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Nature destruction will cause bigger economic slump in UK than 2008 crisis, experts warn

Green Finance Institute report said further pollution could cut 12% off GDP by 2030sThe destruction of nature over the rest of the decade could trigger a bigger economic slump in Britain than those caused by the 2008 global financial crisis and the Covid pandemic, experts have warned.Sounding the alarm over the rising financial cost from pollution, damage to water systems, soil erosion, and threats from disease, the report by the Green Finance Institute warned that further breakdown in the UK’s natural environment could lead to a 12% loss of gross domestic product (GDP) by the 2030s. Continue reading...

The destruction of nature over the rest of the decade could trigger a bigger economic slump in Britain than those caused by the 2008 global financial crisis and the Covid pandemic, experts have warned.Sounding the alarm over the rising financial cost from pollution, damage to water systems, soil erosion, and threats from disease, the report by the Green Finance Institute warned that further breakdown in the UK’s natural environment could lead to a 12% loss of gross domestic product (GDP) by the 2030s.In a report that received input from experts across academia and government, the authors argued that “gradual, year-to year environmental degradation is as detrimental or more so than climate change”.The continued loss of natural habitats in urban and rural areas would compare unfavourably with the financial crisis of 2008, which took about 5% off the value of UK GDP, while the Covid pandemic cost the UK 11% of its GDP in 2020.The academics used three scenarios to construct the report: domestic risks from continued UK environment breakdown; international risks – including destruction to nature in countries which are key UK trading partners; and a health scenario, focusing on the dangers of a fresh global pandemic.All three took into account current trends in environmental breakdown – including water and air pollution, soil health erosion and biodiversity loss – resulting in a hit to GDP worth up to 3%, or about £70bn by the late 2020s.The report then added “acute risks” on top of these trends – including floods, droughts and wildfires – which would result in a 6% loss to GDP in the domestic and international scenarios, and a 12% hit in a health scenario, reflecting the extreme dangers to the UK economy from a renewed pandemic.Ministers are expected to take an interest in the report amid concern over the potential dangers to the economy from nature breakdown. Environment minister Richard Benyon said the report showed that nature “underpins the health of our economy and it is under threat from a global nature crisis”.The former Conservative MP, whose family controls a 5,600-hectare (14,000-acre) estate in west Berkshire, southern England, said the responsibility to conserve nature “lies with all sectors and sections of society, and green finance has a crucial role to play”.He said: “The findings in this report will help people and institutions across the corporate and finance sectors understand that it is in their own interests to go further and faster for the planet to protect it for future generations.”Shadow environment secretary, Steve Reed, blamed the government for the UK becoming “one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world”.Saying that the UK needed “to reverse the tide of destruction”, Reed committed Labour to cleaner air and water “and growing nature-rich habitats for wildlife to thrive”.The Green Finance Institute describes itself as the UK and Europe’s “principal forum for innovation in green finance” bringing together banks, academics, philanthropists and government bodies to develop climate-friendly policies and financial products.The report warned that unless action is taken, UK banks will need to reduce their exposure to the worst hit industries or find themselves increasing the risk of losses from bad loans. About 50% of the extra cost will come from the loss of nature overseas that the UK relies on to provide food, natural resources and trade.Partly funded by the government with input from the Treasury and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the authors also relied on advice and information from the Bank of England, Oxford and Reading universities, the UN’s environment programme, and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.The report said: “The impacts of biodiversity loss and environmental degradation will not be felt alone but will compound with climate risks. Both are happening at once and there are strong feedback effects between the loss of natural capital and climate change.”The study follows a Treasury-backed review in 2021 by the Cambridge economist Sir Partha Dasgupta, who found that the world was being put at “extreme risk” by the failure of economics to take account of the rapid depletion of the natural world.Last year, the government agency Natural England launched its Nature Returns programme to coordinate efforts across government and the private sector to explore how the UK can best use land in England “to address climate change whilst producing food and promoting thriving nature”.The agency said it wanted “to mobilise the billions in private investment that government estimates we need to meet our national net zero commitments”.

Crisis
Nature
Water

Breaking the Skin Barrier: Scientists Discover New Health Risks of Microplastics

New research indicates that toxic chemicals added to plastic materials for flame resistance can enter the body through the skin by contact with microplastics. The...

