Flores, Swee J. Teh,

September 2014, Pages 656-661, ISSN 0048-9697,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.06.051.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969714009073)

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Organisms piggyback on plastic islands

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Miriam C. Goldstein, Henry S. Carson, Marcus Eriksen
Relationship of diversity and habitat area in North Pacific
plastic-associated rafting communities
Marine Biology
April 2014
DOI 10.1007/s00227-014-2432-8

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-014-2432-8

Abstract
Plastic and other anthropogenic debris (e.g., rubber, tar) augment natural floating substrates (e.g., algal rafts, pumice) in the open ocean, allowing “islands” of substrate-associated organisms to persist in an otherwise unsuitable habitat.

We examined a total of 242 debris objects collected in the eastern Pacific in 2009 and 2011 (32–39°N, 130–142°W) and the western Pacific in 2012 (19–41°N, 143–156°E).

Here, we ask: (a) What taxa are associated with plastic rafts in the North
Pacific? and (b) Does the number of taxa associated with plastic debris vary with the size of the debris “island?”

We documented 95 rafting taxa from 11 phyla.

We identified several potentially invasive plastic-associated rafting taxa, including the coral pathogen Halofolliculina spp. In concordance with classic species–area curves,  the number of rafting taxa was positively correlated with the size of the raft. Our findings suggest that diversity patterns on plastic debris are compatible with the concept of island biogeography.

227_2014_2432_MOESM1_ESM.pdf (304KB)
Supplementary material 1 (PDF 304 kb)
http://link.springer.com/content/esm/art:10.1007/s00227-014-2432-8/file/MediaObjects/227_2014_2432_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

227_2014_2432_MOESM2_ESM.xlsx (69KB)
Supplementary material 2 (XLSX 69 kb)
http://link.springer.com/content/esm/art:10.1007/s00227-014-2432-8/file/MediaObjects/227_2014_2432_MOESM2_ESM.xlsx

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Food Waste

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Almost 50% of the total amount of food thrown away in the UK comes from our homes. We throw away 7 million tonnes of food and drink from our homes every year in the UK, and more than half of this is food and drink we could have eaten. Love Food Hate Waste

Every tonne of biodegradable waste produces 300-500 cubic metres of landfill gas From Green Box Day

Global methane emissions from landfill are estimated to be between 30 and 70 million tonnes each year. Most of this landfill methane currently comes from developed countries, where the levels of waste tend to be highest.

Over a 20 year period, one ton of methane causes 72 times more warming than one ton of carbon dioxide (CO2).Read more about methane

We throw away 7.2 million tonnes of food and drink from our homes every year, the majority of which could have been eaten. This costs us £12 billion a year, harms the environment and wastes resources. In the UK food industry, waste is estimated to cost £5 billion per year. HMGov

Every year we (Americans) generate around 14 million tons of food waste which is 106 pounds of food waste per person 570,000 tons of this is composted for a 4.1% recovery rate. The rest, or 13.4 million tons is incinerated or landfilled and occupies 6.3 million cubic yards of landfilled MSW. EPA Gov Paper

The single largest producer of food waste in the United Kingdom is the domestic household. In 2007, households created 6,700,000 tonnes of food waste – accounting for 19 per cent of all municipal solid waste.[33] Potatoes account for the largest quantity of avoidable[d] food disposed of; 359,000 tonnes per year are thrown away, 49 per cent (177,400 tonnes) of which are untouched.[34] Bread slices account for the second food type most disposed of (328,000 tonnes per year), and apples the third (190,000 tonnes per year).[34] Salad is disposed of in the greatest proportion – 45 per cent of all salad purchased by weight will be thrown away uneaten.[35] (Wikipedia)

In 2012, the European Com- mission set a target of reducing by 50 percent the rate
of food loss and waste in Europe by 2020.28 If this target were extended globally to 2050, our analysis suggests that achieving it would reduce the need to produce 1,314 tril- lion kcal of food per year in 2050 relative to the business- as-usual scenario described in “The Great Balancing Act,” the rst installment of this World Resources Report work- ing paper series.29 In other words, cutting the global rate of food loss and waste from 24 percent of calories down

to 12 percent would close roughly 22 percent of the 6,000 trillion kcal per year gap between food available today and that needed in 2050.30 Thus our analysis suggests that reducing food loss and waste could be one of the leading global strategies or “menu items” for achieving a sustain- able food future.

Global Food Losses & Waste report

 

Cows killed by plastic

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Cows hanging about on street corners eating plastic bags. Doesn’t do them any good at all and it is estimated that thousand dies each month from accidently ingesting the bad stuff.

The following is Taken from the Karuna Society for Animals & Nature website….

In December 2010, Karuna Society received 36 stray cattle from Anantapur town for permanent custody. Soon after their arrival one of the cows died. The post mortem conducted by our veterinary surgeon revealed that the animal’s rumen was full of plastic. After examination of all the animals, he advised us to start surgeries to remove plastics from their rumens to save their lives.

