Latest / Science Show KY / 7.23.26
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to Radioized Diary of Science and Nature. Your reader
- 0:04Speaker 1: is Kelly Taylor. I'll have articles on the topics of
- 0:07Speaker 1: science and nature, but first a reminder that RADIOI is
- 0:11Speaker 1: a reading service intended for people who are blind or
- 0:15Speaker 1: have other disabilities that make it difficult to read printed
- 0:18Speaker 1: material from BBC Science Focus magazine. We'll start with an
- 0:24Speaker 1: article that's headlined part of Earth's core has switched directions
- 0:29Speaker 1: and nobody really knows why. A river of molten iron
- 0:35Speaker 1: flowing fourteen hundred miles below the Pacific Ocean in Earth's
- 0:40Speaker 1: outer core has surprised scientists by changing direction. The observations
- 0:47Speaker 1: give new insights into the shifting behavior of our planet's
- 0:50Speaker 1: liquid outer core. This layer provide or plays a key
- 0:54Speaker 1: role in generating Earth's magnetic field, which acts as a
- 1:00Speaker 1: protective shield against dangerous solar radiation. Researchers at the University
- 1:06Speaker 1: of Edinburgh made the discovery by combing through ground and
- 1:10Speaker 1: satellite observations taken between nineteen ninety seven and twenty twenty five.
- 1:16Speaker 1: They report in the Journal of Studies of Earth's Deep
- 1:19Speaker 1: Interior that in twenty ten, a broad region of iron
- 1:24Speaker 1: rich fluid beneath the equatorial Pacific switched from moving weekly
- 1:30Speaker 1: westwards to strongly eastwards. Quote. The large scale flow reversal
- 1:36Speaker 1: below the Pacific raises new questions about the behavior of
- 1:41Speaker 1: Earth's deep interior, said lead author of the study, Frederick
- 1:45Speaker 1: dahl Madson at the University School of Geosciences. Quote. Scientists
- 1:52Speaker 1: now want to understand whether the reversal represents a short
- 1:56Speaker 1: lived fluctuation part of a repeating oscillation, or a new
- 2:01Speaker 1: stable equilibrium for core circulation. Previously, it was assumed that
- 2:07Speaker 1: the outer core was dominated by a stable westward circulation,
- 2:11Speaker 1: but according to Elizabeta Eorfida, an Interior and Exterior Fields
- 2:16Speaker 1: Earth scientists at the European Space Agency, the Pacific reversal
- 2:22Speaker 1: challenges that quote. This study shows that regional changes can
- 2:27Speaker 1: emerge rapidly within just a decade, she said. The findings
- 2:30Speaker 1: may also help scientists investigate possible interactions between Earth's outer core,
- 2:36Speaker 1: inner core, and lower mantle, and therefore give more insights
- 2:40Speaker 1: into the core mantle boundary, which is a critical region
- 2:43Speaker 1: for deep Earth dynamics. The European Space Agency's latest data
- 2:50Speaker 1: suggests the eastward flow may now be weakening again after
- 2:54Speaker 1: reaching a peak several years ago, raising the possibility that
- 2:58Speaker 1: the event represents a temporary eye oillation or as part
- 3:01Speaker 1: of a longer natural cycle than core dynamics. These changes
- 3:05Speaker 1: occur far below Earth's surface and pose no immediate danger
- 3:09Speaker 1: to people or the climate, but scientists still think they're
- 3:12Speaker 1: fundamental to understanding how our planet works and how the
- 3:15Speaker 1: outer core generates Earth's protective magnetic field. Scientists have long
- 3:20Speaker 1: known that our planet's magnetic field is not fixed. It
- 3:24Speaker 1: slowly changes over time as the core flow evolves, affecting
- 3:28Speaker 1: everything from navigation systems to spacecraft operations and models of
- 3:33Speaker 1: near Earth space weather. Next step is an article from
- 3:37Speaker 1: Fox Weather. This is from July twenty first, and the
- 3:41Speaker 1: headline is Here's why barrier islands are important during hurricane season.
- 3:48Speaker 1: As hurricanes threaten the US coastline each year, barrier islands
- 3:53Speaker 1: play an important role in helping protect coastal communities and environments.
