plastic pollution

Serbia is one country currently seeking to become a part of the European Union, but it faces a great challenge in preparing for stricter EU standards on the condition of the environment prior to its acceptance as a member state. According to an article on ABC News, the state of the environment in Serbia has been in dire straits since the 1990s, when war turned attention away from ecosystems in the country. As a result, reporter Darko Vorjinovic writes that the state of affairs in Serbia today is far from the expectations of EU regulations.

The extent of the damage done by plastic pollution to the world's oceans has become a hot topic in recent years as a variety of research has emerged to shed light on the scope of the problem; however, according to an article by World Crunch, very little is actually known about the problem of plastic pollution in bodies of water outwith the ocean. Contributor Katrin Blawat writes that a new study has revealed that the presence of plastic has become far more ubiquitous than previously imagined.

The New York Times ran a thought provoking article on Monday about the city of Oslo, Norway, and its seemingly unusual method of generating power which represents a growing trend in energy creation today: the practice of burning garbage for fuel.

A grim headline from the Times of India reports that India's Supreme Court has emphasized that the country is a "plastic time bomb" due to the sheer volume of plastic it disposes of on a daily basis, with Delhi alone producing 689.5 tonnes of plastic refuse per day. According to the article's writer, Dhananjay Mahapatra, the amount of plastic discarded daily in India is even more shocking. Piles of plastic dot the landscape in the form of permanent mountains which never biodegrade and build up as the country produces more and more waste. He writes:

In a bid to halt the progression of waste and pollution cluttering the planet, the European Commission has announced the publication of a Green Paper focusing on a "European strategy on plastic waste in the environment", according to a press release from the Commission earlier this month. The paper was announced at the "Zero Waste Conference" held by the European Parliament.

The Environment Ministry of China has admitted to the presence of places they refer to as "cancer villages" in a new, official report which examines the effects of rapid industrialism on the environment. According to news source France 24's recent story, the Chinese response comes as a result of increasing discontent over smog, industrial waste, and environmental toxins. The article states that the term "cancer village" is both unprecedented and somewhat ambiguous.

Despite the Hawaii-wide ban on plastic bags set to take effect in 2015, lawmakers are working on a temporary solution that they feel will save taxpayers and the environment from paying the price of plastic pollution. According to Mileka Lincoln of Hawaii News Now, lawmakers would like to introduce an intermediary bag tax in order to prevent the environment from suffering any further pollution. Lincoln writes:

House Bill 357 would require businesses to charge a dime for each single-use bag provided to customers at check-out.

Plastic pollution has plagued the world's oceans alongside overfishing and acidification, but recent research has found that the problem of pollution in the world's oceans is magnified due to the way plastics absorb other pollutants, causing them to become even more dangerous and toxic to marine life. According to an article from Inhabitat, plastics were found to absorb persistent organic pollutants (POPs) over a long period of time -- in some cases, plastics continued to absorb new chemicals after 44 months. Morgana Matus reports:

A new report from the United States Environmental Protection Agency has found that the cost of cleanup programs for pollution on the west coast is equivalent to about a half a billion dollars. Terry of the Coastal Conservation Network reports that this costs each person living on the coast approximately $13 a year, solely to clean up human debris. The article continues to state that: