Latest news with #litter
BBC News
7 hours ago
- General
- BBC News
Litter at school campus branded 'utter shambles' by Beach Buddies
The volume of litter at a secondary school campus has been branded an "utter shambles" by a volunteer group after its members cleared up rubbish including 415 plastic 50 members of Beach Buddies took part in the clear-up around St Ninian's Lower School at Bemahague, in Onchan, collecting about 331lbs (150kg) of litter. Founder Bill Dale said it was "disappointing" to see the area in an "absolute mess" and the situation highlighted the continued need to educate children about the danger littering posed to the school and the education department have been contacted for response. Following the group's efforts on Sunday, Mr Dale said there was a "psychology" that once a place is clean, people would be less likely to "drop the next piece of litter", because it would stand he said if there were "already piles of rubbish around", there was a perception that discarding a "few more bits doesn't seem to matter". He said the items retrieved included plastic bottles, sweet, chocolate and crisp wrappers, tin cans and fast food packaging, which indicated the rubbish was likely dropped by said the charity regularly visits schools across the island to promote the "responsible disposal" of litter through its education programme, but had not visited St Ninian's Lower School "in a few years".Although the education programme had been "massively successful", particularly with primary schools, the situation at the Bemahague site had been reported to Beach Buddies by a member of Friends of the Earth Isle of Man, Mr Dale said. It was was "an utter shambles and heart-breaking" to find one school in "such a mess", he continued.A meeting with the school had been organised for next week to find a way to "make sure this does not happen again".It was important to speak out now to prevent the island going "seriously backwards" in its mindset towards littering, he he said it did not mean the island was "not still regarded as a fantastic example to the rest of the world as to how a community can get together and make a difference", he added. Read more stories from the Isle of Man on the BBC, watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer and follow BBC Isle of Man on Facebook and X.
The Independent
14 hours ago
- Science
- The Independent
Charging for plastic shopping bags can actually lead to cleaner beaches, study shows
Plastic bag bans and fees are actually working to help decrease litter along shorelines, researchers reveal. Local laws enforcing bans or fees for plastic shopping bags are associated with a 25 to 47 percent decrease in plastic bag litter found during shoreline cleanups, according to a new study in the peer-reviewed journal Science. The researchers found a decrease in plastic bags along all bodies of water, but the evidence suggests plastic bag regulations have the largest effect along lakes. The study also shows that some plastic bag regulations are more effective than others. Full bans and fees are more effective than partial bans, likely because of exemptions for thicker plastic bags, the authors wrote. Anna Papp, one of the authors and an environmental economist and postdoctoral associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told The New York Times the study shows plastic bag litter reliably decreases when local lawmakers implement regulations. 'This is not a once-in-time snapshot of plastic litter, but really is something that keeps happening again and again,' Papp said. Environmental scientist Dr. Zoie Diana told the Times the study shows that this decrease in plastic bag litter 'wouldn't have happened policies are working.' Plastic bag bans and fees are growing in popularity. More than 100 countries regulate the bags, and 175 countries are in talks to create the first-ever global plastics treaty, according to the study. In the U.S., at least 11 states have banned plastic bags altogether, and more than 200 counties have implemented bans or regulations. Dr. Erin Murphy, manager of Ocean Plastics Research for the Ocean Conservancy, told CNN that plastic bags are more dangerous to marine life than other types of litter. That's because they're lightweight and can be blown into the environment more easily, Murphy noted. Plastic bags can also kill animals that eat them or become entangled in them. 'They're hard to recycle, they're single-use, and they're lightweight, and so they blow very easily in the wind,' she told CNN. 'Even if we're trying to properly manage them, it's easy for them to escape waste management systems and get into the environment.'
