Curriculum of end drowning in plastic

[chris macrae]

Clara , a photographic journalist,  from Chile writes with this wonderful collaboration idea: Chris, I thought a lot about this opportunity you are offering to me and I have decided to take it now and therefore explain what I’m promoting.   This is the idea.   During the 50th, the Italian Giulio Natta invent plastic, on 1963 thanks to that invention he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.   60 years later, not mentioning what is happening in the ground, plastic has almost filled up our seas and oceans   The most famous example is the Plastic Garbage Patch floating in the middle of Pacific Ocean.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKBWNVNzaPo (Preview)    It has been discovered on 1997 by Charles Moore, an American oceanographer, who believes that about 100 million tons of flotsam are circulating in the region. http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/the-worlds-ru...   This is what is going on with animals http://goo.gl/3OE97S     Since around 20 years, every European country is making any effort trying to develop the environmental awareness and recycling.  We can also say that now European consumers are very concerned about the role they play in recycling but: what is going on with the less-developed countries? Value of plastic is so low that recycling is pretty only a matter of environment respect and not a real business.   After 8 years living in Chile, in term of massive communication I see something is happening only since the last months.    If in around 60 years humanity made up such a disaster, the question is: how long does it takes these less-developed countries to create awareness within the consumers?   Permit me to make some other considerations: a) packaging, generally including plastic, has reached such a big development that it is normal to buy a product with a "shell" that is, at least, 2 times bigger that the product itself and whose life is between 5 minutes to 24 hours b) packaging, bottles and any container are produced and sold by a market which is considered private from the economic point of view: why the same private market cannot be charged of its own recycle instead of the public administration? In a city, this Municipality garbage collection model (public) has been for years the only way to get rid of the waste buy now, since the environment is almost saturate, we must change and revert the paradigm.   The hard core of the project therefore is this: establish by law an obligation for every distributor (market, mall, fast food, distribution chain and so on) to recollect all plastic they sell: 30% the first year, 60% the second 90% the third, in term of packages, cans, bottles, wrappings, plastic bags and so on barcode, beyond administrative information, can show and permit to control information about material and weight of the recycling waste of any product sold by a cash, per day, per week, per year and so on, simply adding those details to the financial information  hopefully this should happen world wide I am not naive at all and perfectly conscious that such a proposal needs lot of power to succeed.   Here in Chile on Dec. 19, will take place the first meeting about it: Bernardo Javalquinto has confirmed his presence and some Chilean academic professors are invited too. I really hope nobody will miss the opportunity: I’ll ask them to support this idea.   What I believe is that any powerful man is also a human being and that something like what is going on within the seas is shocking, can scare and finally it is only a logistic problem, the idea is revert the path of recycling and control quantity and material. It can be incentivized also by tax reductions or implementing other economic strategies. Cashes at supermarket are the last tool of control. Marketing can make the rest and provoking the change. I’m sure every distribution channel should start immediately to push toward reduction of plastic. Some countries have already banned plastic bags. Here in Latin America, Bernardo is studying and making campaigns about this problem at least since 2006. He sent me the follows links: http://whichcountrieshavebannedplasticbags.blogspot.com/  http://www.howstuffworks.com/how-many-cities-have-a-ban-on-plastic-... http://plasticbagbanreport.com/category/countries/ but we can do more. Permit me a joke, which is my dream: if “Mr. Walmart” is obliged by law to recollect all plastic is sold  by his distribution channel, this means that Mr. Walmart can influence (and possibly start changing) within a week the habit of billon and billion of consumers. Therefore Mr. Walmart can influence all producers to reduce the volume of plastic, or making packaging simpler and easier to be recycled.   This way, scientists could focus the attention in how to clean up the oceans, being sure that no more plastic should end there within few years and, last but not least, this form if control can be apply to any product that need to be recycled.   Unfortunately there is a very last point to be consider: oceans absorb CO2, please see the interesting article by NOAA http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Carbon+Uptake But Professor Nathan Bindoff, project leader of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC) oceans program Australia has told RTCC that as temperatures of oceans rise, they will become less able to absorb the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities. Article here http://www.rtcc.org/2012/01/24/warming-oceans-face-co2-tipping-point/ See more at: http://www.rtcc.org/2012/01/24/warming-oceans-face-co2-tipping-poin...   Therefore there is a last question I do: if oceans are becoming less effective in absorbing CO2, considering the Garbage Patch, does it mean that they are now producing CO2?   This is the last common sense question.   Well, this is idea. In term of photography, I think it would be great to create a photographic map of the causes, for example making an investigation on plastic polluted rivers to show where they are. Mostofa, let's talk also about this, there is also a group of italian artists interested in doing something.   Many thanks to everybody for your attention and have a great day. Sincerely Clara

Our quest for linking in youth's most collaborative networks of green included these opportunity and threat notes: I would conclude that we need a very lively activist green entrepreneur solutions youth network marching on atlanta fall 2015 whether they do the march physically or virtually= we also need a khan academy type production lab inviting youth to pitch the stories and collaboration solutions- if going green isnt one of the top 5 open education channels khan will have badly lost course Clara if you keep individually briefing naila that would be good as the turner and carter families (the opinion leading hosts of everything atlanta wants youth to change)  are directly interested in green and she will know which of them understands which way towards this   Drowning in plastic and drowning in carbon are of course highly correlated crises that require going beyond the whole global value chain of carbon   People like mostofa , estelle and I organised a 69th birthday party in dhaka around yunus in 2009 inviting the BBC's most active nature broadcaster Paul Rose to join in but sadly we found by that time Yunus had already got conflicted with the idea he announced in 2006 that bangladesh and china could raced together towards green economy BBC News - Building a secure future in Bangladesh Jul 7, 2009 - Paul Rose visits Bangladeshi villages, field projects, and schools; and meets the country's leading innovators to report on life at the "front line of   I will keep asking around_ mostofa will you have another go at paul rose and his royal geographical broadcasting friends including Monty Pythons and Brazil's Michael Palin- and while you are with the 50000 schoolchildren at lucknow will you see how far their green curriculum are advanced and linked into kalams' 2020 order that students tear up all unsustainable curricula  (I will keep at the sainsbury family and their royal friends)   mostofa will you also ask yunus official photographer if he is personally interested or knows colleagues who are in photographers end plastic   bernardo are there already some green modules to your curricula?   Its the case that in the USA state wide competitions hosted by yunus green projects have always been number 1 but as yet no funding or mentoring group has been set up around them. Fortunately the american professor most responsible for the intellectual consequences of nobel laureate summits was judge at the last event where new hampshire students pitched lots of green solutions so I will pick my time in reminding him of this student vote; there's also a very strong youth led group on food security out of alabama - it would be worth seeing if they can connect. Also there was the founder of stonyfield farm yogurt whose other job is hubs of green youth entrepreneurs   Of course the local problem is the us economy is more addicted to plastic than any so you are not likely to see first innovations come from usa, well not with what I have experienced recently around the politics of capitalism in usa , or of  Muhammad Yunus bowling alone. Now of course his daughter Monica's partnership network is a completely different kettle of fish- its brand is already adopted by new yorks leading sustainable communications agency but she doesnt want to massively lead while he is still enjoying himself   chris welcomes correspondence [e-mail]