Alterra Sanchez
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Microplastics in the crosshairs

3/12/2019

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The five-day United Nations Environmental Assembly meeting began yesterday in Nairobi, Kenya. The theme of the assembly is "Innovative solutions for environmental challenges and sustainable consumption and production (1)," with the goal being to have individual countries "significantly" reduce plastics production, including a phasing out of single-use plastic by 2030 (2,3). The night before the summit, an estimate of $20 trillion was declared as the cost of ecosystem loss due to pollution (4). What also happened the night before the meeting was the crash of flight ET302 in Ethiopia, killing 21 UN workers, many heading to the environmental assembly. While trying to find if any microplastics scientists I know died in the crash, I learned that media outlets are not giving out this information clearly. CNN (5) barely mentions the environmental meeting, and the article even goes further to say they don't know why the 21 UN workers were on the plane...

Without taking too much of a turn towards the conspiracies and tin hats, let's still recognize that people who work for the greater good can become targets. So, I'll end with a fun fact: in 2016 alone the sales of bottled water (a single-use item) made $16 billion dollars in the U.S. (6).  


1)http://web.unep.org/environmentassembly/un-environment-assembly-and-governing-council
​2)https://www.monitor.co.ug/News/World/Plastic-crosshairs-UN-environment-forum/688340-5019926swbbi6z/index.html
3) https://www.afp.com/en/news/826/plastic-crosshairs-un-environment-forum-doc-1eh38t3
4)https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/scitech/science/687615/plastic-use-in-crosshairs-at-un-environment-forum/story/
5) https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/10/africa/ethiopian-airlines-crash-victims/index.html
6) https://www.bottledwater.org/economics/bottled-water-market
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Are you an undergraduate or graduate student who would like to share your work concerning environmental conservation /challenges /innovations /technology?

3/7/2019

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If you are in the Chesapeake Potomac Region of the US, CPRC SETAC, the local chapter of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (Chesapeake/Potomac region) would like to share your research! Additionally, the CPRC SETAC spring newsletter is coming soon, and will feature highlights of student research in the region.
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If you are interested, please send 1-3 research related photos, your name, and a brief blurb about yourself and your project (</100 words) to socialmedia.cprc.setac@gmail.com. With your permission, your research will be shared on the CPRC twitter, instagram, and facebook. 

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    About this Blog

    This is a place for the dumping of my thoughts, an electric pensieve if you will. If there is something you would like me to discuss or post in my next blog, comment and I'll get to it as soon as I can. Hope you enjoy the drippings of my mind.
    -Alterra
    P.S. If you got what I meant by pensieve, rock on. 

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