Wind-borne microplastics are a bigger source of ocean pollution than rivers, say scientists

More than 200,000 tonnes of tiny plastic particles are blown from roads into the oceans every year, according to research.

The study suggests wind-borne microplastics are a bigger source of ocean pollution than rivers, the route that has attracted most attention to date. The analysis focused on the tiny particles produced by tyres and brake pads as they wear down.

It estimated that 550,000 tonnes of particles smaller than 0.01mm are deposited each year, with almost half ending up in the ocean. More than 80,000 tonnes fall on remote ice- and snow-covered areas and may increase melting as the dark particles absorb the sun’s heat.

Water is essential for life, but how much do you know about the health of your local water supply? In this special episode, we speak with two Riverkeepers who explain the importance of water quality monitoring for every living organism, from humans to birds. John Lipscomb shares critical history of the Hudson River and how activism has helped the neighborhood thrive. And John Zaktansky introduces us to Doug Fessler and the technology of BirdNET for his hi-tech patrol. Co-produced by our guest host, Trisha Mukherjee. Tune in!

For more information about the From Love to Action campaign, episode transcript and other resources from this episode, visit BirdNote.org.

The Price of Paperless

Table of Contents

Here Everything is Poison

By J. Malcolm Garcia, Photography by Darren McCollester

Fall 2010

Cold winds carry lead-filled dust from a nearby slagheap, a hundred million tonnes of toxic tailings, and scatter it on clothes hanging from laundry lines, on open buckets of drinking water, on the dirt children play in, and on the feral dogs running down alleys in this former French army barracks housing about 250 displaced Roma men, women, and children.

Editor’s Desk

The Price of the Paperless Revolution

By Ted Genoways

Reporting

Jharia Burning

By Allison Joyce, Photography by Allison Joyce

The Pit

By Nathaniel Miller

Father Copper

By Annie Murphy, Photography by Rodrigo Llano

Mother of God, Child of Zeus

By Jessica Benko, Photography by Bear Guerra

Digging Out

By Elliott D. Woods, Photography by Elliott D. Woods

The Solution: Bolivia’s Lithium Dreams

By Matthew Power, Photography by Fabio Cuttica

Tin Fever

By Delphine Schrank, Photography by Mark Craemer

Here Everything is Poison

By J. Malcolm Garcia, Photography by Darren McCollester

Essays

The Devil’s Tail: Reading From the Lives of Authors

By Robert Boyers

Fiction

Favorite Son

By Jennifer Haigh

The Digger

By Samanta Schweblin, Translated by Daniel Alarcon

Poetry

The Man

By Patrick Phillips

Work-Clothes Quilt

By Patrick Phillips

Tailing Dam of Baotou Steel

By Qin Xiaoyu

The Book of Lost Railroad Photographs

By Amy Beeder

Criticism

The Age of Inequality

By Oscar Villalon

The Activist Novelist

By Jacob Silverman

The Triumph of Capitalism

By Brian Sholis

Multimedia

The Underground Giant: Life in the Hard Rock Mines of Quebec and Ontario

By Louie Palu, Photography by Louie Palu

In this special episode, we explore the critical effects of noise pollution on both humans and birds. Dr. Erica Walker offers an insightful view of how people are negatively impacted by loud disturbances, from everyday life to health complications. And Dr. Clinton Francis shares his discoveries about the impact of noise on bird health and reproduction, from abandoning their habitats to doubling their fertilization rate. Co-produced by our guest host, Tasha Lawson. Press play!

For more information about the From Love to Action campaign, episode transcript and other resources from this episode, visit BirdNote.org.

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BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible.

Bring Birds Back Special Season 5 is sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

whats going on in Congo, and how you can help!

pollution from cars is so much more than a combustion engine.