From the moment we received the “plastic cow” from Anantapur town, we realized that there are hundreds of cattle on the roads feeding on garbage, including plastic. They are sentenced to a slow and cruel death if they do not receive help in time. This is a cruelty most people are not aware of when they see the animals “peacefully” walking on the street. Think about big cities like Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore where tens of thousands of animals are walking around with their bellies full of plastic.”

And its not just cows – all kinds of animals die from eating plastic

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Dirty Danube

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“Based on the ambient population data and the local runoff, the researchers estimated that the Danube carries about 4.2 tons of plastic litter into the Black Sea on a daily basis. On an annual basis this means 1,533 tons of litter; more than the estimated mass of the infamous litter islands in the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean.

So far the growing quantity of litter has been studied almost only in oceans and seas, however, plastic particles can cause similar harms in rivers as well. Fish may swallow the small plastic items which can make them die. Toxic materials can be absorbed by the plastic items, possibly entering humans who eat fish.”

New research – read more

What plastic should you feed your turtle

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Plastic bags have been found in stomachs of the following marine species. several of which are classified as endangered

2013 Loggerhead turtle  with links to earlier reports by  Plotkin and Amos 1990; Bjorndal and Bolten. 1994)

2001  Marine Debris and Human Impacts on Sea Turtles  

*Green turtle (Uchida. 1990; Balazs 1985; Meylan 1978)

*Hawksbill turtle (Teas and Witzell. 1994; Hartog 1980)

Leatherback turtle (Balazs. 1985; Sadove and Morreale. 1990) *

The leatherback sea turtle, sometimes called the lute turtle, is the largest of all living turtles and is the fourth largest modern reptile behind three crocodilians. It is the only living species in the genus Dermochelys. Wikipedia

It is  the most commonly seen turtles in UK waters. and is especially at risk from plastic bag ingestion. as these bags. especially white or clear shopping bags closely resemble jellyfish. their primary prey. when suspended in the water column.

Plastic bags along with sheeting and plastic pieces are the predominant synthetic items found in the stomachs of turtles. An autopsy of a dead leatherback turtle washed up in Scotland in December 1994 reported that it had died as a result of starvation. caused by primary obstruction of the digestive tract by ingested plastic and metal litter. There was also a plastic bag lodged 40cm down the oesophagus (Godley et al. 1998).

A leatherback. washed ashore in Galloway in December 1998. was found in very poor condition with plastic bags obstructing its alimentary tract. The blockage included 1 white plastic bag. 1 black plastic bin liner. 3 transparent plastic bags. 1 green plastic bag. and 1 transparent plastic bag for chicken meat packaged by a US company.

Another leatherback found dead on Harlech beach in Wales in September 1988 had a piece of plastic blocking the entrance to the small intestine. and an autopsy established this could have contributed to the animal’s death (Eckert and Luginbuhl. 1988).

A study of dead stranded sea turtles on the coast of Brazil from 1997 to 1998 found the main items ingested were plastic bags. Of the 30 green turtles examined. white/transparent plastic bags were recorded in 14 (47%) of the green turtles found. Ingestion of anthropogenic debris accounted for the death of 4 (13.2%) of the green turtles examined (Bugoni et al. 2001).

Taken from adopt a beach

Pictures

For lots of photos of turtles impacted by plastic bags, go to sea turtles and plastic

Heres a film of a baby turtle eating plastic

And here’s a film of a deformed turtle – 6 pack plastic holders are responsible here

Other Ways Plastic Might Affect Turtles

Small pieces of latex and plastic sheeting were offered to sea turtles on different occasions and the turtles’ feeding behavior was noted,……………..blood glucose declined for 9 days following ingestion,indicating a possible interference in energy metabolism or gut function.

Read More

Turtle In The News

More

More reports on other animal deaths can be found here

Why Wales banned the bag….

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Beachwatch is a UK wide beach clean and survey organised by the Marine Conservation Society that has taken place every September since 1993,. During the Beachwatch 2007 event, 7,504 plastic bags were found on 354 beaches around the UK. On average 44 bags were found for every kilometre of coastline surveyed.

Plastic bags ranked number 15 in the top 20 most common litter items recorded, accounting for 2% of all beach li
tter.

In Wales the amount of plastic bags was higher than the UK average, with 887 bags found on 38 beaches amounting to 57 items/km.

Lots more about plastic marine trash in the UK right here

Endocrine System & Endocrine Disruptors

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A few quotes on the endocrine system…….

“Although we rarely think about them, the glands of the endocrine system and the hormones they release influence almost every cell, organ, and function of our bodies. The endocrine system is instrumental in regulating mood, growth and development, tissue function, and metabolism, as well as sexual function and reproductive processes.

In general, the endocrine system is in charge of body processes that happen slowly, such as cell growth. Faster processes like breathing and body movement are controlled by the nervous system. But even though the nervous system and endocrine system are separate systems, they often work together to help the body function properly.”Kids health

“Endocrine systems, are found in all mammals, birds, fish, and many other types of living organisms. They are made up of:

Glands located throughout the body.
Hormones that are made by the glands and released into the bloodstream or the fluid surrounding cells.
Receptors in various organs and tissues that recognize and respond to the hormones.
Hormones are released by glands and travel throughout the body, acting as chemical messengers.