- 3:58Speaker 1: Sitting just offshore, these natural landforms act as a buffer
- 4:02Speaker 1: between the open ocean and the mainland, taking the brunt
- 4:06Speaker 1: of severe storms. Barrier islands are long, narrow stretches of
- 4:11Speaker 1: sand that run parallel to the coastline. Iconic barrier islands
- 4:16Speaker 1: protect both bustling coastal communities like North Carolina's Outer Banks,
- 4:23Speaker 1: Florida's Santabelle Island and Texas' Galveston Island, and vital wilderness
- 4:29Speaker 1: areas such as Louisiana's Chandelure Islands. Separated from the mainland
- 4:36Speaker 1: by bays, lagoons, or marshes. They constantly shift and reshape
- 4:41Speaker 1: due to waves, tides, and storms. According to the US
- 4:46Speaker 1: Geological Survey, barrier islands are dynamic landforms that naturally migrate
- 4:51Speaker 1: over time as sand is moved by wind and water.
- 4:55Speaker 1: When a storm strikes, Barrier islands absorb the initial impact
- 5:00Speaker 1: before powerful hazards reach populated mainland areas. They help by
- 5:06Speaker 1: absorbing wave energy, breaking down massive ocean waves before they
- 5:11Speaker 1: hit the mainland, slowing storm surge, acting as a physical
- 5:16Speaker 1: wall to reduce inland flooding, protecting sensitive wetlands, shielding estuaries,
- 5:24Speaker 1: salt marshes, and inland communities from direct ocean exposure, reducing
- 5:31Speaker 1: inland erosion. Healthy sand dunes and native vegetation bind the sand,
- 5:36Speaker 1: stabilizing the shoreline against erosion, sheltering marine ecosystems. The calm
- 5:43Speaker 1: waters behind the islands create protected lagoons and salt marshes
- 5:47Speaker 1: that serve as vital habitats for sea turtle nesting, migratory birds,
- 5:52Speaker 1: and fish nurseries. Experts say healthy dunes and natural vegetation
- 5:58Speaker 1: on barrier islands also help stabilize and reduce erosion during storms.
- 6:04Speaker 1: While barrier islands are naturally dynamic, they face increasing pressure today.
- 6:09Speaker 1: Sea level rise, stronger hurricane seasons, and coastal development can
- 6:15Speaker 1: disrupt an island's ability to naturally rebuild itself. Protecting native vegetation,
- 6:21Speaker 1: restoring sand dunes, and limiting artificial disruption are key to
- 6:26Speaker 1: ensuring these natural shields continue guarding our coastlines for generations
- 6:32Speaker 1: to come. We're going to go now to BBC Wildlife.
- 6:37Speaker 1: The headline is scientists looked beneath one of the oldest
- 6:43Speaker 1: trees on Earth. What they found is astounding. The towering
- 6:49Speaker 1: conifers of Chile's southern rainforests knew far more than shape
- 6:54Speaker 1: the skyline. Research in biodiversity and conservation revealed that these
- 7:00Speaker 1: ancient trees are hubs of hidden biodiversity, highlighting their crucial
- 7:05Speaker 1: role in the forest ecosystem. The temperate rainforests of the
- 7:09Speaker 1: Chilean coast range are home to many unique and important species,
- 7:13Speaker 1: including an endangered conifer known as allerse al e ercee.
- 7:20Speaker 1: These slow growing trees can grow as tall as the
- 7:23Speaker 1: Arc de Triomphe and as wide as a shipping container.
- 7:26Speaker 1: Renowned for their longevity, some individuals have lived for more
- 7:30Speaker 1: than three thousand, six hundred years, making allerse the second
- 7:34Speaker 1: longest lived tree species on Earth after the bristle Combe pine.
- 7:40Speaker 1: Alertse forests are found along the coasts of Chile and
- 7:44Speaker 1: in the foothills of the Andes, but their range has
- 7:47Speaker 1: halved as trees were felled for wood or cleared for pasture. Now,
- 7:52Speaker 1: with added pressure from climate change and other threats, researchers
- 7:55Speaker 1: worry about the repercussions. Like many trees, alurs has an
- 7:59Speaker 1: intimate relationship with the fungi and the surrounding soil. These
- 8:04Speaker 1: my core micrahyzal fungi funnel water and nutrients into the
- 8:11Speaker 1: tree roots and help the plants to fight stressors such
- 8:15Speaker 1: as drought and pathogens. In exchange, the trees feed their
- 8:18Speaker 1: fungal partners with sugars, fueling the growth of underground networks
- 8:22Speaker 1: that help shut shunt carbon into the soil to find
- 8:28Speaker 1: out more about this relationship. Researchers collected soil samples from
- 8:32Speaker 1: under thirty one allers trees. They also measure the size
- 8:36Speaker 1: and biomass of each tree and found that larger, older
- 8:39Speaker 1: trees interacted with a greater diversity of fungi than smaller,
- 8:42Speaker 1: younger ones. The soil underneath the oldest largest tree, a
- 8:46Speaker 1: twenty four hundred year old individual, contained more than three
- 8:51Speaker 1: hundred species of fungus that were unique to this tree.
