Plastic pollution of the planet. Is there life without plastic? Eco-friendly polymer packaging - a reality or a distant future? Personal culture of consumption

Seaweed in the near future, apparently, will become a common material for the manufacture of various packaging. This spring new material"agar plastic", developed by the Japanese company AMAM, has won the annual Lexus Design Award 2016, held in Milan. It is developed from environmentally friendly clean plastic made from seaweed. Experiments have shown that "agar plastic" can be both soft and hard. Thanks to these features, the new material will be able to replace both foam and bubble wrap. The packaging decomposes naturally, acting as a fertilizer for the soil along the way.

By the way, in Iceland there has already been an attempt to develop self-decomposing bottles from algae, the material for which was red algae. As long as there is liquid in such a bottle, it retains its shape. Left without water, the bottle dries up, deforms and decomposes without environmental damage. True, at the DesignMarch Icelandic design festival, at which the novelty was presented, its author admitted that the water in such a bottle still has some aftertaste.

Along with eco-friendly packaging, humanity is trying to invent more and more technological packaging. American startup Kuvée has developed an electronic wine bottle that allows you to protect an alcoholic drink from the harmful effects of oxygen and sunlight, preserving the properties of the wine for a month after opening. The "smart" bottle is equipped with a touch screen and a Wi-Fi module, and the wine is stored in a sealed aluminum container with a volume of 0.75 liters. The display shows the rest of the wine in a disposable container, the brand of the drink, the grape varieties from which it is made, and even recommendations for snacks. Thanks to wireless communication, you can replenish your wine stock directly from the screen on the bottle by placing an order for the delivery of a new batch.

PepsiCo designed the Mix It Up interactive space as part of Milan Design Week, and also introduced a series of aluminum bottles called The Prestige Bottles. Pepsi Max, Pepsi and Pepsi Diet drinks received their individual color and abstract pattern. The minimalistic design created by Karim Rashid was presented on a futuristic runway. The company recently introduced a new dumbbell-shaped packaging for Pepsi Light. A package of several of these bottles is a dumbbell rack.

Unlike smart packaging, interactivity has already become a powerful competitive advantage. An agency from Yerevan has designed simple but dynamic juice cups: the fruits on the label seem to be drunk. The same technology is used on ordinary mugs. For example, the temperature of a drink can be understood through the northern lights.

British design studio P4CK has designed a cup holder. The holder for four glasses is made from one piece of cardboard without the use of glue. By dividing the workpiece in half, you can get two holders with two glasses each.

An unusual solution for egg packaging was presented by Turkish students: a triangular tube with a pull-out system, which adds aesthetics to the packaging and ensures safe storage and easy pickup.

But for fertilizers from Croatia, compact packaging was developed. Firstly, the manufacturer reduced the weight of the fertilizer package to 4 kg, focusing on urban gardeners. And so that the boxes that hold the bags of fertilizer take up less selling space, a special system has been developed so that the boxes can be stacked inside each other.

Bicycle packaging is not often pleased with design solutions. But for each model of Shulz folding bikes, branded cardboard packaging with individual design was developed. The design of each box was created on the basis of drawings made by the famous St. Petersburg artist Alisa Yufa for a series of postcards, and was timed to coincide with the entry of the Russian brand to the European market.

The Domino's Pizza pizzeria chain has radically changed the packaging design of its pizza. The traditional box has been replaced with red and blue packaging, which together make up the brand logo. New design was developed by the JKR agency, which in the course of a study found that consumers most often order on a special offer, that is, "two pizzas for the price of one." As a result, it was decided to transform the brand logo into the packaging itself, from which, moreover, all unnecessary information was removed.

But in Moscow, Domino's Pizza presented pizza packaging as part of the Ptitseriya project, which easily turns into a bird feeder.

MOSCOW, November 10 - RIA Novosti. Valery Spiridonov, the first candidate for a head transplant, talks about how the land and oceans of the Earth are rapidly "overgrown" with plastic debris, how it affects the functioning of ecosystems and how it can be combated.

The era of plastic

Often, the modern benefits of civilization create not only convenience for people, but also cause irreparable damage to nature. In the last 10 years alone, more plastic products have been produced worldwide than in the previous century.

Disposable tableware, bags, packaging, bottles and various containers are the most common types of plastic waste that we "produce" every day. Only five percent of its volume is ultimately recycled and reused in everyday life and life.

Plastic causes serious damage to the environment, from its production to disposal. Factories producing plastic products release up to 400 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per year, and approximately 800 species of animals are now under threat of extinction due to eating and poisoning with plastic.

Disposable bags clog city sewer systems and create flood threats, plastic debris litter beaches and recreational coastal areas, hurting the tourism industry.

The soil

It is known that plastic decomposes for about two hundred years. Once in the ground, plastics break down into small particles and begin to be thrown into environment chemical substances added to them during production. It can be chlorine, various chemicals, such as toxic or carcinogenic flame retardants.

Microgranules of plastic and its chemicals seep through the groundwater to the nearest water sources, which often leads to the mass death of animals.