Here are just a few of the incredible ways this bill could help the U.S. break free from plastic: 

Fall 2010

The Price of Paperless

Volume 86, Number 4

Taken together, these essays reveal the hidden price of the paperless revolution. Every MacBook and iPad, every Kindle and Droid contains the labor of hundreds of invisible workers, uncounted lives foreshortened by poisoned water and air, and a landscape permanently scarred by our voracious scavenging. No matter how sleek and earth-friendly these devices may appear, they rise from the dirt and are mined with sweat and with blood. This is not to say that our information age is inherently bad. The protests after last year’s elections in Iran were largely organized over Twitter and documented via YouTube. Across Africa, farmers are using smartphones to access daily market prices via the Internet, assuring fairer compensation for their crops. This summer our government used Facebook to enlist and organize volunteers for the cleanup of the Gulf oil spill. But in our rush to embrace the new—the smaller, the faster, the more powerful—we must not confuse revolutionary products with revolutions in production. We must not forget that even in this age of enlightenment, much of the world remains stooped in black tunnels, tracing veins deeper into darkness.

Co-founders & couple, Rosalie and Adam, firmly believe recycled materials should be as beautiful and desirable as anything new. Together they’ve been creating recycled and repurposed designs for more than a decade, founding Smile Plastics in 2015 to give architects & designers access to sustainable new materials. In their Welsh micro-factory they turn waste plastic into handcrafted panels that become anything from tables and stools, to kitchen benchtops and bathroom surfaces. The patented process is entirely circular, with all of their products 100% recycled and 100% recyclable, made using low temperatures & minimal energy. Their work has made its way around the world, inspiring a zero-waste future for construction & design.

In his groundbreaking book, Traffication: How Cars Destroy Nature and What We Can Do About It, scientist and researcher Paul Donald synthesizes dozens of studies to help us understand what cars and roads do to living things. Paul makes the case that cars ruin more than cities—they also ruin the countryside by fragmenting habitat and creating a neverending barrage of threats and stressors for animals of all kinds. The danger posed by the car to nature, he suggests, is existential.

We talked with Paul Donald about his book, why he coined the term “traffication” and what he thinks we can do about it.

You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

{listen}

Single-use plastic bottles are fueling the petrochemical build out, are the greatest source of plastic packaging pollution, and have a clear alternative: the refillable bottle.

At the core of the plastics crisis lies the idea of ‘disposability,’ which we’re tackling through an initiative to bring back the refillable bottle. With this campaign, we will:

Such policies would be among the first binding reusable packaging targets in the US and the world. Overall, this policy-forward solution will divert billions of plastic bottles from landfills and the environment and lower greenhouse gas emissions, while demonstrating how we can build a reusable economy.

Ecuador and fossil fuel extraction

Electric cars are about saving the auto industry, not the planet

"Oppenheimer" brings painful memories for New Mexico Hispanics

Abandoned Uranium Mines: An "Overwhelming Problem" in the Navajo Nation

There's an old uranium mine on rancher Larry Gordy's grazing land near Cameron, Ariz. Like hundreds of other abandoned mines in the Navajo Nation, the United States' largest Indian reservation, it looks as if it might still be in use—tailings, or waste products of uranium processing, are still piled everywhere, and the land isn't fenced off. "It looks like Mars," said Marsha Monestersky, program director of Forgotten People, an advocacy organization for the western region of the vast Navajo Nation, which covers 27,000 square miles in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is currently embroiled in a massive effort to assess 520 open abandoned uranium mines all over the vast reservation. (Forgotten People says there are even more mines on Navajo land: about 1,300.) Earlier this month, the cleanup got a boost from a bankruptcy settlement with Oklahoma City-based chemical company Tronox Inc., which will give federal and Navajo Nation officials $14.5 million to address the reservation's uranium contamination.

During the Cold War, private companies such as Tronox's former parent company, Kerr-McGee Corp., operated uranium mines under U.S. government contracts, removing four million tons of ore that went into making nuclear weapons and fuel. When demand dried up with the end of the era, companies simply abandoned their mines as they were.