- 8:55Speaker 1: All that diversity means resilience, says Adriana Corialis, Field science
- 9:02Speaker 1: lead at the Society for Protection of Underground Networks. In addition,
- 9:06Speaker 1: the fungal richness under a bueyo this individual tree was
- 9:12Speaker 1: more than two times greater than any other soil sample.
- 9:16Speaker 1: The study highlights the importance of protecting these older, bigger trees. Quote,
- 9:22Speaker 1: not all trees are the same, and if you remove
- 9:24Speaker 1: a millennial tree, the impact on all the other species
- 9:27Speaker 1: is going to be bigger than if you remove a
- 9:29Speaker 1: smaller one, says Camille Triong from the University of Melbourne.
- 9:34Speaker 1: Taking out one tree, in other words, can destroy an
- 9:37Speaker 1: entire underground community of forest helpers that took thousands of
- 9:41Speaker 1: years to assemble. Now we have an article from the
- 9:46Speaker 1: Los Angeles Times, a five alarm fire Western resort reservoirs
- 9:53Speaker 1: that supply California fall to record low levels. This is
- 9:58Speaker 1: from July twenty first. The Colorado Rivers largest reservoirs, Lake
- 10:04Speaker 1: Mead and Lake Powell, have declined to their lowest combined
- 10:07Speaker 1: levels on record. Researchers say the new low underscores the
- 10:12Speaker 1: urgent need to cut water use in the seven states
- 10:15Speaker 1: that depend on the river. Lake Mead and Lake Powell,
- 10:19Speaker 1: the country's two largest reservoirs, have fallen to the lowest
- 10:22Speaker 1: combined levels on record, which is a grim marker in
- 10:25Speaker 1: the deepening water crisis across seven states that depend on
- 10:29Speaker 1: the Colorado River. The two reservoirs are now lower than
- 10:32Speaker 1: the previous record in twenty twenty three. Quote. It's a
- 10:36Speaker 1: hell of a milestone, said Jack Schmidt, director of Utah
- 10:39Speaker 1: State University's Center for Colorado River Studies. Really a teaching
- 10:44Speaker 1: moment to all of us of the severity of the crisis.
- 10:49Speaker 1: US Interior Secretary Doug Bergham met with governors of the
- 10:53Speaker 1: seven states virtually on Tuesday and said his agency will
- 10:57Speaker 1: release a plan to deal with waters shape shortages next week.
- 11:02Speaker 1: Lake Mead near Lake Las Vegas, the country's largest reservoir,
- 11:06Speaker 1: is twenty seven percent full. Lake Powell, on the Utah
- 11:10Speaker 1: Arizona border, the second largest, is at just twenty three
- 11:15Speaker 1: percent of capacity. If it drops thirty three feet more,
- 11:19Speaker 1: water won't reach its intakes to generate hydroelectric power. Schmidt
- 11:26Speaker 1: and five other researchers wrote in a white paper that
- 11:29Speaker 1: the new low underscores the urgency of using less water.
- 11:33Speaker 1: They predicted the reservoirs will keep setting records every day
- 11:36Speaker 1: until snows come and bring the next seasonal pulse of runoff.
- 11:41Speaker 1: It's unclear whether the strong Alninio conditions this year might
- 11:45Speaker 1: provide some relief. The latest three month forecast by the
- 11:48Speaker 1: National Weather Service predicts above average rainfall along the river
- 11:53Speaker 1: and in much of the Southwest through October. The Colorado
- 11:57Speaker 1: River provides water for about thirty five million peace and
- 12:01Speaker 1: five million acres of farmland from the Rocky Mountains to
- 12:04Speaker 1: northern Mexico. The water was originally divided among the states
- 12:08Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty two under an agreement that over promised
- 12:12Speaker 1: what the river could provide. For decades, so much water
- 12:17Speaker 1: has been taken that the river seldom meets the sea
- 12:20Speaker 1: and Mexico, and its delta, once filled with lush wetlands
- 12:25Speaker 1: and forests, has shriveled to stretches of dry riverbed. In
- 12:30Speaker 1: the last twenty seven years, the river has shrunk dramatically.
