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Plastic Pollution Clean Up Through Absorption · How To Protect The Ocean

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  Plastic pollution in the ocean is a huge, huge problem. But
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  microplastics has become an even bigger problem because of
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  the sheer size and the size of the surface area of the toxins that
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  are on these microplastics. And they get into everything.
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  There have been scientific reports that said, hey, you know what? Microplastics are even in
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  air molecules, in sea salt. It's just everywhere. They're getting into
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  our lungs. They're getting into our system. It's affecting our health overall. There
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  is a global plastic treaty that has just wrapped up its fourth meeting
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  to see if we could actually get agreement internationally to ban
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  certain types of plastics and have a plan internationally to
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  get rid of these plastics that are not only polluting our ocean but polluting
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  our bodies. And today we're going to be talking about ways to actually extract
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  microplastics from the ocean and will they actually work
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  that's the one question that we always have we had another company
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  a while ago the ocean cleanup that said hey we can actually clean up all the
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  ocean plastics in the pacific gyre that still hasn't happened
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  yet and they're still working on and they've basically just come up with a with
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  a method of fishing which isn't really helping and
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  won't really help in the long term but people are putting loads
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  and loads of money because this is a problem that we have to solve whether it's
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  the right thing to do or the right way of doing it or not people are trying to figure
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  out ways to solve it there's a new article in IFL science that
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  I want to cover today which looks at how to bind with
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  microplastics certain I guess certain I guess chemicals I
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  guess you call or materials like I believe it's
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  Chitin as well as the cotton materials in
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  cotton to be able to absorb and bind So it's gonna be an interesting topic to
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  talk about on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast Let's start
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  the show Hey
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  everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm
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  your host Andrew Lo and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how
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  you can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for a better ocean by
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  taking action. And today we're going to be talking about microplastics, something
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  that is really interesting. I've been talking about for a long time in
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  terms of ocean plastic pollution and microplastics and how it affects the
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  environment, our environment. our bodies, it is
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  crazy. And if you wanna find out more information on the ocean and plastic, you
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  can go to our website, speakupforblue.com, find out
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  all the information you need, episodes that we've done in the past, whether it's video, whether
• 2:20
  it's audio, there's always something for you to listen to or watch and
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  also read. There's all material on that podcast, including
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  other podcasts. It's all on the website, speakupforblue.com. And
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  if you wanna get information to your inbox, and Monday to
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  Friday at 8 a.m. Eastern, you can get articles that
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  are what's going on in the ocean you can find out our latest episodes you
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  can find out the latest job advertisements all you have to do is go to
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  speak up for blue.com forward slash newsletter to find
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  out how you can sign up for free and I don't share your emails with anybody for
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  free and get access to to that, to your inbox, to
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  all that information on the ocean. The reason why I'm doing this is really to
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  bring you information, like act as a resource to bring you information on
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  ocean conservation, not just ocean education, you know, talking about wildlife
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  and all that. There's a lot of people who do that. The goal for me is really to
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  bring conservation to you. and the little things that people are
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  doing, especially from a solution standpoint, things like projects, things that
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  people are doing, they're trying to undertake. Some things may work out, some
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  things may not work out, but it's always good to talk about them and
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  to build on them, because that's science, right? We build on things, we
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  criticize things, we build on things, and hopefully we can get to
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  something that's really great. And in this case, you know, we're talking about
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  a topic that I don't know a lot in terms of like engineering our
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  way and innovating our way to get to ocean solutions. I
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  am not an engineer, I am not a chemist, but today we're going to be talking about materials
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  that can help bind microplastics to help them get absorbed out
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  of the ocean and into a proper way of disposing
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  of them, if there really is a proper way of disposing of them. There's
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  a lot of problems with plastics. The first is the amount of plastics that
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  we use in our daily life. With all these solutions that
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  I'm proposing, and people who are professionals in the plastic conservation
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  and reduction, they're gonna say the first thing we gotta do is refuse to
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  use single-use plastics. Refuse to use plastics at all
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  times. And that includes in our clothes, that includes in our food
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  or containers, that includes in our drinking bottles. It's
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  just a number of things. It includes pretty much And
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  just to let you know, plastics is a petroleum product. It is a product
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  that is made from fossil fuels, from petroleum,
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  and is made into materials that we use. A lot of
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  that is not disposed of properly, and the chemicals could leach
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  out and cause problems to our own bodies, problems to animal bodies.