Recent research has shown that toxic chemicals used in flame-proofing plastics can be absorbed into the human body through skin contact with microplastics. This absorption occurs as these chemicals leach into human sweat and then cross the skin barrier into the bloodstream. The study, which involved innovative 3D human skin models, revealed that hydrated skin could absorb significant levels of these chemicals. These findings have significant implications for public health and the regulation of microplastics, as they highlight the pervasive nature of microplastics and their role as carriers of toxic substances.New research indicates that toxic chemicals added to plastic materials for flame resistance can enter the body through the skin by contact with microplastics.The study offers the first experimental evidence that chemicals present as additives in microplastics can leach into human sweat, and then be absorbed through the skin, into the bloodstream.Many chemicals used as flame retardants and plasticizers have already been banned, due to evidence of adverse health effects including damage to the liver or nervous system, cancer, and risks to reproductive health. However, these chemicals are still present in the environment in older electronics, furniture, carpets, and building materials. While the harm caused by microplastics is not fully understood, there is increasing concern over their role as conduits of human exposure to toxic chemicals.Research Findings on Chemical AbsorptionThe research team demonstrated in a study published last year, that chemicals were leached from microplastics into human sweat. The current study now shows that those chemicals can also be absorbed from sweat across the skin barrier into the body.In their experiments, the team used innovative 3D human skin models as alternatives to laboratory animals and excised human tissues. The models were exposed over a 24-hour period to two common forms of microplastics containing polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), a chemical group commonly used to flame retard plastics.Results and Implications for HealthThe results, published in Environment International, showed that as much as 8% of the chemical exposed could be taken up by the skin, with more hydrated — or ‘sweatier’ — skin absorbing higher levels of chemical. The study provides the first experimental evidence into how this process contributes to levels of toxic chemicals found in the body.Dr Ovokeroye Abafe, now at Brunel University, carried out the research while at the University of Birmingham. He said: “Microplastics are everywhere in the environment and yet we still know relatively little about the health problems that they can cause. Our research shows that they play a role as ‘carriers’ of harmful chemicals, which can get into our bloodstream through the skin. These chemicals are persistent, so with continuous or regular exposure to them, there will be a gradual accumulation to the point where they start to cause harm.”Dr Mohamed Abdallah, Associate Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham, and principal investigator for the project, said: “These findings provide important evidence for regulators and policymakers to improve legislation around microplastics and safeguard public health against harmful exposure.”Professor Stuart Harrad, co-author of the paper, added “The study provides an important step forward in understanding the risks of exposure to microplastics on our health. Building on our results, more research is required to fully understand the different pathways of human exposure to microplastics and how to mitigate the risk from such exposure.”In future research, the team plans to investigate other routes through which microplastics could be responsible for toxic chemicals entering the body, including inhalation and ingestion. The work is funded by a Marie Curie Research Fellowship, within the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme.Reference: “Assessment of human dermal absorption of flame retardant additives in polyethylene and polypropylene microplastics using 3D human skin equivalent models” by Ovokeroye Akpojevwe Abafe, Stuart Harrad and Mohamed Abou-Elwafa Abdallah, 5 April 2024, Environment International.DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2024.108635

Chemicals
Health
Nature

Mosquito-borne diseases spreading in Europe due to climate crisis, says expert

Illnesses such as dengue and malaria to reach unaffected parts of northern Europe, America, Asia and Australia, conference to hearMosquito-borne diseases are spreading across the globe, and particularly in Europe, due to climate breakdown, an expert has said.The insects spread illnesses such as malaria and dengue fever, the prevalences of which have hugely increased over the past 80 years as global heating has given them the warmer, more humid conditions they thrive in. Continue reading...

Mosquito-borne diseases are spreading across the globe, and particularly in Europe, due to climate breakdown, an expert has said.The insects spread illnesses such as malaria and dengue fever, the prevalences of which have hugely increased over the past 80 years as global heating has given them the warmer, more humid conditions they thrive in.Prof Rachel Lowe who leads the global health resilience group at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center in Spain, has warned that mosquito-borne disease outbreaks are set to spread across currently unaffected parts of northern Europe, Asia, North America and Australia over the next few decades.She is due to give a presentation at the global congress of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Barcelona to warn that the world must be prepared for a sharp uptick in these diseases.“Global warming due to climate change means that the disease vectors that carry and spread malaria and dengue [fever] can find a home in more regions, with outbreaks occurring in areas where people are likely to be immunologically naive and public health systems unprepared,” Lowe said.“The stark reality is that longer hot seasons will enlarge the seasonal window for the spread of mosquito-borne diseases and favour increasingly frequent outbreaks that are increasingly complex to deal with.”Dengue used to be primarily found in tropical and subtropical regions, as freezing overnight temperatures kill the insect’s larvae and eggs. Longer hot seasons and less frequent frosts have meant it has become the fastest-spreading mosquito-borne viral disease in the world, and it is taking hold in Europe.The Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus), carries dengue fever and has become established in 13 European countries as of 2023: Italy, France, Spain, Malta, Monaco, San Marino, Gibraltar, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Greece and Portugal.The insect is thriving; nine out of the 10 most hospitable years for transmission of the disease have occurred since 2000, and the number of dengue cases reported to the WHO has increased eightfold in the past two decades, from 500,000 in 2000 to more than 5m in 2019.Lowe said climate breakdown would turbocharge this spread as droughts followed floods: “Droughts and floods linked to climate change can lead to greater transmission of the virus, with stored water providing additional mosquito breeding sites.“Lessons from previous outbreaks underscore the importance of assessing future vector-borne disease risks and preparing contingencies for future outbreaks.”She said that if the current trajectory of high carbon emissions and population growth continued, the number of people living in areas with mosquito-borne diseases would double to 4.7 billion by the end of the century.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to This is EuropeThe most pressing stories and debates for Europeans – from identity to economics to the environmentPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionLowe added: “With climate change seeming so difficult to address, we can expect to see more cases and possibly deaths from diseases such as dengue and malaria across mainland Europe. We must anticipate outbreaks and move to intervene early to prevent diseases from happening in the first place.“Efforts need to focus on enhancing surveillance with early warning and response systems similar to those seen in other parts of the world, to more effectively target finite resources to the most at-risk areas to control and prevent disease outbreaks and save lives.”Climate breakdown is also amplifying the threat from antimicrobial resistance, a separate presentation at the conference will warn.Prof Sabiha Essack, the head of the antimicrobial resistance unit at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, said climate breakdown was a “threat multiplier” for antimicrobial resistance: “Climate change compromises the ecological and environmental integrity of living systems and enables pathogens to increasingly cause disease. The impact on water systems, food-producing animals and crops threatens global food supply.“Human activities associated with population growth and transport, together with climate change, increase antibiotic resistance and the spread of waterborne and vector-borne diseases of humans, animals and plants.”

