Promising solution to plastic pollution

Harvard's Wyss Institute creates bioplastic made from shrimp shells

Wyss Institute Communications

For many people, “plastic” is a one-word analog for environmental disaster. It is made from precious petroleum, after all, and once discarded in landfills and oceans, it takes centuries to degrade.

Then came apparent salvation: “bioplastics,” durable substances made from renewable cellulose, a plant-based polysaccharide. But problems remained. For one, the current bioplastics do not fully degrade in the environment. For another, their use is now limited to packaging material or simple containers for food and drink.

Now researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have introduced a new bioplastic isolated from shrimp shells. It’s made from chitosan, a form of chitin — the second-most abundant organic material on Earth.

Chitin, a tough polysaccharide, is the main ingredient in the hardy shells of crustaceans, the armorlike cuticles of insects, and even the flexible wings of butterflies.

The Wyss Institute makes its shrilk from chitin from shrimp shells, most which would otherwise be discarded or used in fertilizer or makeup, and a fibroin protein from silk. Researchers discussed it in a March online study in the journal Macromolecular Materials & Engineering.

Shrilk is cheaply and easily fabricated by a novel method that preserves chitosan’s strong mechanical properties. The researchers said that for the first time, this tough, transparent, and renewable material can be used to make large, 3-D objects with complex shapes using traditional casting or injection-molding techniques. That means objects made from shrilk can be mass-manufactured and will be as robust as items made with the everyday plastics used in toys and cell phones.

“There is an urgent need in many industries for sustainable materials that can be mass produced,” Wyss Director Donald E. Ingber said in March. “Our scalable manufacturing method shows that chitosan, which is readily available and inexpensive, can serve as a viable bioplastic that could potentially be used instead of conventional plastics for numerous industrial applications.”

This environmentally safe alternative to plastic could also be used to make trash bags, packaging, and diapers.

Once discarded, shrilk breaks down in just a few weeks — and even releases rich nutrients that support plant growth. In one experiment, Wyss Institute researchers grew a California black-eyed pea plant in soil enriched with its chitosan bioplastic. Within three weeks, the material encouraged plant growth.

In environmental terms, finding viable alternatives for conventional plastics — prized for their lightness, durability, and low price — is an urgent matter. In the United States alone, according researchers at Columbia University, about 34 million tons of plastic waste is generated every year; less than 7 percent is recovered for recycling.

Meanwhile, according to the same researchers, plastics buried in landfills will take 1,000 years to degrade. Plastics discarded into the world’s seas — an estimated 100 million tons so far, circulating in vast oceanic gyres — are a threat to marine life.

The challenge is clear: We will drown in plastic if we don’t find a sustainable alternative. Harvard’s Wyss Institute has been working on a bioplastic that is expected to provide part of the solution. Video courtesy of the Wyss Institute

This story is a combination of two press releases issued by the Wyss Institute in March and May. The content has been edited for length and clarity. To read the original releases, Manufacturing a solution to planet-clogging plastics andChitosan bioplastic, visit the Wyss Institute website.

ORIGINAL: Harvard

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May 5, 2014 | 

In China, documentary film on air pollution quickly goes viral

A Greenpeace photo dated Oct. 14 shows steel plants in northern China's Hebei province. (Lu Guang / Greenpeace)

'Under the Dome,' new film on China's air pollution woes, 

is quickly viewed by over 150 million online

Documentary about air pollution in China goes viral days before two key legislative sessions

The hottest movie in China this weekend wasn’t “Fifty Shades of Grey” or Jackie Chan’s latest, “Dragon Blade.” Instead, a pointed and emotional environmental online documentary has swept the country by storm, putting its air pollution crisis front and center days before the country's annual legislative sessions.

“Under the Dome,” made by a popular former reporter from China Central Television, was released online Saturday. By Monday, it had been viewed more than 150 million times on video portals, dominating social media such as WeChat and Weibo in the way the blue-black dress phenomenon recently swamped the Internet in the U.S.

The Chinese public is really eager for knowledge, actions and solutions. ... People really want a platform and a vehicle to join in the debate and dig deeper into the problem.- Li Yan, head of climate and energy, Greenpeace East Asia

The fact that the film was not censored and was posted on the website of the People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, indicated a substantial degree of official support.

A cross between Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” a TED talk and a Lifetime tear-jerker, Chai Jing’s film personalizes the smog problem while holding officials’ feet to the fire in ways rarely seen in Chinese media. It suggests how ordinary citizens can take action to demand stricter government controls.

The state-run energy sector comes in for particular criticism, while the impotence of environmental officials is also revealed. More than 20 government officials are interviewed in the film. Chai even traveled to London and Los Angeles to look for answers about how those cities solved their air pollution problems.