- 12:34Speaker 1: Research has shown that global warming is intensifying the extremely
- 12:38Speaker 1: dry conditions. Since twenty twenty, the flow of the Colorado
- 12:43Speaker 1: has averaged thirty two percent less than during the last century.
- 12:47Speaker 1: This year, the upper portion of the river's watershed in
- 12:50Speaker 1: the Rocky Mountains had the least snow on record. If
- 12:55Speaker 1: you need any more evidence that we have a five
- 12:57Speaker 1: alarm fire here, it is, Smidt said, quote, the changes
- 13:02Speaker 1: are going to be necessary to live in this world
- 13:05Speaker 1: of reduced runoff. I'm sorry, the changes that are going
- 13:09Speaker 1: to be necessary to live in this world of reduced
- 13:11Speaker 1: runoff are going to be incredibly significant. Schmidt said, we
- 13:15Speaker 1: need to get seven states to agree together or accept
- 13:19Speaker 1: a mandate from the federal government that major reductions have
- 13:22Speaker 1: to be implemented right now. After the meeting Tuesday, Bergham
- 13:28Speaker 1: said he was grateful to the governors for their leadership
- 13:30Speaker 1: and commitment to finding solutions to address drought. Conditions in
- 13:34Speaker 1: the Colorado River basin. The Trump administration is focused on
- 13:38Speaker 1: establishing a new operating framework and continues to work with
- 13:43Speaker 1: the states and thirty tribes to get closer to consensus.
- 13:46Speaker 1: He said. Negotiators for the seven states have been at
- 13:50Speaker 1: an impass and talks on how to cut water use,
- 13:54Speaker 1: with the disagreements pitting three downstream states California, Arizona, and
- 13:59Speaker 1: EVAs against the upstream states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and
- 14:05Speaker 1: New Mexico. Representatives of California, Arizona, Nevada have offered to
- 14:10Speaker 1: make substantial cuts, using about one point six million acre
- 14:14Speaker 1: feet less over the next two years, but state officials
- 14:19Speaker 1: have said the Trump administrations leaning toward mandatory cutbacks of
- 14:23Speaker 1: up to twice that much per year for those three states,
- 14:27Speaker 1: as much as forty percent of their combined allotments. That's
- 14:30Speaker 1: nearly as much as all the water that flowed from
- 14:33Speaker 1: nineteen million people's taps across southern California last year. Although
- 14:38Speaker 1: it's important to remember that most Colorado River water goes
- 14:41Speaker 1: to agriculture hey lettuce, broccoli, and other crops, Federal officials
- 14:48Speaker 1: seem to be trying to put some structure in place
- 14:50Speaker 1: that pushes the states to try again, maybe with a
- 14:53Speaker 1: slightly different playing field, to see if the states can
- 14:56Speaker 1: come to some sort of agreement, said Jennifer Pitt, direct
- 15:00Speaker 1: of the National Audubon Society's Colorado River Program. Reaching a
- 15:05Speaker 1: consensus would be the best outcome for all users along
- 15:07Speaker 1: the Colorado River, Pitt said, because a court battle holds
- 15:12Speaker 1: tremendous uncertainty. Over the last five years, cities across southern
- 15:16Speaker 1: California have received nearly one fourth of their water from
- 15:20Speaker 1: the Colorado River. They've tried to rely on it less
- 15:24Speaker 1: with some success. Those efforts, along with ample water from
- 15:28Speaker 1: northern California, allowed the board of the Metropolitan Water District
- 15:31Speaker 1: of Southern California last week to accept sixty five million
- 15:35Speaker 1: dollars from the US Bureau of Reclamation in return for
- 15:39Speaker 1: leaving as much as two hundred thousand acre feet of
- 15:42Speaker 1: water in Lake Mead. That water, equivalent to the annual
- 15:47Speaker 1: use of about six hundred thousand households, is expected to
- 15:51Speaker 1: add about three feet to leak Lake Mead's level, enough
- 15:55Speaker 1: to temporarily stave off critically low levels for a few months.