Climate
Animals
Health

Process raw materials in Africa, urges top environmentalist

Few economic and social benefits will come to Africans if processing is all done overseas, says Wanjira MathaiAfrica must take greater control in the industries it supplies with raw materials to lift its people from poverty and seize its own destiny in a low-carbon world, one of the continent’s leading environmentalists has urged.Wanjira Mathai, the managing director for Africa and global partnerships at the World Resources Institute thinktank, said much more of what the continent produced must be processed and made use of close to where it is produced, if the world is to shift to a low-carbon footing. Continue reading...

Africa must take greater control in the industries it supplies with raw materials to lift its people from poverty and seize its own destiny in a low-carbon world, one of the continent’s leading environmentalists has urged.Wanjira Mathai, the managing director for Africa and global partnerships at the World Resources Institute thinktank, said much more of what the continent produced must be processed and made use of close to where it is produced, if the world is to shift to a low-carbon footing.Africa’s vast resources are vital to the global economy, in sectors spanning agriculture, forestry and fisheries to minerals and metals. But most of these are extracted to be processed and turned into finished products elsewhere, sometimes with dire environmental consequences.Products such as cobalt, copper and gold are used in increasing quantities in renewable energy production and low-carbon technology such as electric vehicles. But if the processing is nearly all done overseas, few of the economic and social benefits will come to Africans themselves, said Mathai.“How do we activate value chains in food and agriculture that build wealth for small farmers?” she asked. “Not commercial agriculture [that just means getting] bigger, bigger, bigger. But how do we get really good at building these sorts of economies for small farmers that are fairer, more equitable, that are about wellbeing?”A cocoa pod grows on a farm in Ghana. Cocoa beans could be processed into cocoa butter in Africa, instead of being exported in their raw form. Photograph: Francis Kokoroko/ReutersThe answer, she believes, lies in processing more of Africa’s raw materials close to where they are produced. For instance, cocoa beans could be processed into cocoa butter in the African nations where they are grown, instead of being exported in their raw form, even if turning the butter into chocolate still happens elsewhere.“By moving up the value chain, we will be able to generate much more income,” she said.This will also make the processes more efficient. “Transporting raw materials across the world is a lot more carbon intensive than transporting a more processed product. And what it does is create an economy that is much greater than depending on the charity of others,” she said.Economists and government officials are gathering in Washington DC this week for the annual spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, where the future of climate finance and the debt burden of poor countries are likely to be among the hottest topics of debate.Mathai said rich countries should target the climate finance they have promised to the poorer world on projects that helped African countries make more use of their resources. “There’s a real opportunity in green industrialisation,” she said.Africa has vast potential for generating renewable energy, from the wind and sun. This should encourage investors to site their industries there, near these abundant low-carbon power sources, she added. This could be used, for instance, to create genuinely green hydrogen, which is likely to be vital for some heavy industries.“Instead of thinking, export that energy, why not use manufacture in Namibia?” she asked. “I think there’s going to be real opportunities to expand manufacturing. It’s not about charity, it’s about partnership.”If these investments are not made in clean energy and manufacturing, Africans will turn instead to fossil fuels, where investors are eager to expand, she warned. “We will have ourselves to blame if they go the more traditional route [of fossil fuels], where finance is more available, because we’re seeing fossil fuel proliferation.”As the climate heats, swathes of Africa are likely to suffer increasingly from drought, heatwaves and floods. However, some of the continent’s croplands are likely to become even more vital.Helping people prepare for the impacts of the climate crisis will be essential and in Mathai’s view that can best be done by making Africans more prosperous.“We have to build resilience that is deep, that is anchored in wealth creation,” she said.She gave the example of Nairobi, in Kenya, where many impoverished people recently experienced flooding. “Entire communities were washed away. That’s because they live on the edge [because of poverty]. If you’re on the edge of the edge, it doesn’t matter how much adaptation you do. We have to build economic muscle.”

Agriculture
Climate
Crisis

If plastic manufacturing goes up 10%, plastic pollution goes up 10% – and we’re set for a huge surge in production

The more plastic, the more waste we produce. It sounds simple, but this discovery could help us find ways of ending plastic pollution.

