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#biodegradable
rebeccathenaturalist · 3 months
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Welcome to my Tuesday morning PSA about plastics!
So--I was walking along the Bolstadt beach approach sidewalk here in Long Beach, WA yesterday afternoon, and I started seeing these little orange pellets on the ground that looked a little bit like salmon roe (but probably weren't). So I picked one up, and it was most definitely rubber. I went around picking up every one I could find, and while I didn't keep exact count I probably amassed 50-60 of them. I took this picture before depositing them in the nearest trash can.
These are airsoft gun pellets, and you can buy them in big jars containing thousands of them. That means that someone who decided that the beach was a great place to shoot their airsoft guns could easily litter the place with countless little bits of plastic rubber in less than an hour. We already have a huge problem here with people leaving trash, including tiny bits of plastic, all over the beach (you should see the gigantic mess after 4th of July fireworks when thousands of people come in from out of town, blow things up, and then leave again without picking up after themselves.)
But these airsoft pellets have a particularly nasty side effect. You know how my first thought was "wow, those look kind of like salmon roe?" Well, we have a number of opportunistic omnivore birds like crows, ravens, and several species of gull that commonly scavenge on the beach, especially along the approaches because people often feed them there. If I can catch the resemblance of an orange airsoft pellet to a fish egg, then chances are there are wildlife that will assume they're edible.
Since birds don't chew their food, they probably won't notice that the taste or texture is wrong--it'll just go down the hatch. And since they can't digest the pellets, there's a good chance they might just build up in the bird's digestive system, especially if the bird eats a large number of them--say, fifty or sixty of them dropped on the ground along the same fifty foot stretch of sidewalk. The bird might die of starvation if there's not enough capacity for food in their stomach--or they might just die painfully of an impacted gut, and no way to get help for it. If the pellets end up washed into the ocean, you get the same issue with fish and other marine wildlife eating them, and then of course the pellets eventually breaking up into microplastic particles.
You can get biodegradable airsoft pellets; they appear to mainly be gray or white in color rather than bright screaming orange and green. But "biodegradable" doesn't mean "instantly dissolves the next time it rains." An Amazon listing for Aim Green biodegradable airsoft pellets advertise them as "Our biodegradable BBs are engineered to degrade only with long-term exposure to water and sun and will degrade 180 days after being used." That's half a year for them to be eaten by wildlife.
I don't know, y'all. That handful of carelessly dropped rubber pellets just encapsulates how much people don't factor in the rest of nature when making decisions, even on something that is purely for entertainment like an airsoft gun. We could have had a lot of the same technological advances we have today, but with much less environmental impact, if we had considered the long-term effects on both other people and other living beings, as well as our habitats. We could have found ways from the beginning to make these things in ways that benefited us but also mitigated any harm as much as possible. Instead we're now having to reverse-engineer things we've been using for decades, and sometimes--like the "biodegradable" airsoft pellets--they still have a significant negative impact.
But--at least there are people trying to do things better, thinking ahead instead of just on immediate profit. We're stuck in a heck of a mess here, figuratively and literally, and changing an entire system can't be done in a day. Maybe we can at least keep pushing for a cultural shift that emphasizes planning far into the future--if not the often-cited "seven generations ahead", then at least throughout the potential lifespan of a given product.
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ilikeit-art · 7 months
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Saype, born Guillaume Legros, is a French artist living in Bulle, Switzerland. A self-taught artist, Saype’s giant biodegradable artworks adorn fields, are best seen by drones and last only days. The artist is represented by MTArt Agency since 2018. Beginning his career as a young graffiti artist, Saype’s work quickly gained recognition and became highly sought after, resulting in him landing his first gallery exhibition at age 16. Saype is a pioneer of the land art movement, focusing upon large scale biodegradable paintings with strong social messages.
Using 100% biodegradable paint composed of water, chalk, coal and casein, Saype’s ephemeral land artwork disappears after a month due to regrowth of the grass it is painted upon, the weather and the passage of visitors. With each project he completes, his recognition grows, capturing the attention of those on social media as well as landing extensive global media coverage. Career highlight for Saype have included gaining thanks from the Swiss President, Doris Leuthard, for the social vision of his art, in 2017, and following that in 2018, the publication of his book, ‘Green Art’, which highlights the innovative qualities of the biodegradable paint Saype has created.