- 16:00Speaker 1: Lake Mead was lower once before, in twenty twenty two,
- 16:04Speaker 1: but Lake Powell was higher than so the two combined
- 16:07Speaker 1: held more water. In the last three years, California, Arizona,
- 16:11Speaker 1: and Nevada have turned to voluntary water cutbacks and federal
- 16:16Speaker 1: payments to farmers who agree to leave fields dry part
- 16:19Speaker 1: of the year. The Bureau of Reclamation, which manages dams
- 16:23Speaker 1: along the river, now plans to provide an additional one
- 16:26Speaker 1: hundred million dollars for water conservation programs in the four
- 16:30Speaker 1: upstream states, paying farmers and ranchers who agree to use less.
- 16:35Speaker 1: The saved water will remain in reservoirs, helping to slow
- 16:39Speaker 1: their unrelenting decline. Now we have an article which actually
- 16:47Speaker 1: a column from the Washington Post. Here's how your peanut
- 16:51Speaker 1: butter jar and nearly everything else can be recycled. This
- 16:55Speaker 1: is day to July twenty first written by Michael Corn.
- 17:00Speaker 1: Judging from my inbox climate coach. Readers have a burning question.
- 17:04Speaker 1: Do I need to clean my peanut butter jar before
- 17:06Speaker 1: I recycle it? You may laugh, but the peanut butter
- 17:10Speaker 1: jar sticky MESSI and four of the recycling inclined guilt
- 17:14Speaker 1: inducing represents what's vexed and broken about our recycling system.
- 17:20Speaker 1: Properly designed, our recycling system could work more like the
- 17:23Speaker 1: one in Germany, where roughly two thirds of municipal waste
- 17:28Speaker 1: and almost ninety percent of plastic the number one pet bottles,
- 17:34Speaker 1: like those carrying most peanut butter, is recycled. Instead, the
- 17:40Speaker 1: patchwork of thousands of local programs in the United States
- 17:43Speaker 1: ends up recycling about twenty four percent of municipal waste,
- 17:48Speaker 1: about a third if composting is included, according to the
- 17:53Speaker 1: most recent federal estimates from twenty eighteen. Meanwhile, Americans burn
- 17:58Speaker 1: or barry nearly one one hundred eighty million tons of
- 18:01Speaker 1: trash each year. None of this discourages Miriam Holsinger, co
- 18:08Speaker 1: president and chief operating officer of Eureka Recycling, a nonprofit
- 18:13Speaker 1: recycler in Minneapolis. Each year, Wholesinger's Materials Recovery Facility, or MRF,
- 18:21Speaker 1: receives roughly one hundred thousand tons of stuff tossed by
- 18:25Speaker 1: Minneapolis St. Paul and surrounding communities, including car parts, bowling balls, diapers,
- 18:31Speaker 1: and other items. Yet the vast majority ends up his
- 18:35Speaker 1: new products thanks to a gauntlet of machinery, including massive
- 18:39Speaker 1: ballistic separators and optical sensors that sort more than one
- 18:44Speaker 1: thousand items per minute. Reclaimers the next stop where bales
- 18:49Speaker 1: are washed, shredded, and processed, pay for these raw materials. Quote.
- 18:56Speaker 1: I'd love it if people put more things into the
- 18:58Speaker 1: recycling bin. Half of recycling is going into the trash.
- 19:05Speaker 1: Eureka's success shows how advances in single stream technology are
- 19:10Speaker 1: making it remarkably efficient to separate a jumbled pile of
- 19:15Speaker 1: mixed recyclables into clean streams of paper, metal, glass, and
- 19:20Speaker 1: even plastic. We have the ability, if not yet the
- 19:24Speaker 1: political will, to recycle far more than we do. To
- 19:28Speaker 1: understand what our recycling system could be. I retraced a
- 19:32Speaker 1: peanut butter jar's journey through a facility like Eureka's first
- 19:38Speaker 1: The answer you came for a quick scrape is all
- 19:42Speaker 1: you need to recycle your peanut butter jar. Just don't
- 19:45Speaker 1: leave enough to weigh it down. In fact, scrubbing in
- 19:48Speaker 1: hot water at home may negate the energy savings of
- 19:52Speaker 1: recycling them. Tossing the jar into an already full dishwasher
- 19:57Speaker 1: is fine if you want use a rubber spatula. Holzinger
- 20:02Speaker 1: told me, honestly, I give mind to my dog and
- 20:05Speaker 1: let him worry about it until I put it in
- 20:07Speaker 1: the recycling bin. If you want to see human ingenuity
- 20:11Speaker 1: at its best and thrill your children, visit a recycling plant.