Xavier Boulenger/ShutterstockIn the two decades to 2019, global plastic production doubled. By 2040, plastic manufacturing and processing could consume as much as 20% of global oil production and use up 15% of the annual carbon emissions budget. Most of the plastic we make ends up as waste. As plastic manufacturers increase production, more and more of it will end up in our landfills, rivers and oceans. Plastic waste is set to triple by 2060. Producers often put the onus back on consumers by pointing to recycling schemes as a solution to plastic pollution. If we recycle our plastics, it shouldn’t matter how much we produce – right? Not quite. The key question here is how close the is relationship between plastic production and pollution. Our new research found the relationship is direct – a 1% increase in plastic production leads to a 1% increase in plastic pollution, meaning unmanaged waste such as bottles in rivers and floating plastic in the oceans. Not only that, but over half of branded plastic pollution is linked to just 56 companies worldwide. The Coca-Cola Company accounts for 11% of branded waste and PepsiCo 5%. If these companies introduce effective plastic reduction plans, we could see a measurable reduction in plastic in the environment. The problem is only going to get more urgent. By the end of the current decade, experts estimate another 53 million tons will end up in the oceans every single year. That’s bad for us, and for other species. Plastics can cause real damage to our health. Our first exposure to them starts in the womb. In the seas, plastics can choke turtles and seabirds. On land, they can poison groundwater. Socially and economically, plastic pollution now costs us about A$3.8 trillion a year. This week, negotiators are gathered in Canada to continue developing a legally binding global plastics treaty. Plastic fantastic? In the 1960s and 70s, plastics were seen as a modern wonder. Soon, they became common – and then ubiquitous. Single-use plastics appeared everywhere. After being tossed onto roadsides or in rivers, these plastics can make their way to the ocean. Today, about 36% of all the world’s plastic pollution comes from the packaging sector in the form of single-use plastics. To find out how plastic production influences waste, we turned to global data from litter audits, surveys of waste in the environment. Data from these audits is useful to understand changes in types and volumes of plastic waste. We used five years of audit data from more than 1,500 audits across 84 countries. The audits showed 48% of the litter had a brand name, and 52% was unbranded. To assess production levels, we used data reported to a circular economy organisation by major plastics companies and compared it against levels of branded plastic pollution. We expected more production would mean more waste, but not such a direct correlation. The fact it’s a 1:1 ratio is eye-opening. What this means is as plastic-packaging producing companies scale up their operations, they directly contribute more waste to the environment. We found just 13 companies individually contributed 1% or more of the total branded plastic observed. All of these companies produce food, beverage, or tobacco products, usually packaged in single-use plastic. The Coca-Cola Company products were the top source of branded plastic pollution, representing 11% of all branded litter. Right now, companies get to sell their products in single-use plastics and the onus is on consumers to recycle or bin the plastic. This in turn creates high costs for local governments, who run the waste services. There’s also the cost of a degraded environment we all bear. Many major companies have made voluntary commitments to reduce plastic. However, many of these companies are missing their targets, suggesting these voluntary measures are proving ineffective. There’s a better alternative. Producer responsibility schemes could help to shift the costs and responsibility away from consumers and back to the producers. This is in line with the “polluter pays” principle – companies making products that become waste have the responsibility to ensure it’s appropriately managed. Where these schemes are up and running, such as in the European Union, companies often respond by changing how they package products. If it costs them money, they will act. The problem of single-use plastics Even when collected, single-use plastics are a difficult waste stream to manage as they have little or no recycling value. Sometimes these plastics are burned as fuel for cement kilns or used in waste-to-energy facilities. Recycling can be a surprisingly large source of microplastics, as mechanical recycling methods chew up bottles into tiny bits. Then there’s the fact recycling is not a circle, as the famous logo might suggest. The more we recycle plastic, the more degraded it becomes. Eventually, this plastic becomes waste. Read more: Plastic pollution: campaigners around the world are using the courts to clean up – but manufacturers are fighting back To stop plastic waste, stop making more plastic If recycling and landfilling can only go so far, the missing piece of the puzzle has to be capping plastic production. What would that look like? It would involve requiring manufacturers to steadily reduce the amount of plastic used in their products over time and adopt safe, sustainable plastic alternatives as they become available. Countries could: set measurable targets to phase out non-essential, hazardous and unsustainable single-use products, such as take-away containers, plastic cutlery and single-use plastic bags work to design safe and sustainable products to cut global demand for new plastic while increasing reuse, refilling, repairing, and recycling invest in non-plastic alternatives and substitutes with better social, economic and environmental profiles, such as old-fashioned reusables. What about the 52% of unbranded plastic waste? To tackle this requires better data and accountability, such as through an international open-access database of plastic producers or through international standards for package branding. Australia is moving towards this with its planned reforms for packaging. One thing is certain – current trends mean ever more plastic, and more plastic means more plastic pollution. Read more: The climate impact of plastic pollution is negligible – the production of new plastics is the real problem Britta Denise Hardesty receives funding from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and from The United Nations Environment Programme and in the past has received philanthropic funding. None of the funding received in any way relates to the work discussed or highlighted in this article. Win Cowger receives funding from Possibility Lab, Break Free From Plastic, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and McPike Zima Charitable Foundation. He is affiliated with the Moore Institute for Plastic Pollution Research. Kathryn Willis and Katie Conlon, Ph.D. do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Pollution
Waste
Energy

Mega-warehouses heap more pollution on hard-hit Illinois neighborhoods

Proliferation of hubs for online shopping disproportionately sited in low-income neighborhoods or communities of colorHundreds of mega-warehouses have been built in Illinois for online shopping in recent years and the rise in delivery trucks is polluting neighborhoods already burdened with poor air quality, a new study says.Two million people in Illinois live within a half-mile of large warehouses, which are disproportionately located in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. Continue reading...