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elixir · 1 year
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Scarlett Yang CSM 2021 Graduate collection, Biodegradable dress made from algae.
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A team of scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has developed an artificial 'worm gut' to break down plastics, offering hope for a nature-inspired method to tackle the global plastic pollution problem. By feeding worms with plastics and cultivating microbes found in their guts, researchers from NTU's School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE) have demonstrated a new method to accelerate plastic biodegradation. Previous studies have shown that Zophobas atratus worms -- the larvae of the darkling beetle commonly sold as pet food and known as 'superworms' for their nutritional value -- can survive on a diet of plastic because its gut contains bacteria capable of breaking down common types of plastic. However, their use in plastics processing has been impractical due to the slow rate of feeding and worm maintenance.
Read more.
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mindblowingscience · 2 years
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University of British Columbia researcher Dr. Feng Jiang has developed a cellulose film that looks like plastic and behaves like plastic—but is biodegradable.
Dr. Jiang's process breaks down wood fibers (sourced from forest waste) in a solution of cold sodium hydroxide combined with mild mechanical blending. The sodium hydroxide is then recycled. The result is a translucent, strong and water-resistant film.
Other researchers have also developed cellulosic films, but the UBC project is the first to use small amounts of energy and chemicals in the manufacture.
Like conventional plastic, the film can be made into coffee bags or chip bags, pouches (like pouches for cereal or frozen fruit), or protective wrap like bubble wrap or envelopes.
Continue Reading.
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cerebrodigital · 21 hours
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Los universitarios presentaron el proyecto como innovador y sostenible que podría sustituir el uso del plástico.
Te contamos más sobre el proyecto aquí:
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jadeseadragon · 3 months
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Artist: @saype_artiste • @art_dailydose
"Massive artworks that are visible from the sky, lasts for a few weeks before vanishing naturally.
This contemporary artist famous for his huge nature paintings made with a biodegradable paint he created.
He is a pioneer in the art of painting on grass and uses a special environmentally friendly paint made of water, chalk, charcoal, and casein."
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dylanisdazed · 7 months
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put this on my tombstone
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notwiselybuttoowell · 1 month
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xroguerose · 2 months
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I was getting all worked up about how our bodies are now full of microplastics and shit, and then i remembered i've got literal bimbo tits😆😆
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aquitainequeen · 10 months
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When Julia Bialetska and her husband Eugene Tomilin decided to travel the world, Bali at first seemed a paradise island.
“We were doing surfing sessions there and one day all the beach and the ocean were covered with this huge amount of plastic,” she remembers. “It was brought from the ocean. And this picture was so devastating, I still see it when I close my eyes.”
That was the moment, in 2016, that this Ukrainian biochemist graduate realised that she wanted to do something about throwaway plastic. Working with the M.G. Kholodny Institute of Botany back in Kiev, she and Tomilin started experimenting. They began to grow a material that played on the strength of waste hemp fibres, which they ‘glued’ together with mycelium – the network of fungal threads that mushrooms grow from.
The result is a natural replacement for expanded polystyrene – that lightweight material that is so useful as packaging that in 2016 we produced 6.6m metric tons of it. They may not be the only startup working on this kind of solution, but Bialetska and Tomilin’s company, called S.Lab, is certainly on a winning streak at the moment.
Read more from Senay Boztas!
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peoplecallmelucifer · 6 months
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Uhm
Excuse me but it's Bi-odegradable not Straight-odegradable
Stop stealing our culture
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textiletattoos · 7 months
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my sweet creature hoodies and jumpers have been getting lots of love recently 🥰 here's some of the orders before i posted them out - this design is also available on tote bags, patches, t-shirts and crop tops on my etsy shop and website 💕
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clnclm · 6 months
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MADMEC winner creates “temporary tattoos” for T-shirts
Me-Shirts, winner of the annual MIT materials science competition, has developed a biodegradable material than can be easily added and removed from shirts.
Have you ever gotten a free T-shirt at an event that you never wear? What about a music or sports-themed shirt you wear to one event and then lose interest in entirely? Such one-off T-shirts — and the waste and pollution associated with them — are an unfortunately common part of our society. But what if you could change the designs on shirts after each use? The winners of this year's MADMEC competition developed biodegradable "temporary tattoos" for T-shirts to make one-wear clothing more sustainable. Members of the winning team, called Me-Shirts, got their inspiration from the MADMEC event itself, which ordinarily makes a different T-shirt each year.
