Reckoning with the U.S. Role in Global Ocean Plastic Waste PDF Download

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780309458856
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
An estimated 8 million metric tons (MMT) of plastic waste enters the world's ocean each year - the equivalent of dumping a garbage truck of plastic waste into the ocean every minute. Plastic waste is now found in almost every marine habitat, from the ocean surface to deep sea sediments to the ocean's vast mid-water region, as well as the Great Lakes. This report responds to a request in the bipartisan Save Our Seas 2.0 Act for a scientific synthesis of the role of the United States both in contributing to and responding to global ocean plastic waste. The United States is a major producer of plastics and in 2016, generated more plastic waste by weight and per capita than any other nation. Although the U.S. solid waste management system is advanced, it is not sufficient to deter leakage into the environment. Reckoning with the U.S. Role in Global Ocean Plastic Waste calls for a national strategy by the end of 2022 to reduce the nation's contribution to global ocean plastic waste at every step - from production to its entry into the environment - including by substantially reducing U.S. solid waste generation. This report also recommends a nationally-coordinated and expanded monitoring system to track plastic pollution in order to understand the scales and sources of U.S. plastic waste, set reduction and management priorities, and measure progress.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780309459020
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
The United States is a major producer of plastics and in 2016, generated more plastic waste by weight and per capita than any other nation. This book calls for a national strategy by the end of 2022 to reduce the nation's contribution to global ocean plastic waste at every step (from production to its entry into the environment) including by substantially reducing U.S. solid waste generation.

Author: Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309051371
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
Marine debris is a serious environmental problem. To do its part, the United States has agreed to abide by the international treaty for garbage control at sea, known as MARPOL 73/78 Annex V. Clean Ships, Clean Ports, Clean Oceans explores the challenge of translating Annex V into workable laws and regulations for all kinds of ships and boats, from cruise ships to fishing crafts and recreational boats. The volume examines how existing resources can be leveraged into a comprehensive strategy for compliance, including integrated waste management systems and effective enforcement. Clean Ships, Clean Ports, Clean Oceans describes both progress toward and obstacles to Annex V compliance. The book covers: How shipborne garbage orignates and what happens to garbage discharged into the seas. Effects of discharge on human health, wildlife safety, and aesthetics. Differences in perspective among military, industrial, and recreational seafarers and shoreside facilities. Clean Ships, Clean Ports, Clean Oceans will be important to marine policymakers, port administrators, ship operations officers, maritime engineers, and marine ecologists.

Author: Silpa Kaza
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464813477
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Solid waste management affects every person in the world. By 2050, the world is expected to increase waste generation by 70 percent, from 2.01 billion tonnes of waste in 2016 to 3.40 billion tonnes of waste annually. Individuals and governments make decisions about consumption and waste management that affect the daily health, productivity, and cleanliness of communities. Poorly managed waste is contaminating the world’s oceans, clogging drains and causing flooding, transmitting diseases, increasing respiratory problems, harming animals that consume waste unknowingly, and affecting economic development. Unmanaged and improperly managed waste from decades of economic growth requires urgent action at all levels of society. What a Waste 2.0: A Global Snapshot of Solid Waste Management to 2050 aggregates extensive solid aste data at the national and urban levels. It estimates and projects waste generation to 2030 and 2050. Beyond the core data metrics from waste generation to disposal, the report provides information on waste management costs, revenues, and tariffs; special wastes; regulations; public communication; administrative and operational models; and the informal sector. Solid waste management accounts for approximately 20 percent of municipal budgets in low-income countries and 10 percent of municipal budgets in middle-income countries, on average. Waste management is often under the jurisdiction of local authorities facing competing priorities and limited resources and capacities in planning, contract management, and operational monitoring. These factors make sustainable waste management a complicated proposition; most low- and middle-income countries, and their respective cities, are struggling to address these challenges. Waste management data are critical to creating policy and planning for local contexts. Understanding how much waste is generated—especially with rapid urbanization and population growth—as well as the types of waste generated helps local governments to select appropriate management methods and plan for future demand. It allows governments to design a system with a suitable number of vehicles, establish efficient routes, set targets for diversion of waste, track progress, and adapt as consumption patterns change. With accurate data, governments can realistically allocate resources, assess relevant technologies, and consider strategic partners for service provision, such as the private sector or nongovernmental organizations. What a Waste 2.0: A Global Snapshot of Solid Waste Management to 2050 provides the most up-to-date information available to empower citizens and governments around the world to effectively address the pressing global crisis of waste. Additional information is available at http://www.worldbank.org/what-a-waste.

Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
ISBN: 926466548X
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
The United States, the world’s largest economy, has made progress in reducing several environmental pressures while maintaining one of the highest Gross Domestic Products per capita in the world. It has decoupled emissions of greenhouse gases, air pollutants, water abstractions and domestic material consumption from economic and population growth.

Author: Gerry Nagtzaam
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1800373554
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
Addressing one of the most pressing environmental issues, this topical book carefully inspects the current extent of the plastic pollution crisis and observes contemporary approaches to its regulation. By adopting a strong interdisciplinary approach, this book fully encapsulates the key challenges and solutions surrounding this globally applicable problem.