Hundreds of mega-warehouses have been built in Illinois for online shopping in recent years and the rise in delivery trucks is polluting neighborhoods already burdened with poor air quality, a new study says.Two million people in Illinois live within a half-mile of large warehouses, which are disproportionately located in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.A new report by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) identified at least 2,400 leased warehouses covering 632m square feet – a 33% rise from the previous decade.“When you order a new toothbrush online or a new pair of shoes, these items are generally stored in large warehouses that are increasingly being built across our communities,” said Sam Becker, global clean air project manager at the EDF and author of the report.“They’re brought to your door generally by a truck that’s burning diesel, emitting harmful pollutants into the communities that it’s passing through.”Tailpipes of diesel trucks spew black carbon, nitrogen oxide and fine particulate matter, or PM 2.5, into the air. Exposure to these pollutants increases the risk of childhood asthma, pre-term births, heart disease and stroke. Children, elderly and pregnant people are especially vulnerable to traffic-related air pollution.The report findings show that these mega-warehouses are largely concentrated in communities of color. Hispanic, Black and low-income people live near warehouses at rates that are 195%, 137% and 125% more likely, respectively, than would be expected from statewide demographics.“Transportation systems are set up in a way that adversely affects communities of color and low-income communities,” said Cesunica Ivey, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California Berkeley.People of color are more than twice as likely as white people to live in areas with failing air quality. Decades of discriminatory practices known as “redlining” made way for zoning laws that permitted placing highways, industrial facilities and major shipping hubs in and around communities of color.“We built this economy where we rely so heavily on moving goods,” said Jose Acosta-Cordova, senior transportation analyst at the Chicago-based Little Village Environmental Justice Organization. “But the reality is that these facilities are killing our communities.”Many warehouses across Illinois rely on low-wage temporary workers, 85% of whom are Black and Hispanic.skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotion“There’s not necessarily this dividing line between warehouse workers and the neighborhoods where they live,” said Zhenya Polozova, policy coordinator at the Warehouse Workers for Justice. “It essentially results in them not being able to escape the harmful impacts of diesel pollution at home or at work.”Illinois state legislature is currently considering the Warehouse Pollution Insights Act, a bill that would require facilities to report data on warehouse ownership, truck trips, and air emissions to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. If passed, it would also ensure that new warehouses install charging infrastructure that would support electric delivery vehicles.“We need to target the rollout of electric heavy-duty trucks in communities that are adversely impacted,” said Regan Patterson, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at UCLA. “Increase in warehouses is not only happening in one area, but nationally it’s continuing to replicate the same racial and socio-economic patterns of disparity.”Past EDF research has shown that roughly 15m people across 10 US states, and one in four people in New York state, live within a half-mile of a warehouse.

Pollution
Transportation

Bringing an investigator’s eye to complex social challenges

MIT economics doctoral student Anna Russo studies how to improve the design, function, and outcomes of public policies.

Anna Russo likes puzzles. They require patience, organization, and a view of the big picture. She brings an investigator’s eye to big institutional and societal challenges whose solutions can have wide-ranging, long-term impacts. Russo’s path to MIT began with questions. She didn’t have the whole picture yet. “I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life,” says Russo, who is completing her PhD in economics in 2024. “I was good at math and science and thought I wanted to be a doctor.” While completing her undergraduate studies at Yale University, where she double majored in economics and applied math, Russo discovered a passion for problem-solving, where she could apply an analytical lens to answering the kinds of thorny questions whose solutions could improve policy. “Empirical research is fun and exciting,” Russo says. After Yale, Russo considered what to do next. She worked as a full-time research assistant with MIT economist Amy Finkelstein. Russo’s work with Finkelstein led her toward identifying, studying, and developing answers to complex questions.  “My research combines ideas from two fields of economic inquiry — public finance and industrial organization — and applies them to questions about the design of environmental and health care policy,” Russo says. “I like the way economists think analytically about social problems.” Narrowing her focus Studying with and being advised by renowned economists as both an undergraduate and a doctoral student helped Russo narrow her research focus, fitting more pieces into the puzzle. “What drew me to MIT was its investment in its graduate students,” Russo says. Economic research meant digging into policy questions, identifying market failures, and proposing solutions. Doctoral study allowed Russo to assemble data to rigorously follow each line of inquiry. “Doctoral study means you get to write about something you’re really interested in,” Russo notes. This led her to study policy responses to climate change adaptation and mitigation.  “In my first year, I worked on a project exploring the notion that floodplain regulation design doesn’t do a good job of incentivizing the right level of development in flood-prone areas,” she says. “How can economists help governments convince people to act in society’s best interest?” It’s important to understand institutional details, Russo adds, which can help investigators identify and implement solutions.  “Feedback, advice, and support from faculty were crucial as I grew as a researcher at MIT,” she says. Beyond her two main MIT advisors, Finkelstein and economist Nikhil Agarwal — educators she describes as “phenomenal, dedicated advisors and mentors” — Russo interacted regularly with faculty across the department.  Russo later discovered another challenge she hoped to solve: inefficiencies in conservation and carbon offset programs. She set her sights on the United States Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program because she believes it and programs like it can be improved.  The CRP is a land conservation plan administered by USDA’s Farm Service Agency. In exchange for a yearly rental payment, farmers enrolled in the program agree to remove environmentally sensitive land from agricultural production and plant species that will improve environmental health and quality. “I think we can tweak the program’s design to improve cost-effectiveness,” Russo says. “There’s a trove of data available.” The data include information like auction participants’ bids in response to well-specified auction rules, which Russo links to satellite data measuring land use outcomes. Understanding how landowners bid in CRP auctions can help identify and improve the program’s function.  “We may be able to improve targeting and achieve more cost-effective conservation by adjusting the CRP’s scoring system,” Russo argues. Opportunities may exist to scale the incremental changes under study for other conservation programs and carbon offset markets more generally.   Economics, Russo believes, can help us conceptualize problems and recommend effective alternative solutions. The next puzzle Russo wants to find her next challenge while continuing her research. She plans to continue her work as a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, after which she’ll join the Harvard Department of Economics as an assistant professor. Russo also plans to continue helping other budding economists since she believes in the importance of supporting other students.    Russo’s advisors are some of her biggest supporters.  Finklestein emphasizes Russo’s curiosity, enthusiasm, and energy as key drivers in her success. “Her genuine curiosity and interest in getting to the bottom of a problem with the data — with an econometric analysis, with a modeling issue — is the best antidote for [the stress that can be associated with research],” Finklestein says. “It's a key ingredient in her ability to produce important and credible work.” “She's also incredibly generous with her time and advice,” Finklestein continues, “whether it's helping an undergraduate research assistant with her senior thesis, or helping an advisor such as myself navigate a data access process she's previously been through.” “Instead of an advisor-advisee relationship, working with her on a thesis felt more like a collaboration between equals,” Agarwal adds. “[She] has the maturity and smarts to produce pathbreaking research. “Doctoral study is an opportunity for students to find their paths collaboratively,” Russo says. “If I can help someone else solve a small piece of their puzzle, that’s a huge positive. Research is a series of many, many small steps forward.”  Identifying important causes for further investigation and study will always be important to Russo. “I also want to dig into some other market that’s not working well and figure out how to make it better,” she says. “Right now I’m really excited about understanding California wildfire mitigation.”  Puzzles are made to be solved, after all.

