Page 35 from: September 2015

35September 2015

Perth and the island of Tasmania. The CSIRO

research team found everything from balloons,

flip flops, PET bottles and cigarette stubs, to

bowling balls and fishing gear; indeed, it was

contended in Cascais that some 640 000 tonnes

of fishing gear is discarded globally every year.

Random, bulky objects such as kids’ water guns

have also turned up in the stomachs of big fish.

Urban centre concentration
‘We found that, within Australia, approximate-

ly three-quarters of the rubbish along the coast

is plastic,’ Hardesty observed. Most is from

Australian sources rather than from overseas,

with a large volume of debris concentrated near

urban centres, she added. The density of plastic

ranged from a few thousand pieces to more

than 40 000 pieces per square kilometre.

At the current pace, 250 million tonnes of

post-consumer plastic will hit the ocean by 2025

– said to equal ‘one tonne of plastic waste per

three tonnes of fish’. Furthermore, Hardesty pre-

dicts that plastics ingestion in seabirds may reach

95% of all species by 2050, taking into account

the steady increase in plastics production.

CSIRO has succeeded in educating more than

one million Australians about the importance

of recycling plastic waste. Hardesty also high-

lighted South Australia’s container deposit

scheme as a positive development in that it has

reduced the number of beverage containers

dumped ‘by a factor three’.

Five countries account for nearly 60% of plas-

tic waste adrift in the sea and waterways,

according to Emily Woglom of the Ocean Con-

ious forms of plastics packaging with

non-plastic alternatives in the USA alone

would increase the volume of packaging gen-

erated annually by 55 million tonnes. ‘Thus,

plastics significantly help reduce packaging

weight so more products can be shipped with

less packaging,’ Biddle explained.

But he acknowledged the big question over the

developing world. ‘We must see to it that a

scaled-down version of our modern recycling

industry gets launched there too,’ Biddle sug-

gested. This requires taking the same idea and

matching the optimal degree of automation

and upgrading to local economic and market

conditions. ‘Remember the “Goldilocks” prin-

ciple?’ Biddle said with a laugh. ‘We have to

get it just right.’

Architectural ‘building blocks’
To businessman Donald Thompson, ‘eco-design’
is not just a buzz phrase; it is a lifestyle choice that
should stand the test of time and that essentially
offers ‘building blocks’ towards a more sustainable
future. ‘Great architecture,’ he noted, ‘creates
permanency by designing a lasting quality that
defines who we are.’
An example of this is use of plastic waste to help
create affordable housing for people in struggling
countries. Thompson launched the Centre for
Regenerative Design and Collaboration, based in
Costa Rica, with such a mission in mind. His busi-
ness now runs a project that makes roof shingles
for homes completely out of post-consumer PET
bottles – because ‘polyethylene terephthalate has
excellent physical properties’.

The bottles used are squashed flat, then filled with
a mixture of recycled paper, foam and cement. The
PET manufacturers involved in the initiative claim
these products will last for ‘many decades’ even
under constant environmental exposure. While UV
radiation may affect the clarity of the tile to some
extent, stabilising additives are available to offset
that concern if necessary.
‘Right now, modern packaging is designed for
health and convenience, but it is problematically
also designed for immediate obsolescence,’ Thomp-
son argued. This fails to recognise the potential
value of the base material whereas the patented
bottle-to-tile concept ‘exemplifies the circular
economy’, he insisted.
www.crdc.green

servancy. Number one on the list is China, gen-

erating almost 30% of the pollution, with Indo-

nesia second on 10.5% and the Philippines

third on 6.1%. The largest source of ‘ocean

leakage’ is the 75% of plastic waste that remains

uncollected in the top five wasteful countries.

She argued that ‘fixing local waste collection is

at least 50% of the problem’.

Anti-plastics sentiment
‘Plastic waste, particularly in our oceans, has

become a catalyst for anti-plastics sentiment,’

Biddle told delegates. ‘So would ending our

relationship with plastics be a good thing?’ he

asked the audience.

Actually, a study by German research compa-

ny Denkstatt concludes that substituting var-

Portugal’s Green Dot authority recovered 419 000 tonnes of municipal solid waste in 2014, nearly 20% of which was plastics.

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