The documentary landed just days before this week’s opening of both the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Though the two bodies are largely seen as rubber-stamp gatherings, they are closely watched for signals about shifts in the government’s priorities and agenda, and the environment is expected to be a key topic this year.

“Under the Dome” also debuted just a day after China named a new environment minister, Chen Jining, who was plucked from his post as president of the prestigious Tsinghua University. The move was a rare example of China appointing a minister who didn’t come up through the bureaucracy, and Chen reportedly sent Chai a text message congratulating her on the film.

In “Under the Dome,” Chai admits that for years she was not worried about pollution and never wore a face mask. But she became concerned about China’s dirty skies after discovering during her pregnancy that her unborn child had a benign tumor. She reportedly financed the $160,000 project herself.

Just how much is Asia's ozone to blame for bad air in the U.S.?

Though she refrains from making a direct causal link between smog and the tumor in the film, she says, “When you carry a life inside you, what she breathes, eats and drinks are your responsibility, and you feel fear.”

Though most of the facts presented in “Under the Dome” have been widely presented in foreign and Chinese media, Chai’s celebrity and her approachable style (she uses a cartoon to illustrate what PM 2.5 means, for example) resonate.

“The Chinese public is really eager for knowledge, actions and solutions, and she did a good job of putting all the information together in an easy-to-understand way,” said Li Yan, head of climate and energy at Greenpeace East Asia. “People really want a platform and a vehicle to join in the debate and dig deeper into the problem.”

cComments

In Chinese premier Li Keqiang's annual Government Work Report to China's lawmakers at the opening of their 2015 plenary session, he called pollution a "blight on people's quality of life and a trouble that weighs on their hearts". He has also promised to build a more...

Li predicted that the film’s “unusual” popularity would help empower the Environment Ministry. “The timing of this is really unique, coming ahead of the ‘two meetings’ and with a new environment minister coming on the job,” she added.

But interest in Chai’s film chafed a bit for some longtime players in environmental circles.

“Lots of the statistics she presented had already been released many years ago and many of these issues had already been exposed,” said Wu Di, an environmental photographer. “Now we have to pay attention just because Chai Jing is doing a documentary?”

Still, he said, it was a “great thing” that the film was raising awareness – though he questioned how long the “fever” might last.

Among those interviewed in “Under the Dome” are Xie Zhenhua, deputy director of the powerful National Development and Reform Commission; Han Jun, deputy director of the Communist Party’s central finance affairs office; and Xiong Yuehui, director of the science standards office at the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

Beijing seeks to contain its population, and with it, problems

“About over 60% of the steel factories opened without any approval process. But can you really shut them down or replace them?” Xiong says in the film. “A 10-million-ton steel factory can support 100,000 workers. The steel industry in Hebei [province] has become uncontrollable.”

Ding Yan, director of the vehicle pollution department at the Ministry of Environmental Protection, says in the film that he is “embarrassed” about his work because his agency is so toothless.

In the film, Chai flies over L.A. in a helicopter and points out that the city has managed to decrease pollution even while adding cars to the roads. She hangs out with inspectors doing spot checks of pollution emitted by big rigs, and films a trucker who is being fined $1,000 because his vehicle was caught spewing smoke. (The L.A. segment begins about 1 hour and 17 minutes into the film.)

But in China, Ding tells her his agency doesn’t have the authority to replace or confiscate trucks that fail emission standards.

“So when you go out enforcing the law, you don't even dare to show your teeth?” Chai asks Ding. He replies: “I can't even open my mouth. How can I worry about others seeing my teeth?”

Viewers commenting on the film on the Sina web portal expressed both approval of Chai’s efforts and frustration at the government.

“After watching this documentary, I'm very angry. I finally understand what those ‘public servants’ are doing every day. They're all jerks and only know how to get money from the ordinary people,” wrote one. “Our party, please wake up. Otherwise, no one will trust you anymore.”

At the end of the film, Chai encourages the public to report polluters to a government hotline. Between 8 p.m. Saturday and 6 p.m. Sunday, the Beijing hotline saw the number of calls increase 240% over normal and the city’s environmental protection bureau had to add more operators to the hotline, the Beijing Youth Daily reported.

But in a poll conducted by Phoenix TV after the film’s release, 33.5% of the 27,240 respondents said they have no faith in the government and do not expect the smog to be cleaned in the near future.

Tommy Yang and Nicole Liu in The Times’ Beijing bureau contributed to this report.

Follow @JulieMakLAT on Twitter for news out of Asia

ORIGINAL: LA Times

By JULIE MAKINEN