Agriculture
Climate
Conservation

Survey finds that 60 firms are responsible for half of world’s plastic pollution

Study confirms Philip Morris International, Danone, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola are worst offendersFewer than 60 multinationals are responsible for more than half of the world’s plastic pollution, with five responsible for a quarter of that, based on the findings of a piece of research published on Wednesday.The researchers concluded that for every percentage increase in plastic produced, there was an equivalent increase in plastic pollution in the environment. Continue reading...

Fewer than 60 multinationals are responsible for more than half of the world’s plastic pollution, with five responsible for a quarter of that, based on the findings of a piece of research published on Wednesday.The researchers concluded that for every percentage increase in plastic produced, there was an equivalent increase in plastic pollution in the environment.“Production really is pollution,” says one of the study’s authors, Lisa Erdle, director of science at the non-profit The 5 Gyres Institute.An international team of volunteers collected and surveyed more than 1,870,000 items of plastic waste across 84 countries over five years: the bulk of the rubbish collected was single-use packaging for food, beverage, and tobacco products.Less than half of that plastic litter had discernible branding that could be traced back to the company that produced the packaging; the rest could not be accounted for or taken responsibility for.“This shows very, very, very well the need for transparency and traceability,” says a study author, Patricia Villarrubia-Gómez, a plastic pollution researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. “[We need] to know who is producing what, so they can take responsibility, right?”The branded half of the plastic was the responsibility of just 56 fast-moving consumer goods multinational companies, and a quarter of that was from just five companies.Altria and Philip Morris International made up 2% of the branded plastic litter found, Danone and Nestlé produced 3% of it, PepsiCo was responsible for 5% of the discarded packaging, and 11% of branded plastic waste could be traced to the Coca-Cola company.“The industry likes to put the responsibility on the individual,” says the study’s author, Marcus Eriksen, a plastic pollution expert from The 5 Gyres Institute.“But we’d like to point out that it’s the brands, it’s their choice for the kinds of packaging [they use] and for embracing this throwaway model of delivering their goods. That’s what’s causing the greatest abundance of trash.”The Guardian approached Philip Morris International, Danone, Nestlé, PepsiCo and The Coca-Cola Company.The Coca-Cola Company said: “We care about the impact of every drink we sell and are committed to growing our business in the right way.” It has pledged to make 100% of its packaging recyclable globally by 2025, and to use at least 50% recycled material in packaging by 2030.Nestlé said it has reduced its virgin plastic usage by 14.9% in the last five years, and supports schemes around the world to develop waste collection and recycling schemes.“Since launching our voluntary commitments to address plastic waste five years ago, we have significantly outperformed the market at large in reducing virgin plastic and increasing recyclability, according to the most recent report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation,” it said.The company also supports the creation of a global legally binding regulation on plastic pollution which is being negotiated this week.However, while many of these companies have taken voluntary measures to improve their impact on plastic pollution, the experts behind the study argue they are not working. Plastic production has doubled since the beginning of 2000 and studies show only 9% of plastic is being recycled.When the team collected data on self-reported yearly plastic packaging production for each of these multinational companies and compared it with the data from their 1,500-plus litter surveys, their statistical analysis showed that every 1% increase in plastic production was directly correlated with approximately a 1% increase in plastic pollution.“Actually seeing this one-to-one increase, I was like, wow,” says a study author, Kathy Willis, a marine socio-ecologist from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia.“Time and time again from our science we see that we really need to be capping how much plastic we are producing.”However, Kartik Chandran, an environmental engineer at Columbia University, who was not involved in the research, said that while this new data was striking, the observation that 1% plastic production was equal to 1% plastic pollution was “a bit unrealistic” and “simplistic”.He said the data did not consider plastic pollution in China, Korea and Japan, nor take into consideration recycling or clean-up initiatives under way.A better analysis could be based on the net plastic flows into plastic production – also accounting for credits from the reuse of plastic materials – and the net plastic load ascribed as plastic pollution.The team behind the study, some of whom are participating in the talks being held in Ottawa this week to discuss a UN Treaty for Plastic Pollution, said their findings emphasised the urgent need for a globally binding treaty focusing on production measures.The talks will run to Monday, and Luis Vayas Valdivieso, the Ecuadorian ambassador to the UK, told the Guardian earlier this week he was hopeful that countries would come together to secure an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution.“It is very important we are negotiating this treaty now. The world is in a triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. But while there are agreements in place for the first two, we have no legislation, no global agreement on plastic pollution.”