Ocean

According to UN environmentalists, about 13 million tons of plastic waste enters the ocean every year.

Attempts to stop the catastrophic trend have been going on since the middle of the 20th century. Even then, environmentalists sounded the alarm about the growing "Great Garbage Patch", which currently, according to various estimates, covers up to one percent of the Pacific Ocean.

According to forecasts by the British Ellen MacArthur Foundation, by 2025 for every three kilograms of fish in the world's oceans there will be a kilogram of garbage, and by 2050 the mass of waste will be higher than the combined weight of all fish on Earth.

Plastic makes up 80 percent of all debris in the world's oceans. Under influence sun rays it breaks down into small particles. Plastic microgranules accumulate persistent toxic substances on their surface.

Undecomposed plastic bags end up in the stomachs marine mammals and birds. Ecologists have calculated that tens of thousands of birds, whales, seals, and turtles die from this every year. Animals die of suffocation, or indigestible debris accumulates in their stomachs and interferes with their work.

The result is that the same waste that we throw away is returned to us back on the dining table along with food or water.

Salt is no longer

Recent studies by scientists confirm that these fears are well founded. For example, NYU professor Sherry Mason argues that plastic is already everywhere: "In the air, in the water, in the seafood, in the beer we drink, in the salt we use."

In his work, the scientist examined 12 different types of salt from grocery stores. different countries peace. The found particles of plastic indicate that people constantly consume it in food. The calculation showed that Americans eat over 660 plastic particles a year, with an average recommended salt intake of 2.3 grams per day. The consequences of plastic consumption for human health are still little studied, but it is undoubted that it has a negative impact, as it does on any living organism.

Spanish ecologists have also found microplastics in two dozen samples of table salt. Most often, they found in them polyethylene terephthalate, a polymer used in the manufacture of plastic bottles. Another international team of scientists has found other types of plastic in salt, such as polyethylene and polypropylene.

Sources of pollution

According to environmentalists today, China is the leader in pollution of the world's oceans. Others follow him Asian countries— Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. The inhabitants of the sea coast in these states do not always care about its cleanliness and all the garbage here, as a rule, ends up in the ocean.

The total number of daily discarded plastic products in the US, EU, Norway and China reaches 37 thousand tons, in Russia - no more than 10 thousand tons. Existing plastic recycling technologies can only partially solve the environmental problem.

Legislative regulation

Proposals are being put forward for a consolidated international action plan to address the problem of plastic waste.

Experts from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) acknowledge that the problem has been exacerbated by prolonged inaction. Under the auspices of UNEP, the World Campaign to Combat Marine Litter has been launched.

An illustrative example is the Italian city of Capannori with a population of 46,700 people. In 2007, a zero waste strategy was introduced here. In ten years, the volume of garbage has been reduced by 40 percent. At the same time, only 18 percent of waste ends up in landfills.

It is worth noting that such a strategy requires certain investments and should include mechanisms for financing the fight against garbage. Alternatively, there is the "polluter pays" principle. For an industry with $750 billion in annual revenue, it could be quite effective.

More than 40 countries have established legal restrictions and bans on the use of plastic bags in their territories.

© AP Photo / Eric Risberg

© AP Photo / Eric Risberg

There are no such laws in Russia yet. According to current estimates by environmentalists and economists, Russian industrial enterprises produce approximately 26.5 billion plastic bags. If all of them were collected, then it would be possible to cover an area three times the size of Moscow.

In this regard, Greenpeace Russia launched the campaign "Package? - Thank you, no!" The purpose of the campaign is to call on the largest supermarket chains to abandon plastic bags. Anyone can support the program by sending a letter of appeal to retailers on the organization's website.

Personal culture of consumption

Every day we have an alternative: buy mineral water in a glass or plastic bottle, take disposable paper utensils or plastic plates for a picnic, use reusable shopping bags or shopping bags. Environmental concern or personal convenience? The choice determines the level of a person's self-consciousness.

Of course, such a culture in society is instilled over the years. The less each of us starts using plastic in Everyday life, the faster manufacturers will reduce its production volumes. Don't choose "disposable" plastic solely because of its low price - often many plastic items can be replaced with reusable products made from more environmentally friendly materials.

For example, calculations by British analysts show that the reuse of plastic packaging will save up to 120 billion dollars every year. Decreasing plastic production, it seems to me, can increase the demand for more environmentally friendly reusable products from other raw materials and make them cheaper by increasing their mass production.

It is quite likely that we will be able to turn the tide in a few years and stop or at least slow down the environmental catastrophe.

There are other futuristic views on pollution problems. According to some scientists, irreversible changes are already taking place on our planet, we are threatened with a shortage of drinking water, global warming and other things that will make the Earth unfit for human life.

Some of them suggest not to look for new ways to save the Earth, but to focus on finding new planets that are most suitable for the resettlement of mankind. Even leaving aside questions of ethics and morality, it seems to me that such a path is not reasonable from a strategic point of view. It’s easier to put your “beautiful and well-equipped house” in order by cleaning it than to build and settle in a new one.

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