- 20:16Speaker 1: The technology combines roaring, multi story machinery with the latest
- 20:20Speaker 1: in computer vision and artificial intelligence. Here are the steps
- 20:25Speaker 1: that turn trash into a new product. Intake. The first
- 20:30Speaker 1: step is intake. Here on the tipping floor, trucks drop
- 20:36Speaker 1: off mixed recyclables, paper, cardboard, plastic, metal, and more. A
- 20:42Speaker 1: front end loader then push his material onto a rotating
- 20:45Speaker 1: drum outfitted with blades or lugs to level out material
- 20:50Speaker 1: and send it onto a conveyor belt at a steady rate.
- 20:55Speaker 1: People must then pull equipment wrecking junk off the conveyor belt.
- 21:01Speaker 1: Inbound contamination rates average about seventeen percent twenty according to
- 21:06Speaker 1: the Recycling Partnership. Gloved workers with quick reflexes remove plastic bags, clothing, diapers, packaging,
- 21:16Speaker 1: foam scrap, metal, garden hoses, food scraps, and hazardous materials
- 21:22Speaker 1: like propane tanks and batteries which can start fires or
- 21:27Speaker 1: break the line. Bags are the worst offenders. Workers at
- 21:32Speaker 1: Eureka spend hours each day clearing out bags that wrap
- 21:35Speaker 1: around the machinery. Once this step is done, a stream
- 21:39Speaker 1: of recyclables is ready for automated sorting. The next step
- 21:44Speaker 1: is known as two D three D separation, separating flat
- 21:48Speaker 1: recyclables paper corrugated boxes from three dimensional items such as bottles, jugs,
- 21:55Speaker 1: and cans. Spinning star shaped discs set on an incline
- 22:00Speaker 1: and make the first cut. Because cardboard and paper tend
- 22:03Speaker 1: to be large, flat, and light, they surf across the
- 22:06Speaker 1: tops of the spinning disks toward a different conveyor belt. Meanwhile,
- 22:11Speaker 1: three D objects bounce around through the rotating shafts. A
- 22:15Speaker 1: second machine, called a ballistic separator, sorts by trajectory. Long
- 22:20Speaker 1: perforated paddles set side by side on an incline, move
- 22:24Speaker 1: like parallel shuddering staircases. As each one orbits in small
- 22:28Speaker 1: circles on a crank shaft slightly out of step of
- 22:31Speaker 1: his neighbors, it sends flat materials uphill, while ridgid containers
- 22:36Speaker 1: bounce back down. Perforations in the paddles let anything smaller
- 22:40Speaker 1: than a couple of inches mostly broken glass, fall through
- 22:44Speaker 1: to a third stream below. Every plastic polymer absorbs and
- 22:49Speaker 1: reflects light differently, a spectral signature as distinct as a fingerprint.
- 22:55Speaker 1: Sensors mounted over the belt read this fingerprint with near
- 22:59Speaker 1: infrared or laser light, while color cameras tracked each object's
- 23:04Speaker 1: position and appearance. Compressed air nozzles at the end of
- 23:09Speaker 1: the belt more than one hundred across a single belt,
- 23:12Speaker 1: fire precisely timed puffs that knock each targeted object toward
- 23:18Speaker 1: its proper stream as it flies off the edge. Each
- 23:22Speaker 1: of Eureka's optical sorders can make more than a thousand
- 23:25Speaker 1: sorts per minute. Critically, none of this requires spotless containers.
- 23:31Speaker 1: A smeared peanut butter jar still ends up on the
- 23:34Speaker 1: correct belt thanks to the optical sensors that identify the
- 23:37Speaker 1: plastic itself. A jar weighed down by leftover peanut butter chunks, however,
- 23:43Speaker 1: may resist the puff of air and fall into the
- 23:46Speaker 1: wrong stream. A magnet pulls heavier ferros metals, such as
- 23:51Speaker 1: iron and steel into its own recycling stream. Non ferrous
- 23:56Speaker 1: metals that can't be picked up by a magnet, like aluminum,
- 23:59Speaker 1: get a push in instead. Powerful spinning magnets induce an
- 24:03Speaker 1: electric current and temporarily turn scrap metal like cans and
- 24:07Speaker 1: foil into self repelling magnets. These fly off the belt
- 24:11Speaker 1: while everything else drops away. Humans are the last defense
- 24:16Speaker 1: against contamination. Workers stationed along the final conveyor belts pull
- 24:21Speaker 1: out whatever the machines missed. The sorted materials are then
- 24:25Speaker 1: crushed into dense bales of paper, cardboard, metal, and plastic.