Pollution
Business
Crisis

A global study just revealed the world’s biggest known plastic polluters

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo came in at the top of a global audit of plastic waste.

Every year, companies produce more than 400 million metric tons of plastic. Some of that plastic spills onto waterways or beaches, clogging streams or floating in huge gyres in the ocean. Some of it breaks down into tiny microplastics or nanoplastics that float in the air and enter human lungs, blood and organs.Sometimes it’s hard to know which companies are behind all this plastic — but now, scientists have identified some of the largest contributors.A new study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances has pinpointed some of the major brands responsible for plastic pollution across six continents. The researchers, who used a team of over 100,000 volunteers to catalogue over 1.8 million pieces of plastic waste, found that 56 companies were responsible for more than 50 percent of branded plastic waste globally.The largest contributor was Coca-Cola, which accounted for 11 percent of the branded plastic pollution worldwide.The findings, researchers say, reveal the enormity of the planet’s plastic pollution problem. “This is a herculean effort we have to do,” said Win Cowger, a research director at the Moore Institute for Plastic Pollution Research and the lead author of the study. “There are no easy fixes.”To get the data, thousands of volunteers around the world conducted plastic “audits,” in which they scoured beaches, parks, rivers and other locations for plastic waste. Volunteers examined each piece of waste and recorded any visible brands or trademarks. The group Break Free From Plastic organized 1,576 audit collections between 2018 and 2022.Out of more than 1.8 million pieces of plastic surveyed, close to 910,000 had visible brands. (Plastics can lose their brand markers through exposure to sunlight and weather.) And of those hundreds of thousands of pieces of plastic, the top companies responsible were Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé and Danone.In an email, a spokesperson for the Coca-Cola Company pointed to the company’s World Without Waste strategy, noting that it aims “to make 100% of our packaging recyclable globally by 2025 and to use at least 50% recycled material in our packaging by 2030. ... We know more must be done and we can’t achieve our goals alone.”Nestlé said in an email that the company aims to reduce its use of new plastic by one-third and incorporate more recycled content into its packaging.PepsiCo declined to comment, and Danone did not respond to a request. The researchers also found that there was a direct relationship between a company’s production of plastic and the amount of branded plastic waste found in the environment. If a company such as PepsiCo produced 1 percent of the world’s plastic mass, for example, that company was responsible for roughly 1 percent of the waste found in the audit. If a company produced 0.1 percent of the world’s plastic mass, it was responsible for 0.1 percent of the waste.To the researchers, that finding means that recycling and waste management alone isn’t enough to manage the plastic problem.“Many of these companies actually do have programs in place to recover their waste from the environment or prevent it from ending up there,” said Neil Tangri, science and policy director for the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives and another author of the study. “And what we’re seeing is that those are not really effective.”“It’s kind of my worst nightmare,” said Cowger. “It means that to solve the plastic pollution problem, we have to change in a huge way how we operate as a society.”Global leaders and negotiators are gathering in Ottawa this week to hammer out a global plastics treaty. Many environmental groups and countries are looking for an agreement that will include cutting the amount of plastic production, a goal that U.S. negotiators have resisted.Industry groups and companies say that “circular plastics,” advanced recycling and waste management can solve the problem without production limits.“Our members are investing billions of dollars in infrastructure to scale-up the supply of circular plastics, so that used plastics are prevented from entering the environment as waste, landfill or via incineration, and instead become new plastics,” Benny Mermans, chair of the World Plastics Council, said in a statement in the lead-up to the talks.Plastic industry groups have also argued that plastics help boost the global economy. According to a study commissioned by an industry group, limits on production would disproportionately affect low-income people.Researchers say that things such as advanced recycling and a circular economy may have a place in the future, but so does actually slowing the pace at which plastic is made.“We know what works: make less plastic and use less plastic,” Tangri said.Plastics, which are made from fossil fuels, have helped to buoy the fossil fuel industry even as climate policies take aim at the production of oil and gas. Plastic is projected to account for half of growth in oil demand by mid-century, according to the International Energy Agency.At the same time, scientists are rushing to understand the consequences of the tiny pieces of plastic that can enter the body and organs. While microplastics have been found in many systems of the body, their effects on human health are still unclear.Scientists say that without curbs on production, plastics will continue to accumulate in the environment — and in human bodies.“It’s been status quo for a long time,” Cowger said. “And it’s obviously not working.”

