Waste disposal

Microplastics are the minute quantities of plastic that result from industrial processes, household release and the breakdown of larger plastic items. As these plastics emerge as a potential threat to the environment and to public health, it has never been more critical to understand their distribution and environmental impact. Microplastics in the Ecosphere aims to cultivate that understanding with a comprehensive overview of microplastics in terrestrial ecosystems.

The first part of the book provides an overview of plastics types, how they are released to the environment, and how they interact with organisms. This part also provides a background for several salient aspects of microplastics hazards (e.g., attachment of toxic chemicals, toxicity to organisms). Special attention will be paid to how microplastics decompose in the environment (which is significant in terms of mobility of toxicity). Subsequent chapters address how to sample and identify microplastics.

This paper examines the volumes, sources and flows of e-waste, the risks it poses to e-waste workers and the environment, occupational safety and health issues, labour issues and regulatory frameworks, and links this growing global problem with the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) current and future work.

A guide to help Pacific reporters produce news items on Electronic and Electrical Waste (E-waste) in the Pacific is now available. The “E-waste for journalists” guide was produced by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) with the support of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Paper or plastic? Neither, say William McDonough and Michael Braungart. Why settle for the least harmful alternative when we could have something that is better--say, edible grocery bags! In Cradle to Cradle, the authors present a manifesto calling for a new industrial revolution, one that would render both traditional manufacturing and traditional environmentalism obsolete. Recycling, for instance, is actually "downcycling," creating hybrids of biological and technical "nutrients" which are then unrecoverable and unusable.