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  and problems to the environment in general. So nasty chemicals made
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  up from those, that make up those products, and so we need to
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  stop using them in the first place. That's the first way to
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  really put a dent in the amount of microplastics and plastics
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  that get into the ocean. The second thing is we have to look
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  at how to actually extract microplastics from
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  the ocean and the first thing to do is get it where it starts to enter and
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  that is into the river systems. Now there are places like four oceans
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  and other places that go around and clean up plastics whether
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  they're large plastics or microplastics they do their best to get as
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  much as possible and they make materials from that and
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  they do their best to remake those materials or reuse those materials So
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  when you can't refuse, you reuse as much as possible and you
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  remake them into something that's inspiring to help them do their
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  business. So 4Ocean, I did an interview with Alex Schultz, you can check it
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  out up here and you can find out how that company
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  works and what they're doing. Again, we still have to stop using microplastics and
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  plastics in general. But companies like 4Ocean really
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  do a great job in helping us get their stuff out. And they
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  work along riversides and river mouths to try and make
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  sure that the entrance into the ocean before it gets into this vast, vast
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  ocean that covers over 70% of the planet, they work
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  at getting those plastics out before they can break down into microplastics. and
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  that's essentially what happens right when it goes into the ocean it hits the
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  sun it hits the salt water the plastic breaks down with the wave action and
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  just getting pushed all over the place sometimes sinking down it
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  breaks down into smaller pieces of plastics called microplastics it
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  has a larger surface area because it's so small and the chemicals leach
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  out into the ocean or into the animal that is ingested by and
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  it gets into their system and it can eventually kill them if it
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  builds up enough. We wanna stay away from that as much as possible. But
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  how do we actually extract it out when it gets into such a big area? It's
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  very difficult to do. But there is a method that this
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  article in IFLScience is covering, and
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  I'm gonna link to it in the show notes and in the description below, but
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  it's really cool. It talks about using the absorption
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  power of cotton and the ability to
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  bind, like chitin, from squid to say, hey, you
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  know what, we can actually absorb these materials. It's a really, really
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  interesting way of looking at it. It's a solution that's eco-friendly, and
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  it borrows from the secrets of soaking up skills from cotton and, of
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  course, squid, which is a really a very different way of
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  looking at it. And so because microplastics are such a difficult problem, it
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  looks like the sponge-like foam that borrows the soaking
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  skills of cotton and squid may be a promising candidate, as
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  it was found to remove 98 to 99.9% of
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  microplastics from water samples that were studied. Now, of course, these are just
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  water samples. This is not the entire ocean. So on a scale that big,
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  we just don't know how to do that. But maybe we can figure out
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  ways, like I said, getting into the mouths of rivers or even sooner
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  than that to get microplastics before they get into the ocean. So what's
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  more, the foam is sustainable and environmentally adaptable without
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  carrying the Newstown Zone destroying risk of ocean hovering
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  approaches. This is referring to the Ocean Cleanup Project. And
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  when you first looked at the first model of the Ocean Cleanup, project was
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  essentially this automatic boat that had
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  these large boom arms that would go out and they would just
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  try to corral everything into the middle into sort of this
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  like a net like material. They would take everything at the surface or
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  really the top I believe it was three meters at the time or maybe
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  three feet I think I believe it was three meters at the time so I had to net that that
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  below. When they first rolled it out, they said, hey, it's not going to harm
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  animals at all because it moves so slowly that animals can get out.
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  There's these animals, invertebrates called newstins, and they can't get
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  out of the way. And so one of the major criticisms when they started showing
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  pictures from this boom arm mechanism working,
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  Dr. Rebecca Helm was one of the scientists that looked at
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  the pictures and started identifying animals that were in these
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  boom arms and saying, hey, you know what? You are actually hurting animals. We can
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  see it right there. these animals are important to the environment and
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  into the ocean environment and removing them without having someone there to
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  try and get them out is just not a feasible way of doing things when
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  you really look at it. So you are harming animals which is said it didn't it
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  did an environmental assessment quote-unquote. And
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  it said it didn't do any harm to animals, but obviously it did. So that was
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  referring to that. Also while targeting microplastics already
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  in the environment, it could use to treat water at factories
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  before it gets released. So that's even more interesting. So
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  any kind of plastics that are in the water that before it
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  goes out into the river systems can also work. So working to both
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  reduce the microplastics already in nature and those being leaked into
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  it. So this has a lot of upside here so far. One of the authors said,
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  microplastics entering terrestrial and aquatic habitats are anticipated
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  to continuously increase for thousands of years due to
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  the alarming volumes of plastic waste in the environment, around 4.5 billion
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  metric tons, and the difficulty of degrading under
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  natural conditions. So that's one of the quotes. So it
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  goes on to say, the planet is under great threat from microplastics and
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  aquatic ecosystems are the first to suffer. As they provide convenient places
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  for microplastics, which can combine with other contaminants and
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  it be ingested by multiple levels of organisms. The development of
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  a widely adaptive approaches for microplastic remediation in
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  aqueous environments is urgently demanded. Now there is a really
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  interesting graphic on here, so I highly recommend that you go to the thing.
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  I'll pop it up in the video here in terms of how it actually binds
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  using cotton and the chitin from squid. These
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  materials are easily replicable, which is great. So
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  essentially what happens is it makes this sort of this homogenized material
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  you know without crossing it and then it goes into then again i'm not
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  a chemist but essentially it goes into this this fibrous foam and
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  then it it binds to the microplastic and those kind of stay in
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  those interactions which is really great now it can be reused which
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  is also nice to know i don't know what this would look like like it doesn't give
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  a good concept of what it would look like when it's being deployed into
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  water, like what this material would look like, or if it's just chemicals and
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  then all of a sudden it comes in and it binds, I have no idea what it's supposed to
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  look like. This is fairly new, and so I think it's something
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  that we'd have to look into, but I don't know what it actually looks like.