Waste
Climate
Health

The more plastic companies make, the more they pollute

A new study, drawing on five years of data collected across 84 countries, proves what seems self-evident.

The more plastic a company makes, the more pollution it creates. That seemingly obvious, yet previously unproven, point, is the main takeaway from a first-of-its-kind study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. Researchers from a dozen universities around the world found that, for every 1 percent increase in the amount of plastic a company uses, there is an associated 1 percent increase in its contribution to global plastic litter. In other words, if Coca-Cola is producing one-tenth of the world’s plastic, the research predicts that the beverage behemoth is responsible for about a tenth of the identifiable plastic litter on beaches or in parks, rivers, and other ecosystems. That finding “shook me up a lot, I was really distraught,” said Win Cowger, a researcher at the Moore Institute for Plastic Pollution Research and the study’s lead author. It suggests that companies’ loudly proclaimed efforts to reduce their plastic footprint “aren’t doing much at all” and that more is needed to make them scale down the amount of plastic they produce. Significantly, it supports calls from delegates to the United Nations global plastics treaty — which is undergoing its fourth round of discussions in Ottawa, Canada, through Tuesday — to restrict production as a primary means to “end plastic pollution.” “What the data is saying is that if the status quo doesn’t change in a huge way — if social norms around the rapid consumption and production of new materials don’t change — we won’t see what we want,” Cowger told Grist. Read Next Petrochemical companies have known for 40 years that plastics recycling wouldn’t work Joseph Winters That plastic production should be correlated with plastic pollution is intuitive, but until now there has been little quantitative research to prove it — especially on a company-by-company basis. Perhaps the most significant related research in this area appeared in a 2020 paper published in Environmental Science and Technology showing that overall marine plastic pollution was growing alongside global plastic production. Other research since then has documented the rapidly expanding “plastic smog” in the world’s oceans and forecasted a surge in plastic production over the next several decades. The Sciences Advances article draws on more than 1,500 “brand audits” coordinated between 2018 and 2022 by Break Free From Plastic, a coalition of more than 3,000 environmental organizations. Volunteers across 84 countries collected more than 1.8 million pieces of plastic waste and counted the number of items contributed by specific companies.  About half of the litter that volunteers collected couldn’t be tied to a specific company, either because it never had a logo or because its branding had faded or worn off. Among the rest, a small handful of companies — mostly in the food and beverage sector — turned up most often. The top polluters were Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, Danone, Altria — the parent company of Philip Morris USA — and Philip Morris International (which is a separate company that sells many of the same products). More than 1 in 10 of the pieces came from Coca-Cola, the top polluter by a significant margin. Overall, just 56 companies were responsible for half of the plastic bearing identifiable branding. The researchers plotted each company’s contribution to plastic pollution against its contribution to global plastic production (defined by mass, rather than the number of items). The result was the tidy, one-to-one relationship between production and pollution that caused Cowger so much distress. Log-log linear regressions and point plot for the relationship between the percent of global plastic mass produced by companies (x axis) and the mean percent of the total branded plastic found in the audit events (y axis). Courtesy of Win Cowger Many of the top polluters identified in the study have made voluntary commitments to address their outsize plastic footprint. Coca-Cola, for example, says it aims to reduce its use of “virgin plastic derived from nonrenewable sources” by 3 million metric tons over the next five years, and to sell a quarter of its beverages in reusable or refillable containers by 2030. By that date the company also aims to collect and recycle a bottle or can for each one it sells. Pepsi has a similar target to reduce virgin plastic use to 20 percent below a 2018 baseline by the end of the decade. Nestlé says it had reduced virgin plastic use by 10.5 percent as of 2022, and plans to achieve further reductions by 2025. In response to Grist’s request for comment, a spokesperson for Coca-Cola listed several of the company’s targets to reduce plastic packaging, increased recycled content, and scale up reusable alternatives. “We care about the impact of every drink we sell and are committed to growing our business in the right way,” the spokesperson said. Four of the other top polluting companies did not respond to a request for comment. It’s worth noting that many of the companies’ plans involve replacing virgin plastic with recycled material. This does not necessarily address the problem outlined in the Science Advances study, since plastic products are no less likely to become litter just because they’re made of recycled content. There’s also a limit to the number of times plastic can be recycled — experts say just two or three times — before it must be sent to a landfill or an incinerator. Many plastic items cannot be recycled at all. Richard Thompson, a professor of marine biology at the University of Plymouth in the U.K., commended the researchers for making “a very useful contribution to our understanding about the link between production and pollution.” He said the findings could shape regulations to make companies financially responsible for plastic waste — based on the specific amount they contribute to the environment. The findings could also inform this week’s negotiations for the U.N. global plastics treaty, where delegates are continuing to spar over whether and how to restrict production. According to Cowger, if the treaty really aims to “end plastic pollution” — as it states in its mandate — then negotiators will need to think beyond voluntary measures and regulate big producers.  “It’s not going to be Coca-Cola or some other big company saying, ‘I’m gonna reduce my plastic by 2030, you’ll see,’” Cowger told Grist. “It’s gonna be a country that says, ‘If you don’t reduce by 2030, you’re going to get hit with a huge fine.’”  This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The more plastic companies make, the more they pollute on Apr 24, 2024.

Business
Chemicals
Food

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