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ENVIRONMENT
Big low carbon contributor
NEIL EISBERG ENVIRONMENT
Halving Pacific vortex trash
NEIL EISBERG
In May 2018, the first full-scale mobile marine plastics collection system, developed by The Ocean Cleanup, will leave San Francisco, California, bound for the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch,’ also known as the Pacific trash vortex. The plan, ultimately, is to use 60 of these $5m systems to clean up half of the debris in the Pacific Garbage Patch within five years, according to Boyan Slat, CEO of Netherlands foundation The Ocean Cleanup, speaking at the Cefic Chemical Congress held in Vienna, Austria, at the end of October 2017. Each collection system comprises a 1km U-shaped barrier, which floats on the surface of the ocean and supports a 4m deep screen to channel floating plastic debris to a central collection point, for future recycling. A 100m prototype system has already been tested in the North Sea. The environmental cost of the
Pacific’s plastic waste currently stands at roughly $13bn/year, while an estimated 600 wildlife species are threatened with extinction partly as a result of ingesting it. Plastic microbeads and particles only represent 5% of the plastics in the oceans, ‘but the remaining 95% will break down into small particles and chemicals that are already in the tuna we eat’, Slat said. The larger plastics debris are all found in the top 4m of the oceans, the same
depth as the system’s screens. Also speaking in Vienna, Emily
Woglom, executive VP, Ocean Conservancy, said that 8m t/year of plastics goes into the oceans – ‘one city dump truck every minute’; between 2010 and 2025 the amount in the oceans will double. As much as ‘30% of fish on sale have plastics in them,’ she said. Most of the plastics now come from the developing economies, mainly in Asia, she added, noting that the Trash Free Seas Alliance – founded by the Ocean Conservancy and supported by the American Chemistry Council, Dow Chemical, P&G and the World Plastics Council as well as several big-name food and beverage companies has recently adopted the goal of launching a $150m fund for waste management in South East Asia. Meanwhile, Slat says that the mobile
collection systems can also be used to trap plastic pollution closer to the source, for example, in rivers and estuaries. Researchers at The Ocean Cleanup estimate that rivers transport between 115 and 241 m t/years of plastic waste into the oceans, with two-thirds coming from just 20 rivers, mostly in Asia.
The Pacific trash vortex forms as a
result of circular ocean currents created by wind patterns and the forces created by the Earth’s rotation. Similar gyres are found in the South Pacific, Indian Ocean and North and South Atlantic.
Four key chemical industry value chains – buildings, transport, renewable power and food packaging – could provide solutions to enable significant emission reductions in support of the UNFCCC Paris Agreement on climate change, according to a new report produced for the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA). If the solutions are implemented
to their full potential immediately, the report concludes that the industry’s contributions would reduce emissions by over 9Gt of CO2
equivalent/year, or more
than total US annual emissions. The study, by energy and climate
concern Ecofys, also estimated the reductions enabled by the solutions in 2030 in a 2°C mitigation scenario, compared with the reference scenario. This second approach found that emissions would be reduced by 2.5Gt CO2
across wind and solar power, efficient building envelopes, efficient lighting, electric cars, fuel efficient tyres, lightweight materials and food packaging.
The study highlights that renewable
energy would make the largest contribution to emission reduction, while for transport, speciality chemicals would contribute by reducing rolling resistance and increasing fuel efficiency of tyres. In buildings, chemicals used in insulation, piping, air barriers and sealing materials have a major role to play. According to Marco Mensink, ICCA
secretary general: ‘The chemical industry plays an essential role in enabling other industries to enhance their energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It has the potential to develop its role in the energy transition beyond 2030. Therefore, we need a policy environment that recognises that the future is cross-sectoral and enable the chemical industry to accelerate its contribution to avoid emissions across many other value chains.’ The UNFCCC Paris Agreement commits
to restricting global warming to ‘well below 2°C’ by the end of the 21st century.
e/year – equivalent to the combined emissions of the UK, France, Germany and Italy. Avoided emissions were calculated
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