Page 44 - Plastics News January 2022

INTERNATIoNAL NEwS

UK Deploys Mr Trash Wheel And The Other Western Australia

New Devices That Eat River Plastic Implements SUP Ban

he Government of Western
TAustralia has started the
implementation
of single-use
plastic items
phaseout.
Effective 01
January 2022,
single-use plastic
bowls, cups that
are used for cold
beverages and
he Great Bubble Barrier is just that recycled. There is now a whole family hot foods, plates, stirrers, cutlery,
T– a wall of bubbles. It gurgles across of Trash Wheels in Baltimore, the latest expanded polystyrene food containers,
the water in a diagonal screen, pushing addition being Gwynnda, the Good straws, thick plastic bags and helium
plastic to one side while allowing fish Wheel of the West. Philip Ehrhorn, co- balloon releases are banned in Western
and other wildlife to pass unharmed. The founder of the Great Bubble Barrier, Australia.This move forms part of the
technology, created by a Dutch firm and says: “One of the biggest challenges we Australian state’s two-phase Plan for
already being used in Amsterdam, will be face is the lack of regulation regarding Plastics, which will be fully implemented
trialled in the Porto region of Portugalas plastic pollution in our waterways by the end of 2022, four years ahead
part of the EU-supported Maelstrom and thereof the lack of ownership of the original plan.The latest ban
(marine litter sustainable removal and and responsibility for the problem. represents the first phase of the strategy
management) project. “The urgency to solve our plastic while the second phase will see the
pollution problem in rivers is down to ban of plastic barrier and produce
It is the latest in a series of new forward-thinking water authorities and bags, cotton buds with plastic shafts,
technologies designed to find sustainable governments, since plastic is not yet polystyrene packaging, microbeads and
ways to remove and treat river debris officially considered a water pollutant,” oxo-degradable plastics, and coffee cups
before it reaches the sea. Plastic can be he says. EU laws were introduced in and lids made from single-use plastics.
spread by natural disasters, such as a January last year to tackle the “wild west” The Stage 2 of the Plan for Plastics is
tsunami, which can push invasive species of plastic waste being dumped in poorer planned to start on 01 January 2023,
and debris halfway across the world. But countries; the UK is one of Europe’s and complete by the end of the same
rivers carry a much more regular supply worst offenders, exporting about 70% year. Western Australia Environment
of plastic to the oceans. Mr Trash Wheel, of its plastic. Ocean plastic pollution is Minister Reece Whitby said: “It is time
known officially as the Inner Harbor overwhelmingly caused by 'Mismanaged for Western Australia to take the next
Water Wheel, is a conveyor-belt system plastic waste' - this means that plastic step towards a single-use plastic-free
powered by currents and solar energy, litter is not collected and dealt with by future. “Our State has a strong track
launched in 2014 in the US city of recycling or incineration, but rather record on plastics and was named the
Baltimore. Long booms with submerged simply discarded into the environment top jurisdiction in Australia for its work
skirts funnel waste into a central hub, and not cleaned up. Every year the on plastics by WWF Australia for two
where autonomous rakes scoop it on to a UK generates more than two million years in a row.“With Stage 1 of the
conveyor belt that deposits it on a barge, metric tons of plastic packaging waste. Plan for Plastics coming into effect
with more than 17 tonnes collected This equates to roughly 36 kilograms it’s time for all Western Australians to
in a day.Once full, the barge takes the of plastic packaging waste per person. think about the small changes they can
rubbish to be incinerated in a power The quantity of plastic packaging waste make to their behaviour by adopting
plant, though it is hoped that eventually collected per UK household averaged alternatives to single-use plastics and
the collected waste can be sorted and 20.12 kilograms in 2019. choosing to reuse.”

44 PLASTICS NEWS JANUARY 2022