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  But to address the demand, they create a sponge-like substance called
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  CT cell biomass, a foam that
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  combines two substances found in nature. Cellulose from cotton and
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  chitin from squid are famously squishy, but inside
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  their soft tissues is a small pen-shaped skeleton made of
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  chitin. So the two substances stuck together nicely when
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  the team broke out their original hydrogen bonds and induced
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  intermolecular interactions of cellulose and chitin, creating
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  a stable framework with loads of activated hydrogen bonding sites
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  for microplastics absorption. So that's how it gets, essentially they
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  bind together, you strip the hydrogen bonds from them, they bind together and
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  then they form these other hydrogen bonds that that bind to the microplastics. So
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  by running absorption tests as well as computational studies, they
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  observed that it could capture microplastics in several ways,
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  physical interception, electrostatic attraction, as well
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  as multiple intermolecular interactions. Essentially, this
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  thing's going to be sticky, is really what it sounds like, and there's multiple ways
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  for it to connect, which I think is really interesting. The CT to foam has
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  great potential to be used in the extraction of microplastic from
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  complex water bodies. Thus, our design principles would
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  facilitate the future development of practical and sustainable strategies based
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  on biomass foams to address microplastic pollution. I want to
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  temper this a little bit. this is a really interesting interesting study
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  this is something that i feel like has potential i
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  don't know all the ins and outs of this project so please don't say
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  that andrew approves of this project there's going to be a lot of testing that happens and
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  how do you do it at scale there is like when i tell you
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  there are microplastics in the ocean i can't tell you
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  enough how large of a distribution,
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  these microplastics are. They have been found. Plastics have been found at
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  the bottom of the Mariana Trench. It's the deepest part of the ocean that we've been
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  to. It is everywhere. So to be
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  able to say, hey, we can innovate our way out of this just by
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  using this method, no. This is part of, this is a tool
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  in the conservation tool belt, as I like to say. The biggest thing
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  that we need to do is remove these
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  plastics, these microplastics, by not using them. Refusing
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  to use plastics and especially when it comes to different
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  ways Like we we use plastics when it comes becomes convenient to
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  use plastics. We use them in our you know, drinking drinks we
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  you know people when we buy from coffee shops when we
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  buy a convenience stores like energy drinks and Vitamin
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  waters and Gatorades and things like that. They come in plastic bottles. These
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  are all bad for us and the environment They're not necessary. We
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  used to sell things in glass bottles, but those are too heavy for transportation. So
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  it costs a lot more This is more for the cost of
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  the company to say, hey, it's actually cheaper to ship all these. We can
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  get these out more and more. Soda bottles and things like that, plastic
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  bottles, not good for us. But when I say from an individual level, we talk a
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  lot, and a lot of people say, well, you have to stop. You have to do this. You have to do this. We
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  are in a system that's built on plastic. And so what we need
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  to do is really talk to our government representatives and
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  that might be harder these days than in some places than it was before but
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  microplastics need to be phased out that's why international agreements
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  like the global plastic treaty is such an important part of our
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  lives or will be such an important lives in the future hoping that
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  this last meeting in south korea went better
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  than the one in Ottawa and hopefully there's something that's going to be drawn up
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  shortly and be ratified by a number of governments around
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  the world so that we can see more plastic action. I'm very happy
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  to say that the Canadian government has taken action and has become
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  a leader in this field, but it's still new and there's still lots of
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  work to be done and it's being met with a lot of challenges and
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  a lot of restrictions and resistance and I think we need
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  to fight a little bit more. And that comes from the people, that comes from the people Motivating the
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  government to say hey, we need something to be done about this because this is not
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  good for us I know it makes money for a lot of the companies, but it's not good for
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  us And we need to really look out for our own health. So that's what I'm
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  gonna talk about for today I thought this article was interesting. I haven't covered
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  in a while something on IFL science So I highly
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  recommend that you check out the site. I'm not being sponsored by them by any means
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  I'm just I just like the site. I like I like getting the the emails
• 15:06
  and the broadcast channels on Facebook and Instagram and be able to get that
• 15:09
  information to you. So I'll probably be covering more of
• 15:13
  their articles. But I want to thank the Eiffel Science. I want to thank the writer, Rachel
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  Funnell. And also I want to thank you for listening to this episode. I'd
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  love to hear what you thought of this episode and this topic of
• 15:25
  mycoplastics. Let me know. Just hit me up on Instagram at howtoprotecttheocean.
• 15:29
  And of course, if you want to Join us more and get more of
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  are there all the time. So feel free to comment where you can hit
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  me up on on Instagram and at how to protect the ocean. And
• 15:54
  again, I want to thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean
• 15:57
  podcast. I am your host Angelo and have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and