Hormones interface with cells that contain matching receptors in or on their surfaces. The hormone binds with the receptor, much like a key would fit into a lock. The hormones, or keys, need to find compatible receptors, or locks, to work properly. Although hormones reach all parts of the body, only target cells with compatible receptors are equipped to respond. Once a receptor and a hormone bind, the receptor carries out the hormone’s instructions by either altering the cell’s existing proteins or turning on genes that will build a new protein. Both of these actions create reactions throughout the body. Researchers have identified more than 50 hormones in humans and other vertebrates.

The endocrine system regulates all biological processes in the body from conception through adulthood and into old age, including the development of the brain and nervous system, the growth and function of the reproductive system, as well as the metabolism and blood sugar levels. The female ovaries, male testes, and pituitary, thyroid, and adrenal glands are major constituents of the endocrine system.”The EPA website

“The Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP) focuses on the estrogen, androgen, and thyroid hormones. Estrogens are the group of hormones responsible for female sexual development. They are produced primarily by the ovaries and in small amounts by the adrenal glands. Androgens are responsible for male sex characteristics. Testosterone, the sex hormone produced by the testicles, is an androgen. The thyroid gland secretes two main hormones, thyroxine and triiodothyronine, into the bloodstream. These thyroid hormones stimulate all the cells in the body and control biological processes such as growth, reproduction, development, and metabolism. For additional information on the endocrine system and endocrine disruptors, visit the Endocrine Primer.” The EPA website

“Endocrine Disruptors

Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that may interfere with the body’s endocrine system and produce adverse developmental, reproductive, neurological, and immune effects in both humans and wildlife. A wide range of substances, both natural and man-made, are thought to cause endocrine disruption, including pharmaceuticals, dioxin and dioxin-like compounds, polychlorinated biphenyls, DDT and other pesticides, and plasticizers such as bisphenol A. Endocrine disruptors may be found in many everyday products– including plastic bottles, metal food cans, detergents, flame retardants, food, toys, cosmetics, and pesticides.” National institute of Environmental Health Sciences
“Disruption of the endocrine system can occur in various ways. Some chemicals mimic a natural hormone, fooling the body into over-responding to the stimulus (e.g., a growth hormone that results in increased muscle mass), or responding at inappropriate times (e.g., producing insulin when it is not needed). Other endocrine disrupting chemicals block the effects of a hormone from certain receptors (e.g. growth hormones required for normal development). Still others directly stimulate or inhibit the endocrine system and cause overproduction or underproduction of hormones (e.g. an over or underactive thyroid). Certain drugs are used to intentionally cause some of these effects, such as birth control pills. In many situations involving environmental chemicals, however, an endocrine effect is not desirable.

In recent years, some scientists have proposed that chemicals might inadvertently be disrupting the endocrine system of humans and wildlife. A variety of chemicals have been found to disrupt the endocrine systems of animals in laboratory studies, and there is strong evidence that chemical exposure has been associated with adverse developmental and reproductive effects on fish and wildlife in particular locations. The relationship of human diseases of the endocrine system and exposure to environmental contaminants, however, is poorly understood and scientifically controversial (Kavlock et al., 1996, EPA, 1997).

One example of the devastating consequences of the exposure of developing animals, including humans, to endocrine disruptors is the case of the potent drug diethylstilbestrol (DES), a synthetic estrogen. Prior to its ban in the early 1970’s, doctors mistakenly prescribed DES to as many as five million pregnant women to block spontaneous abortion and promote fetal growth. It was discovered after the children went through puberty that DES affected the development of the reproductive system and caused vaginal cancer. Since then, Congress has improved the evaluation and regulation process of drugs and other chemicals. The recent requirement of the establishment of an endocrine disruptor screening program is a highly significant step.docrine disruptor screening program is a highly significant step.”The EPA website

Find out more about the endocrine disruptors in plastic here

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Bees collect polyurethane and polyethylene plastics as novel nest materials

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/ES13-00308.1
Abstract: Plastic waste pervades the global landscape. Although adverse impacts on both species and ecosystems have been documented, there are few observations of behavioral flexibility and adaptation in species,
especially insects, to increasingly plastic-rich environments. Here, two species of megachilid bee are described independently using different types of polyurethane and polyethylene plastics in place of natural materials to construct and close brood cells in nests containing successfully emerging brood.

The plastics collected by each bee species resembled the natural materials usually sought; Megachile rotundata, which uses cut plant leaves, was found constructing brood cells out of cut pieces of polyethylene-based plastic bags, and Megachile campanulae, which uses plant and tree resins, had brood cells constructed out of a polyurethane-based exterior building sealant. Although perhaps incidentally collected, the novel use of plastics in the nests of bees
could reflect ecologically adaptive traits necessary for survival in an increasingly human-dominated environment.

http://www.esajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1890/ES13-00308.1