- 24:29Speaker 1: These are shipped to reclaimers when the material leaves the
- 24:34Speaker 1: sorting facility. Trash contamination must not exceed one or two percent.
- 24:39Speaker 1: If contamination exceeds these low levels, buyers can reject entire bales,
- 24:44Speaker 1: often sending them to a landfill. If accepted, plastic bales
- 24:48Speaker 1: are then broken up, grounded to flakes, and bathe in
- 24:51Speaker 1: a cleaning solution. Density does the final sort. Pet bottles, flakes, sink,
- 25:00Speaker 1: flakes from caps and labels float and are skimmed off
- 25:03Speaker 1: and recycled or discarded. Your peanut butter jar typically pet
- 25:09Speaker 1: plastic marked with the number one inside the arrows inside
- 25:14Speaker 1: the chasing arrows symbol for recycling can head off to
- 25:19Speaker 1: its new life as another food container, polyestril, clothing, or
- 25:23Speaker 1: carpet fiber. In practice, however, recycling rates in the US
- 25:27Speaker 1: have stalled, despite the EPA's goal of recycling fifty percent
- 25:32Speaker 1: of the nation's waist by twenty thirty. The national recycling
- 25:36Speaker 1: and composting rate decline from thirty five percent in twenty
- 25:40Speaker 1: fifteen to thirty two eighteen. The EPA struggles to even
- 25:45Speaker 1: keep track of this target. Eighty five percent of states
- 25:48Speaker 1: and territories don't report how much their recycling programs collect plastics.
- 25:53Speaker 1: Recycling historically has served as a cover for generating evermore waste,
- 25:58Speaker 1: according to several investigators of the industry. For recycling to
- 26:02Speaker 1: work in the United States, the Recycling Partnership found all
- 26:06Speaker 1: components of the waste system need to work together. Around
- 26:10Speaker 1: seventy three percent of households have access to curb sye collection.
- 26:15Speaker 1: Even then, only forty three percent of households actually recycle,
- 26:18Speaker 1: in part because of confusion about local rules and doubts
- 26:22Speaker 1: about what actually gets recycled. Facilities must be able to
- 26:26Speaker 1: process material efficiently, which means simplifying and standardizing packaging, and
- 26:31Speaker 1: there must be genuine markets for recycle content costs that
- 26:35Speaker 1: fall largely on local governments. Today, progress is visible. California
- 26:41Speaker 1: is preparing to strip many plastics of the chasing arrows
- 26:45Speaker 1: symbol if they don't meet certain thresholds for collection and recovery.
- 26:50Speaker 1: Seven states have passed laws that will shift the cost
- 26:53Speaker 1: of recycling onto packaging makers rather than the public. Private
- 26:59Speaker 1: companies like Ridwell are effectively creating a parallel recycling system
- 27:04Speaker 1: in the US for homeowners willing to pay to divert packaging.
- 27:08Speaker 1: Most cities won't accept. To see what might be possible,
- 27:13Speaker 1: I talked to Ambarish Mitra, co founder of gray Parrot,
- 27:17Speaker 1: an AI powered waste data and intelligence company. Its camera
- 27:22Speaker 1: and sensor systems scan more than three billion waste objects
- 27:25Speaker 1: per day across more than twenty countries, and it will
- 27:28Speaker 1: soon be operating at New York's Mega MRF Circular Services
- 27:34Speaker 1: Sunset Park facility. We know it all, Mitra said, nothing
- 27:39Speaker 1: will get missed from a small candy wrapper to a
- 27:42Speaker 1: two hundred inch TV. Advances in computer vision and cheaper
- 27:46Speaker 1: computing costs let gray Parrot identify twelve hundred objects a
- 27:50Speaker 1: second cataloging material, type, financial value, brand, and the greenhouse
- 27:56Speaker 1: gas is emitted to produce them, even differentiating between crushed
- 28:00Speaker 1: label free bottles from Pepsi in Coca Cola. Well, that's
- 28:06Speaker 1: all for today's Diary of Science and Nature. Your reader
- 28:08Speaker 1: was Kelly Taylor Stay tuned now for further programming on
- 28:12Speaker 1: RADIOI