Author: Michelle Mech
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781721076062
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description
Empower Children to help save our oceans. With nine million tons of plastic debris entering the oceans every year from the land - the equivalent of one large garbage truck full every minute - plastic in our oceans is a problem so devastating and colossal that it is easy to give up in despair, feeling there is no way to make a real difference. But Ocean Champions - A Journey into Seas of Plastic not only communicates this huge environmental problem to young children in an entertaining and educational story; it also empowers them to make a difference by influencing the adults in their lives and by taking action to become champions for our oceans. Ocean Champions is beautifully illustrated and tells a tale of two children, Kai and Morgan, who are playing on a beach and befriend Botley, a plastic bottle who is afraid of being washed into the ocean. They soon discover a dolphin tangled in fishing net and call a rescue centre for help. The rescuers arrive in the super submersible, Spirit, and thus begins a journey of discovery about the devastating effects that plastic debris is having on marine animals, either through external entanglement that injures, traps, and often drowns them or through plastic ingestion, which causes suffering and often death. Spirit also takes them to see all the ocean plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Along the way the children learn why our oceans are so important, how plastic gets into the oceans and what happens to it there, why marine animals mistake plastic for food, and more. The story presents the sad facts in a way that doesn't overwhelm. The child characters learn and accept and then go on to do something about plastic in our oceans, inspiring readers to also become agents of change. The addendum provides more information, including actions to reduce our use of plastic, which gives readers immediate ways to start helping. The oceanchampions.ca website is designed to be an extension of the book and includes additional information about plastic and our oceans, teaching aids that contain lots of fun activities, success stories, student projects, and 'in the news' posts.

Author: Matt Simon
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1642832367
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
“Informed, utterly blindsiding account.” - Booklist, starred review It’s falling from the sky and in the air we breathe. It’s in our food, our clothes, and our homes. It’s microplastic and it’s everywhere—including our own bodies. Scientists are just beginning to discover how these tiny particles threaten health, but the studies are alarming. In A Poison Like No Other, Matt Simon reveals a whole new dimension to the plastic crisis, one even more disturbing than plastic bottles washing up on shores and grocery bags dumped in landfills. Dealing with discarded plastic is bad enough, but when it starts to break down, the real trouble begins. The very thing that makes plastic so useful and ubiquitous – its toughness – means it never really goes away. It just gets smaller and smaller: eventually small enough to enter your lungs or be absorbed by crops or penetrate a fish’s muscle tissue before it becomes dinner. Unlike other pollutants that are single elements or simple chemical compounds, microplastics represent a cocktail of toxicity: plastics contain at least 10,000 different chemicals. Those chemicals are linked to diseases from diabetes to hormone disruption to cancers. A Poison Like No Other is the first book to fully explore this new dimension of the plastic crisis, following the intrepid scientists who travel to the ends of the earth and the bottom of the ocean to understand the consequences of our dependence on plastic. As Simon learns from these researchers, there is no easy fix. But we will never curb our plastic addiction until we begin to recognize the invisible particles all around us.

Author: Lora Fleming
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0323952283
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 834

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Book Description
Oceans and Human Health: Opportunities and Impacts, Second Edition explores the inextricably interconnected and complex relationship between oceans and humans. Through the lens of the expanding oceans and human health meta-discipline, this work examines the many invaluable ecosystem services offered by oceans as well as the global anthropogenic impacts, and explores the associated risks and benefits to human health. Written and edited by an interdisciplinary team of experts, the book features international perspectives on the resources available to address these benefits and risks, including enhanced research, policy, and community engagement. The book concludes by examining the future of ocean stewardship and how global populations can unite to nurture and promote our life-enhancing relationship with oceans. This is an indispensable resource for students, researchers, communities, and industry specialists in marine sciences, public health, and international policy. - Addresses benefits, opportunities, risks, and impacts resulting from the relationship between oceans and humans, informed by more than 100 international authors - Identifies and links necessary tools to relevant disciplines for action, and provides illustrative international case studies - Covers scientific, socioeconomic, political, and ethical analyses behind the latest ocean and human health research - Provides study questions and horizon scans at the end of each chapter to encourage individual thought and action, offering a resource for course instructors, students, and communities

Author: Eve O. Schaub
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1510775404
Category : House & Home
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
"Eve’s brave and honest experiment reveals the shocking impact of the throwaway society we’ve become and at the same time showing small ways we can all do better.” —Rebecca Prince-Ruiz, founder of Plastic Free July Year of No Garbage is Super Size Me meets the environmental movement. In this book Eve O. Schaub, humorist and stunt memoirist extraordinaire, tackles her most difficult challenge to date: garbage. Convincing her husband and two daughters to go along with her, Schaub attempts the seemingly impossible: living in the modern world without creating any trash at all. For an entire year. And- as it turns out- during a pandemic. In the process, Schaub learns some startling things: that modern recycling is broken, and single stream recycling is a lie. That flushable wipes aren’t flushable and compostables aren’t compostable. That plastic drives climate change, fosters racism, and is poisoning the environment and our bodies at alarming rates, as microplastics are being found everywhere, from the top of Mount Everest to the placenta of unborn babies. If you’ve ever thought twice about that plastic straw in your drink, you’re gonna want to read this book.