New Climate Change Tipping Point
Sarah-Jeanne Royer Phd. has discovered that plastics are continually off-gassing in the environment initially it was thought this was restricted to CO2 but now it is apparent they are emitting ethylene, methane and propane into the atmosphere. Since plastics have only been around since the 50s the issue is minor at the moment but the problem will escalate quickly as these plastics are now beginning to break down in our environment and our production of plastics has increased exponentially. What Dr. Royer has discovered is another tipping point that will further escalate climate change that is now attacking our ecological and climatical systems that sustain the earth.Plastic Industry Refuse to Cooperate
When the plastic industry was questioned about their process by so she could understand the dynamics of the problem the industry essentially excommunicated her. What does this mean? Does this mean they are perfectly aware of the looming danger of plastics? Does this mean they like many industries before them want to continue knowingly down a dangers path just because it is lucrative? I certainly don't understand why an industry based on science would not collaborate with another scientist who is trying to work on an issue that could seriously impact our ability to sustain life on the planet. You would think if they felt there was a problem with the research they would want to set the record straight, the reaction the scientist reported from the industry is frightening.
Research Paper Abstract
Mass production of plastics started nearly 70 years ago and the production rate is expected to double over the next two decades. While serving many applications because of their durability, stability and low cost, plastics have deleterious effects on the environment. Plastic is known to release a variety of chemicals during degradation, which has a negative impact on biota. Here, we show that the most commonly used plastics produce two greenhouse gases, methane and ethylene, when exposed to ambient solar radiation. Polyethylene, which is the most produced and discarded synthetic polymer globally, is the most prolific emitter of both gases. We demonstrate that the production of trace gases from virgin low-density polyethylene increase with time, with rates at the end of a 212-day incubation of 5.8 nmol g-1 d-1 of methane, 14.5 nmol g-1 d-1 of ethylene, 3.9 nmol g-1 d-1 of ethane and 9.7 nmol g-1 d-1 of propylene. Environmentally aged plastics incubated in water for at least 152 days also produced hydrocarbon gases. In addition, low-density polyethylene emits these gases when incubated in air at rates ~2 times and ~76 times higher than when incubated in water for methane and ethylene, respectively. Our results show that plastics represent a heretofore unrecognized source of climate-relevant trace gases that are expected to increase as more plastic is produced and accumulated in the environment.About Sarah-Jeanne Royer
Over the past ten years, Sarah-Jeanne has been involved in 19 oceanographic expeditions in polar (Arctic and Antarctic), tropical and sub-tropical regions where on some occasions she was the chief scientist and responsible for the supervision of master and PhD students. Her research has been published in 15 scientific journals, presented at 18 scientific conferences where she gained a lot of expertise in report writing and grant writing.After working in quantifying oceanic gases in the global ocean for more than ten years, she has now specialized herself on plastic pollution and marine debris in the environment. She published two papers one on the validation of ATR FT-IR to identify polymers of plastic marine debris, including those ingested by marine organisms by Jung et al., 2018 and her latest paper on the production of greenhouse gases by plastics that has caught a lot of attention with the media. She has many ongoing projects from citizen science to the tracking of marine debris in the ocean to a time series of the prevalence of micro-fibres in coastal regions.
References
a story by Matt McGrath the BBC Environment correspondent 02 August 2018
University of Hawai'i News
Production of methane and ethylene from plastic in the environment, Plos one
Sarah-Jeanne Royer's Research Gate
sarahjeanneroyer.com
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