Category: Plastic Pollution
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Lately, detox has become a part of our daily vocabulary. The simple meaning of this word would be cleansing or detoxing, or just flushing out negative elements from our body or society.  When it comes to our bodies, we are hooked with detox videos, blogs, articles, DIYs, we have tried and tested numerous methods for […]
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By Bhadra Mahapatra
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Plastic pollution has emerged as one of the most pressing environmental challenges of our time, threatening ecosystems, marine life, and human health. Globally, the staggering statistics reveal a concerning reality: an estimated one million plastic bottles are purchased every minute, and approximately five trillion plastic bags are utilised annually. Shockingly, half of the total plastic […]
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By Manish Dabkara
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Global plastic production now amounts to some 400 million tonnes per year, as per United Nations Environment Programme. Yet only an estimated 12% of the plastics produced have been incinerated and only an estimated 9% have been recycled. About 8% of the world’s oil goes into plastic production and it’s going to rise to 20% […]
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By Smitha Verma
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A 2019 study, led by Dr Thava Palanisami and other researchers at the University of Newcastle, Australia, and commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature, reported that humans are gobbling upto 5 grams of microplastics in their weekly diets — or about as much as the weight of an ATM card. Recognised globally by […]
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By Smitha Verma
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We produce more than 430 million tonnes of plastic annually, two-thirds of which are short-lived products that soon become waste, filling the ocean. And often, working their way into the human food chain. Overall, 46 per cent of plastic waste is landfilled, while 22 percent is mismanaged and becomes litter, according to the UNEP. In […]
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By Bhadra Mahapatra
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In April an international team of researchers published the study that Arctic ice algae is heavily contaminated with microplastics that seep into the food web. The research team collected samples of the algae and the surrounding water from ice floes during an expedition with the research vessel Polarstern in the summer of 2021.The team consisting […]
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By Smitha Verma
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A United Nations committee is convening on May 29 in Paris to work on a groundbreaking treaty aimed at ending global plastic pollution. However, reaching an agreement on the desired outcome remains a challenge. The theme for this year’s World Environment Day is #BeatPlasticPollution and finding solutions to this monumental challenge is the key focus […]
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By Smitha Verma
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A network of dedicated scientists researching plastic pollution warns that progress in reducing this global threat has been painfully slow, leading to escalating damage to our natural environment and human health. Their findings, published in the journal ‘Nature Communications’, reveal a critical lack of integration among four key stakeholder communities: scientists, industry, society, and policymakers. […]
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By LMB Staff
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A new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) highlights how existing technologies and significant policy and market changes can help reduce plastic pollution by 80% by 2040. The report emphasises the importance of a circular economy and outlines specific strategies for governments and businesses to tackle the plastic pollution crisis. The report comes ahead […]
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By LMB Staff
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A team of researchers from Kyushu University and Asahi Kasei Corporation have developed a new technique to estimate the age of microplastics in the upper oceans. The method involves analysing plastic oxidation levels and environmental factors such as UV exposure and ambient temperature. The team applied their technique to microplastics found in nearshore and offshore […]
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By LMB Staff
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Plastic pollution has emerged as an urgent environmental crisis, wreaking havoc on both our planet and our well-being. In order to safeguard our surroundings and seek sustainable alternatives, it is imperative that we take decisive action to curb plastic consumption within our own households. This article highlights ten effective ways aimed at minimising plastic usage. […]
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By Danish Alam
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Microplastics have emerged as a silent threat, causing immense harm to our planet and its delicate ecosystems. These minute pollutants originate from various sources, including plastic waste, microbeads, and degraded larger plastics. From the oceans to the soil, no corner of the Earth is spared from the insidious reach of microplastic. What are microplastics? Microplastics […]
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By Danish Alam
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Guising itself as the paramount solution for the underlying plastic waste problem, recycling might not even begin to address the root causes of the issue, especially when only nine percent of the annual plastic waste is getting recycled. Painting a grim picture, the landfills of the world are hosting almost 85 percent of the global […]
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By Danish Alam
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Plastic has become more of a bane than boon over the decades. It has been one of the major contributors when it comes to choking the planet. Now it has also become a major concern for the avian species as according to a new research it was found wild birds have been consuming an inordinate […]
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By Bhadra Mahapatra
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Single-use plastic production has steeped despite nations taking a pledge to fight plastic pollution. According to a recent study published by Plastic Waste Makers, an additional 6 million metric tonnes (MMT) of single-use plastics were produced in 2021 as compared to 2019. And virgin fossil-fuel polymers contributed 15 times more to this growth than recycled […]