Washington Post
20 hours ago
- Science
- Washington Post
Plastic bag fees and bans help limit coastal litter, study finds
Plastic bag fees and bans are effective in limiting debris on U.S. shorelines, a new study reports, but even places with bag policies are seeing a greater prevalence of plastic bags on beaches and riverbanks. The study, published Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal Science, analyzed the relationship between policies on plastic bags and the litter collected in more than 45,000 shoreline cleanups. In communities with policies in place, the prevalence of plastic bags in the trash was 25 percent to 47 percent lower than in places without regulations. But plastic bags increased as a share of litter both in communities with policies and those without, the researchers noted. The policies appeared to contain that growth but not stop or reverse it. Measures targeting plastic bags aren't eliminating the problem, just slowing its growth, said Kimberly Oremus, one of the study's authors and an associate professor at the University of Delaware's School of Marine Science and Policy. The impact of the policies has been somewhat limited, Oremus said, because they can be patchy in what they regulate and are themselves a patchwork, with rules and enforcement varying from place to place. 'Most of these bans and fees don't cover every type of plastic bag,' she said. 'There's a lot of exceptions to them. It really depends on the state.' The goal of all these policies is the same: to limit the use of plastic bags, which can take centuries to decompose and, in the interim, can entangle wildlife and release microplastics and toxic chemicals into waterways. Some places have imposed 'bag taxes' or fees on customers using plastic bags. Other places have experimented with bans — though they might prohibit thin plastic bags (which are most likely to blow away and become trash) while allowing thicker ones, or they might leave restaurant takeout bags unregulated. Erin Murphy, manager of ocean plastics research at Ocean Conservancy, said the new report was 'the first large-scale study to systematically assess how plastic bag policies reduce the amount of plastic bag pollution in our environment.' Murphy was not involved in the analysis, but the researchers used her nonprofit group's data from shoreline cleanups between 2016 and 2023. That data provided a way to measure litter before and after policies were enacted and do comparisons with measurements in places without any regulations. Lead author and environmental economist Anna Papp said one of the key findings was the difference between broad policies, which appeared to limit plastic litter, versus partial bans, which resulted in the smallest and least precise effects. There was also some evidence that bag fees could have a greater effect than bans. But the researchers said that fees are also much less common than bans and that more research is needed to assess their relative effectiveness. The study also found that state-level policies had a greater impact than town-level measures, Oremus said. Larger-scale policies tend to be more robust, she said, because 'litter can travel between borders.' The analysis also showed that the largest reductions in trash occurred in places with high amounts of plastic bag pollution. 'Are you a place that struggles with litter?' Oremus said. 'Then, this might be a policy to consider.' Erin Hass, senior director of strategic alliances with the Plastics Industry Association, noted that plastic bags represent a fairly small portion of litter that winds up along U.S. shorelines. 'Even the study itself acknowledges that the top sources of beach litter are cigarette butts, food wrappers, bottle caps and beverage bottles — not plastic bags,' Hass said. 'Why are regulators isolating a single product while overlooking far more prominent contributors?' Bans could 'create unintended consequences,' Hass said. She noted that after the implementation of a bag ban in New Jersey, for example, thin plastic bags disappeared, but overall plastic consumption appeared to increase because of a switch to heavier reusable bags, which tended to be tossed after minimal use. 'If the goal is reducing marine debris and advancing sustainability, the smarter approach is to invest in scalable recycling systems, not sweeping bans that shift the problem rather than solve it,' she said.
BBC News
20 hours ago
- General
- BBC News
Plastic bags: Have bans and fees curbed shoreline litter?
Banning or charging for plastic bags is helping stop them ending up on US shorelines, a study of the country's litter from thousands of cleanups showed that areas which tried to reduce bag use saw them fall by at least 25% as a percentage of total litter collected, compared to areas that didn't or charging for bags worked better at state rather than town level, and had a bigger impact in places that had a bigger litter problem to begin the good news, the researchers cautioned that, overall, more plastic bags are being found across the US – they're just increasing less in those places trying to tackle the issue. Plastic bag laws in the US vary considerably by state, county and town, which made it a useful place for researchers to test the effectiveness of bag range from bans and partial bans (where only thinner bags are banned), to charges on bags and pre-emption laws, where states prevent counties and towns from regulating plastic bags researchers used data from shoreline cleanups that recorded bags as a percentage of all items collected, and looked at how this differed in areas with a policy compared to those average, bags made up 4.5% of items collected in cleanups, and were the fifth most common item found after cigarette butts, food wrappers, plastic bottle caps and plastic drinks models were used to analyse the data, which estimated that the relative decrease in bags in areas with a policy was between 25% and 47%. Comparing 182 policies and 45,067 cleanups from 2016 to 2023, the study's authors said it was the largest analysis of how effective such policies are in curbing shoreline litter. Plastic bags 'only part of the problem' The findings highlight the importance of policy in reducing plastic pollution, lead study author Anna Papp key policy opportunity would be the first global plastics treaty that 175 countries will continue negotiating in August, after talks collapsed in December."Stronger results in areas with a higher baseline of plastic bag litter means these policies may be especially effective in these areas," she said."It's also very important to keep in mind with the treaty, plastic bag policy addresses just one part of the problem. "More comprehensive solutions are needed to address it entirely, with a focus on the production side, consumption, and waste," she research cautions that despite the evidence policies are working to reduce the relative percentage of plastic bags on shorelines, the overall percentage of bags is still increasing in places with and without is because plastic pollution continues to grow overall, so policies can only make so much of a dent in the the UK, where charges on single-use plastic bags started to be adopted in 2011, a survey found there had been an 80% fall in the number of bags washed up on beaches over a decade. Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to keep up with the latest climate and environment stories with the BBC's Justin Rowlatt. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here.
