July 2016 – user's Blog!

In the Loop: Nina’s travels with Tara Expeditions

I recently had the opportunity to participate in the Billerudkorsnas Challenge 2016 Event in Miami, Florida. The event brought together decision-makers, scientists, and representatives from the business community to discuss wise solutions to the problems of today and tomorrow. But the meeting’s guest of honor was the boat Tara and her crew.
The marine research ship Tara had docked in Miami for this event and was preparing to head out on a two-year voyage to study coral reefs in the Pacific. Tara Expeditions is a sea research institute that is sailing all over the world to investigate the conditions in our oceans. Recent research results from previous expeditions have been published in both Science and in Nature.

The history of Tara is fascinating. The ship was built by a Swedish explorer who wanted to follow the route of an explorer from 1895 who sailed his ship into the Artic Sea ice to prove that the currents would take him across the North Pole and release him on the other side. Tara repeated the voyage in 2006, and spent 507 days passing within 100 km of the North Pole. The boat’s crew measured the thickness of the sea ice throughout the journey and sampled the water. Because of warming ocean temperatures and the movement of the currents, Tara’s voyage was much faster than the 1895 voyage. Results from recent expeditions have been published in both Science and in Nature.
In 2011 Tara began sampling for plastic in the ocean. During a voyage this year from France to Miami, plastic was found every day in every sample taken. Guests at the Challenge event learned in a lecture from Romain Troublé, executive director of Tara Expedition Foundation, that algae and other marine organisms can attach themselves to the microplastic and travel much farther than was possible before. The plastic pieces become rafts and allow the marine organisms to hitchhike to distant destinations. It is currently unknown what effect this might have for the transfer of plants, viruses and bacteria across ocean regions.
Microscopic organisms make up 98% of the life in the ocean. They capture carbon dioxide and produce half of the world’s oxygen. During the Tara Oceans expedition the scientists collected samples of plankton from major oceanic regions, identified 100,000 new species of life in the ocean and compiled their genetic material into a resource that is now available to scientists all over the world. We tend to think of the rainforest as a source of new genetic biodiversity but the oceans are equally rich and largely unexplored.
The Tara Pacific expedition will be studying coral reefs and their biodiversity until 2018. Coral reefs have been significantly affected by human activities, global warming, and ocean acidification. This expedition hopes to study this fragile ecosystem and learn how to preserve it.
The most hopeful observation that was shared was that when microorganisms attach themselves to plastic the plastic gets heavier and eventually sinks. The current sampling for plastic in the oceans can only account for a small percentage of the plastic that we are dumping in the ocean each year. If we can stop the land-based pollution the ocean may be able to heal the damage we have done in a period of 50 years.
To follow Tara on its journey, visit http://oceans.taraexpeditions.org.

Recycling programs and the curious case of inconsistent language

This article originally was published in Packaging Digest Magazine
Recycling programs do their best to communicate the items they want to collect. They should do better.
That’s one of many conclusions we’ve drawn from our soon-to-be-released Centralized Study on Availability of Recycling. The study examined recycling programs in more than 2,000 communities across the United States andgathered a yes/no for the acceptance of nearly 50 types of packaging and containers. For many of the packaging types studied, that yes/no determination is straightforward. For many other types of packaging, however, it is not.
This is something that can, and must, be improved.
This type of national study of recycling programs can be conducted from two angles. Angle one is behind the scenes, learning from program administrators which items the program intends to collect. Angle two is from the eye of the public, examining the recycling collection instructions and guidance offered by the recycling program and seeking a mention of each item under the “accepted” or “prohibited” headers. Our study used the latter methodology. This data serves to substantiate consumer-facing claims of recyclability, so it’s most important to determine the items that the consumer understands to be accepted in their recycling programs.
Unfortunately, the recycling program instructions offered to consumers are frustratingly inconsistent. The number of phrases that are consistently used across programs can probably be counted on one hand. Newspaper. Phone books. From a strict linguistic standpoint, that’s probably it.
Even an item so ubiquitously accepted as the aluminum beverage can is not referred to with consistent wording. Beverage cans. Aluminum cans. Cans. Metal cans. Food and beverage cans. This example may sound harebrained because the average consumer should, surely, be expected to understand any of these phrases to refer to the aluminum beverage can, but think about how it muddies the waters for aerosol cans.
When a locality says they accept “aluminum cans,” does the consumer understand whether or not aluminum aerosol cans are acceptable? One step further—does the consumer know how to tell the difference between a steel aerosol and an aluminum aerosol? No, they don’t. If they read “food and beverage cans,” does this mean that aerosol cans for whipped cream and cooking spray are acceptable, while other aerosols for other types of products aren’t?
The point to be made here is that programs should be specific. If a program wants aluminum beverage cans but not aerosols, it should say “aluminum beverage cans only.” Or if that program also wants aerosol cans—and we hope this fictitious program would—then it should mention aerosol cans.
Specificity does have a limit. We operate in a world where the recyclability of packaging is much, much more nuanced than its basic material type and format. Fiber structure with polycoat on one side? Fine (probably). Polycoat on both sides? Not so recyclable. PET clamshell? Great. PET clamshell laden with adhesive? Nope.
This level of nuance cannot be conveyed to the general public. It’s tempting to think it should be, but we would be swiftly served with a reality check. For consumers to not be overwhelmed with technical nuance and overloaded with jargon, recycling programs must paint their acceptance guidelines with broad strokes. That’s okay. A lot can be communicated in broad strokes.

But they must strive to hit the right balance, being as specific as possible while also remaining conscious of the consequences of broadly stated acceptance. Some unrecyclable items will be stated as acceptable in the program. Conversely, some perfectly recyclable items will be prohibited. Many will still be plainly ambiguous. The goal is to reduce as much ambiguity as possible without plummeting terribly far in the weeds, and our study findings suggest American recycling programs have a way to go before we approach the right side of this balance.
The end result of our study is what we believe to be the most robust and comprehensive picture of the acceptance of packaging in recycling programs across America. Beside their utility to substantiate thousands, perhaps millions, of recyclability claims, the national acceptance rates calculated from this data will serve as an important baseline from which change can be measured. And the detail of the national figures will give us important insight into the specificity—and ambiguity—of recycling collection guidelines.
Now, if we initiate a concerted effort to unify and harmonize recycling program instructions, we can hope to see a decrease in ambiguity and non-mentions of recyclable packaging and an increase in our confidence of knowing what’s accepted and what’s prohibited. Our industry’s conversations around improving recycling systems tend to entail things like building new infrastructure, implementing new technologies and developing new infrastructure—all with frightening price tags and seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
The opportunity for improvement ought to be a breath of fresh air. We need to change some words. This can be done now.