Category: Environment

I saw rock band R.E.M. in concert seventeen years ago, just after the Exxon Valdez ran aground spilling its oily guts with devastating effect on Alaska’s Prince William Sound. The two events were not related in any way, but the band’s singer, Michael Stipe, implored fans everywhere to boycott Exxon and its European equivalent Esso because the company, he said had failed the environment on so many counts.

Seventeen years later and compelling new evidence is emerging that shows remnants of the worst oil spill in U.S. history extend farther into tidal waters than previously thought. The findings suggest that the oil is causing unanticipated long-term harm to wildlife. The finding appears in the online edition of Environmental Science & Technology, according to chemist Jeffrey Short and colleagues at the National Marine Fisheries Service in Juneau, Alaska.

“This study shows that it is very plausible that exposure to Exxon Valdez oil is having a material impact on many shore-dwelling animals and is contributing to their slow recovery in some parts of Prince William Sound,” Short says. “Sea otters, for instance, have yet to re-inhabit Herring Bay, the most oiled bay we studied, and the population of otters elsewhere around northern Knight Island continues to decline. Unfortunately, because much of this oil is buried in beach sediments and not exposed to weathering and other elements that might degrade it, it could remain hazardous to wildlife for decades.”

In their study, Short and his colleagues found significant amounts of Exxon Valdez oil buried in sand and silt that only becomes dry during the lowest tides. This biologically diverse zone is a prime feeding ground for sea otters, ducks and other wildlife.

You can read the full story on the American Chemical Society site or grab the research paper if you have a subscription.

I was intrigued by a rash of searches on the Sciencebase site from people looking for the phrase “Penggunaan Eceng Gondok”. A quick Google revealed that Eceng Gondok is the water hyacinth, although “gondok” itself is actually the Indonesian word for goitre.

A scan of three Indonesian-English dictionaries then revealed that “penggunaan” means employing or using, so visitors searching for “Penggunaan Eceng Gondok” were presumably looking for mentions of the uses of water hyacinth. Now, not having much experience of this aquatic plant, I did a little more searching and found that it is a common raw material in Indonesia for making sandals and woven goods, such as table mats it seems. As ever with artisanal and traditional crafts emerging from the developing regions of the world there is an “environmental” and “eco-friendly” tag associated with this material.

It’s not an excuse to use more plastic cups at the office water cooler, but Irish and German researchers have discovered that the soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida can eat polystyrene. This polymer, instantly recognisable in its expanded form is a key component of disposable cups, and in “plastic” plates and utensils.

Turning it into an eco-friendly plastic would significantly reduce the environmental impact of this ubiquitous, but difficult-to-recycle waste stream, according to a study scheduled to appear Kevin O’Connor of University College Dublin and colleagues there and in Germany publish details of their work in the April 1 issue of Environmental Science & Technology, but their research is no joke.

Worldwide, more than 14 million tonnes of polystyrene are produced annually, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. Most of this ends up in landfills. Although polystyrene represents less than 1 percent of solid waste generated in the US, at least 2.3 million tons of it is dumped in US landfills annually. Just 1 percent of polystyrene waste is recycled.

The microbe is a special strain that can convert petroleum-based plastic waste, produced by pyrolysis to convert it into styrene oil, into a reusable biodegradable form. The result of microbial intervention is a biodegradable plastic known as PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoates). O’Connor suggests that a similar process might be used to convert other types of discarded plastics into PHA.

PHA is used in medicine and for plastic kitchenware, packaging film and other disposable items. It is resistant to hot liquids, greases and oils, but unlike polystyrene, it readily breaks down in soil, water, septic systems and backyard composts.

According to a report due to appear in the journal Environmental Science & Technology on February 15, properly designed rain gardens can trap and retain almost all common pollutants from urban storm water runoff. The finding could have a huge impact on improving water quality and ensuring that potentially harmful pollutants are remediated into less harmful compounds.

Most important, however, is that rain gardens are affordable and easy to design, say the authors, Michael Dietz and John Clausen of the University of Connecticut.

The gardens mimic the natural water cycle that existed before roads and other impervious surfaces. As the water collects and soaks into the rain garden, it infiltrates the ground rather than draining directly into sewers or waterways.

More than half the rainwater falling on a typical city block leaves as runoff, according to EPA info, this runoff contains metals, oils, fertilizers and putatively harmful particulate matter. The Connecticut team reckons shallow depressions in the earth landscaped with hardy shrubs and plants such as chokeberry or winterberry surrounded by bark mulch – so-called rain gardens – offer a very simple and esthetically pleasing solution to this problem.

A PDF file explaining more about rain gardens was previously available at http://cleanwater.uwex.edu/.

The BBC reports today that millions of TV watchers, tech-heads, and gadget freaks are costing us the earth when they put their equipment into standby rather than switching it off “properly”: TV’s ‘sleep’ button stands accused.

Apparently, standby mode is costing Britain 7TWh of energy and emitting around 800,000 tonnes of carbon a year. That’s purely wasted energy. With TV standby mode using up to two-thirds the “on” power for some TVs, the Brits might actually be “wasting” more energy than American TV users, since “it is a known fact” that Americans watch more TV.