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By LMB Staff
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Koli fishing communities have been living and working along the coastal waters of Mumbai in Maharashtra in India, for over 500 years. Today, climate change has dealt a severe blow to their livelihood. For them, no fish means no food on the plate. “There’s only dirty sewage water and garbage, there’s no fish. This year […]
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By LMB Staff
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India’s theme at COP27 this year is LiFE – Lifestyle for Environment, an initiative that’s encouraging individual action against mindless consumption. Mission LiFE is a global plan of action launched, aimed at saving the planet. Replacing the ‘use-and-dispose’ economy with a circular economy, four youth champions from India are rewriting sustainability at COP27. “What change can one […]
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By Prachi Shevgaonkar
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Concerned by the increasing plastic waste issues in Indonesia, two women are taking on the environmental menace by converting rejected plastics into paving bricks! Their company, Rebricks has been making these paving bricks out of multi-layered plastic, which is used to package everything from instant coffee to liquid soap. They spent over one and a […]
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By Ovy Sabrina
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While kids her age were running around throwing toffee wrappers on streets, this eight-year-old was picking trash and dumping it in a bin. Meet Misimi Isimi, a teenager from Lagos in Nigeria, who has been creating awareness of waste collection the past seven years. At 15, she’s not just a busy activist but is also […]
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By Misimi Isimi
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When Sam Bencheghib was all of 20, and a university student, he along with his brother Gary Bencheghib went out kayaking. But it was no ordinary kayak. They had built it using plastic bottles, and the river they paddled through was one of Indonesia’s most polluted rivers – Citarum River.  “We decided to kayak down […]
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By Smitha Verma
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It is a common sight to see people urinating in public places across India and the situation is aggravated by the lack of public sanitation facilities. Despite various initiatives by the government, the existing sanitation facilities don’t seem to meet the mark.  To tackle the problem of public urinals, Ashwani Aggarwal, founder of the start-up […]
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By Payel Sen
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Every year India witnesses several million tonnes of plastic waste ending up in landfills. And the figures are only ever increasing. To tackle this grave crisis and make a difference, Pune-based environmentalist Dr. Medha Tarpatikar developed a solution that converts waste plastic into usable fuel. “We are accidental environmentalists. In 2009, we went to one […]
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By Payel Sen
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“Everybody who is coming to the mountains needs to understand that they have their duty towards the Himalayas, towards local communities, towards this beautiful ecology,” says Pradeep Sangwan, with the kind of conviction in his voice that echoes through the Himalayas. And he leads by example. An avid mountaineer and founder of Healing Himalayas Foundation, […]
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By LMB Staff
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When Thaaragai Aarathana was just about five years old she had started picking up litter from roads. It hurt her that people were callous and cared little about the environment. At 8, this young scuba diver from Chennai, a southern state in India, has made it her mission to create awareness about marine pollution. She […]
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By LMB Staff
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The Indonesian government is conducting educational drives in schools across the country to make children aware about plastic pollution and encourage the three R’s – Reduce. Reuse, Recycle. The Education and Culture Ministry, in collaboration with the Environment and Forestry Ministry supports the educational drive. With more than 250,000 schools taking part, the drive has […]
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By LMB Staff
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On World Environment Day, a panel discussion, by LetMeBreathe and UN Environment Programme: Chef’s Manifesto, was held around ‘Chef’s Roundtable: Combating Plastic Pollution in the Food Industry’.  The five-membered panel moderated by food columnist, author and food historian Anoothi Vishal drew out the best in the industry to discuss ways to combat the plastic menace, […]
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By Payel Sen
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Would we like to swap single-use plastic bags with cloth bags? We certainly do. We however often forget to carry cloth bags before heading out to shop?  What happens next? We are back with more single-use plastic bags.  A Delhi-based NGO ‘Why Waste Wednesdays’ created a method for people to borrow cloth bags from the […]
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By Nikita Bishnoi
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One of the most littered items in India is cigarette butts which are dumped in large numbers, each with more than 7,000 chemicals, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). These could be commonly found in parks, streets, roads and other similar places. It is projected that 4.5 million tonnes of cigarette wastes contaminate the […]
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By Garvit Bhirani
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Do you want to clean up your locality but didn’t know how? Here’s a quick mantra for you by none other than our #HawaKeRakshak – Guddi Gupta, Aahana and gang. Simply block the pollution at its source and pick up the litter in your neighbourhood. To bring behavioural change – we need to create more […]
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By LMB Staff
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Every year, about 1.15 and 2.41 million tonnes of plastic waste enters the ocean from rivers and  Asian rivers are responsible for 86% of the total global input. All these rivers have a few key things in common: all of them run through areas where a lot of people live — hundreds of millions of […]
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By LMB Staff