The Guardian
a day ago
- Business
- The Guardian
If Australia is serious about recycling more bottles and cans, look to Europe and double the 10c refund, campaigners say
It's a block of text almost ubiquitous on every bottle or can of drink that Australians buy: '10c refund at collection depots in participating state/territory of purchase.' More than 7bn bottles and cans were returned under the schemes last year, but conservationists and the recycling industry have told Guardian Australia that on an individual level, the schemes are underperforming. Some blame the 10c refund rate, and argue it should be doubled. Analysis carried out by organisations in the recycling industry shows that 'return rates' – the percentage of eligible containers returned for recycling – are well below successful schemes in Europe. 'The best word you could use is average,' says Jeff Angel on the performance of Australia's schemes. Angel is a veteran campaigner on plastics and the director of the Boomerang Alliance of 56 environment groups. 'The national return rate is about 65% and that's leaving billions of containers going to landfill or litter,' he says. The Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation – a not-for-profit focused on reducing packaging waste and increasing recycling – estimates that in the financial year 2022-23, some 2.7bn cans and bottles eligible for the refund likely ended up in landfill. Last month Tasmania launched its own container deposit scheme, making Australia the first continent to be completely covered by the programs, which are aimed at boosting recycling rates and reducing litter and plastics leaking into the environment. In Europe, the best performing schemes in countries such as Finland, Lithuania and Slovakia have return rates above 90%, with Germany's at 98%, analysis from recycling services company Tomra says. But what they all have in common, Angel says, are higher deposit amounts of between 17 and 43 cents. Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton's Clear Air column as a free newsletter Angel, alongside recycling and waste management industry groups, is preparing to launch a campaign targeting politicians to get the deposit rate in Australia doubled to 20c. 'The argument should not be if, but when,' he says. 'It's obvious to us that policymakers know that the refund has to increase, but we have a political problem that we have not been able to get states and ministers to move.' He says the campaign would look to 'mobilise' supporters, including local councils and the recycling and waste management industry. South Australia's scheme started in 1977, followed by the Northern Territory in 2012. Since then, all other states and territories have launched their own schemes, most recently Victoria's CDS Vic scheme in 2023 and Tasmania's Recycle Rewards program launched last month. The deposit paid on the containers – and what can be recouped if they're returned – has sat at 10c since South Australia doubled its deposit from 5c to 10c in 2008. Allowing for inflation, 10c in 2008 is worth about 15c today. Chris Gingell is the vice-president of public affairs for the Pacific region at Tomra, a Norway-based company that provides reverse vending machines and collection services in most state and territory schemes. 'It's a deposit [the consumer] has paid and by not returning it, they're forfeiting that 10c. But it's obvious – 10c is fast becoming less and less of an incentive for people to return the containers,' he says. 'There's only so much that you can do to raise return rates without that financial incentive. It needs to be doubled, at least. It is the number one thing we could change that would immediately see higher return rates.' No two schemes are organised in the same way, but generally they are paid for by the beverage industry. In 2021, state environment ministers agreed to harmonise elements of the scheme – such as labelling, deposit fees and the containers that are eligible (Queensland is the only scheme to accept wine and spirit bottles) – by the end of this year. Gingell says in Queensland and Western Australia, the schemes are not meeting their 85% legislated target for returned containers. Sign up to Clear Air Australia Adam Morton brings you incisive analysis about the politics and impact of the climate crisis after newsletter promotion In Queensland, a parliamentary inquiry began earlier this year into its scheme, which launched in 2018. Submissions to the inquiry show a tug-of-war between beverage industry interests who are reluctant to advocate for a higher deposit, and conservationists, recyclers, waste managers and community groups – many of which benefit from the schemes – who want to see the deposit doubled. Coca-Cola Europacific Partners told the inquiry that its 'strong view' was that raising the deposit rate would 'bring pain to consumers'. 'From a public policy perspective, it is not equitable to charge consumers more for the opportunity to participate in a recycling program which was set up for their social and environmental benefit,' the company wrote. 'Ultimately, they and the beverage industry fund the deposit and an increase would necessarily translate into a more expensive shopping basket and higher costs of doing business.' Instead, the submission said, an emphasis should be on 'making it as convenient as possible for every Queenslander to participate, whether they live in a regional, remote or metropolitan location'. Angel rejects the claim that raising the deposit would hurt consumers. He says raising the deposit would result in more cash going to community groups and charities that run their own collections. 'It doesn't impact on the cost of living because the people who want the refund can get it.' Gingell says if containers are returned, then there is no cost to the consumer. 'Some people are actually using the scheme to supplement their existing incomes,' he says. Other steps are also being advocated to get return rates up, such as more places for people to return items. Tomra said in its submission that Australian schemes have between 11,000 and 15,000 people per collection point, compared to Malta that has 1,628 people for every point, with a deposit rate of 17c and a return rate of 80%. Suzanne Toumbourou, the chief executive of the Australian Council of Recycling, says the container deposit schemes were an efficient way for recyclers to get 'high quality feedstock' for recycling, including turning plastic bottles into materials to make more plastic bottles in Australia. She says lower return rates meant the industry was missing out on 'high value, well sorted material' like plastic and aluminium. 'Why would you not try to maximise the schemes you have?' she says. 'A higher deposit rate does correlate with a higher return rate. But that's not to say it's the only thing – there's also convenience, and the marketing that schemes do.' The Guardian asked the federal environment minister, Murray Watt, if the government supported raising the deposit rate to 20c. That question wasn't answered, but a federal government spokesperson said the government supported state and territory 'harmonisation' of schemes 'to increase resource recovery and make it easier for Australian businesses to comply'. The statement said: 'States and territories are currently working together to simplify the application system for businesses to participate in the schemes, improve public uptake of the program and container returns, and ensure the schemes are as aligned as possible to drive recovery and recycling rates.'