Read more.
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eretzyisrael · 1 year
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It’s summer, and the ritual of buying a new pair of flimsy plastic flip-flops for the beach begins again. They wear out, so you trash them, and the cycle repeats year after year.
This ‘wear them and trash them’ cycle is one of the biggest contributors to plastic waste contamination in the world.
But there’s now a fashionable ‘slide’ that breaks that cycle. You wear it and plant it. Israeli startup Balena has developed what it describes as the world’s first fully compostable plastic fashion product.
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Balena slides are billed as the first fully compostable plastic fashion item. Courtesy
When the slides reach the end of their life, they’re planted in a composter, and within six months, they decompose completely, leaving only a green legacy behind.
Conventional plastics can take hundreds of years to break down, and even then, their chemical makeup is toxic to the earth.
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But Balena has developed BioCir, a pioneering plastic that maintains its shape and use like conventional plastic. 
It’s only when it’s exposed to the specific bacteria and conditions of a compost facility, that the breakdown is triggered – so ethical consumers don’t need to worry about the slides disappearing on their feet.
Balena released their first 1,000 pairs of men’s and women’s BioCir slides – with a cinnamon scent – in Tel Aviv, its hometown, together with designated take-back spots for when they wear out.
Owners return the slides to be shredded, then planted back into the ground for full biodegradation at a local industrial compost facility, instead of tossing them into the garbage to be landfilled.
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Balena, a materials science company, has developed a plastic that biodegrades. Courtesy
“When we look at the future of sustainability, it is clear that recycling alone is not solving the problem, the direction needs to turn towards a circular economy model,” David Roubach, CEO of Balena tells NoCamels.
“The world’s addiction to fast fashion has generated an estimate of 92 million tons of textile waste each year and just 12 per cent of the material used for clothing is recycled.”
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When the slides wear out, drop them off to be shredded and planted. Courtesy
So Balena started in reverse, aiming to solve the problem of a product’s end of life, and working back from there.
“We’ve turned to the Earth’s natural cycles for answers,” says Roubach. “We need to transition from traditional mechanical recycling, where we melt the product and try to make another product, to a method called biological recycling. 
“This renewable concept draws on the example of plants and trees. Nature eventually decomposes and returns to its starting state to begin the cycle again. This phenomenon is the vision for Balena.”
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Worn out slides are taken to their final resting place. Courtesy
They’ve achieved this ‘Benjamin Button’ effect by using a combination of naturally occurring ingredients bonded by a plastic that they say is fully compostable.
Companies that claim to be sustainably-focused tend to be small-scale boutiques. But Balena has bigger ambitions and sees the slides as a proof of concept. From there it can expand to other products.
The fully bio-circular plastic can be made conventionally (a process known as injection molding) or by using 3-D printing. The non-toxic material can also be copied and pasted on a global scale, for other companies looking to reduce their ecological footprint.
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Slides are shredded and allowed to biodegrade. Courtesy
Society is shifting from an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mentality, and opening its eyes to the effects of fast fashion. Consumers now want to know where their products come from – and where they’ll end up.
Companies that claim to be sustainably-focused tend to be small-scale boutiques. But Balena has bigger ambitions and sees the slides as a proof of concept. From there it can expand to other products.
“Our aim goes beyond being just another niche or one-time project,” says Roubach, who majored in fashion and sustainability in Milan, Italy.
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Balena’s BioCir is a a circular alternative to landfill. Deposit Photos
“With an affordable and scalable proof of concept, we are hoping the compostable materials that enabled the BioCir slide will eventually replace the polluting plastic in the fashion industry.
“In the beginning it was a challenge figuring out our idea, being a minority player in the high-tech world of Israeli startups,” says Roubach.
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The breakdown process only begins when the plastic is exposed to specific bacteria so don’t worry, they won’t biodegrade while you wear them. Courtesy
Despite the challenges, Balena was able to tap into the ‘green’ potential of the Startup Nation and develop sustainable solutions, leaving a lasting impact on the fashion industry and helping pave the way for a greener future.
“Now, climate tech and sustainable startups are gaining momentum, which means something is changing. Israel is aligning its focus in the right direction, and I am proud to be a part of that.”
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