Today, you’ll hear a message from Andrés Del Castillo in the #PlasticsTreaty Shorts series. Andrés is a Senior Attorney from Columbia working with CIEL, the Center for International Environmental Law in Switzerland (https://www.ciel.org/). CIEL is a non-governmental organization that has long pointed out the broader implications of plastic pollution. They have published reports on the connection between plastics and climate change, human health, and and the petrochemical industry and fracking. A...
Nov 13, 2023•6 min
We have exceeded six of the nine planetary boundaries. In her message to Plastisphere, Bethany Carney Almroth from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden tells us about one of them - the planetary boundary of novel entities which include plastics and chemicals. The only planetary boundary we have been able to move away from is the ozone depletion in the upper atmosphere. And why? Because when a ‘hole’ – or a thinning - in the ozone layer was discovered in the 1980s, countries from around the wor...
Nov 10, 2023•7 min
Similar to how food products contain a list of ingredients, we need to know which chemicals plastic products contain. This is not an easy task, but it would be a huge step if producers lifted the secret around the chemicals they use. Right now we are blindly dealing with a cocktail of chemicals we don’t really understand. Scientists have to reverse engineer to find out what’s in these products, and this is expensive and tedious. Knowing about the chemical ingredients of plastics would give us th...
Nov 09, 2023•6 min
Recycling is often seen as a golden standard for minimizing plastic pollution. And while recycling definitely does play a role in the future, it should not be the first priority. Kristian Syberg, an associate professor at Roskilde University in Denmark working on the circular economy, and the environmental impact of plastics, tells us why. Read the transcript of this episode here: https://anjakrieger.com/plastisphere/2023/11/07/plasticstreaty-shorts-consumption-reduction-with-kristian-syberg/ Th...
Nov 07, 2023•6 min
The global plastics treaty is currently being drafted by the global community - an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment. One of the experts attending the meetings is Christina Dixon from the Environmental Investigation Agency. The EIA is an NGO which has campaigned against environmental crime and abuse since the 1980s, from whaling to ivory trade, to ozone depletion and climate change. Chris Dixon is their expert on plastic pollution ...
Nov 05, 2023•7 min
The global plastics treaty is in the making, and the discussions around solutions to plastic pollution are gaining traction. To give you more food for thought, Anja tries out a new format, the Plastisphere Conversations with interesting people in the field. And this is the first one, with Sarah Perreard and Julien Boucher from the Plastic Overshoot project. Wait, isn’t it called the Earth Overshoot? Well, true - Sarah and Julien took inspiration from that. In 2023, the Plastic Overshoot Day fall...
Jul 09, 2023•51 min
On March 2, 2022, countries from around the world agreed to establish a global treaty to end plastic pollution. After the first meetings in Senegal and Uruguay, the discussions around the treaty are in full swing. Next, the country’s representatives are heading to Paris, France, in May 2023. They’ll meet for the second session of the INC, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee, which is the forum where the treaty is debated. After that, three more of these INC meetings are scheduled. If all...
May 12, 2023•34 min
Baldeep Kaur is a doctoral fellow at the University of Potsdam, studying the afterlives of discarded colonial technologies. Last November, they invited Plastisphere creator Anja Krieger to a live listening session at the Minor Cosmopolitan Assembly, an event organized by the research training group with the same name. Together with the audience, Baldeep and Anja listened to and discussed short excerpts from the podcast's episodes, each highlighting a different dimension of human relationships wi...
Mar 17, 2023•32 min
A new guest episode to inspire your ears, mind and heart, kindly shared by Upstream. Plastic pollution is not just a waste issue. It starts with production, continues during use, and in the end, a lot of it ends up dumped or in the environment. But the problems plastics cause from production to disposal are not distributed equally. They impact some communities more than others, especially those already at a disadvantage and with little political power. One of the people fighting this environment...
Mar 04, 2023•42 min
Remember our episode a few months ago on the history of the plastics treaty? To recap: In March, the United Nations Environmental Assembly decided to negotiate a global agreement to tackle plastic pollution. The ambitious plan is to develop a binding treaty covering the full lifecycle of plastics within the next two years, by 2024. This week, this process is moving forward at an international meeting in Uruguay. From November 28 to December 2nd 2022, the first session of the Intergovernmental Ne...
Nov 27, 2022•26 min
We can’t be the only ones responsible for plastic pollution. It’s time for producers and distributors of disposable plastic to take responsibility for where their packaging goes. Plastisphere presents an episode from Sustainable Asia’s “Mapping Asia’s Plastic Crisis” series on producer responsibility and packaging design, featuring experts from Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore, hosted and produced by Marcy Trent Long and Bonnie Au. Transcript: https://anjakrieger.com/plastisphere/2022/05...
May 02, 2022•22 min
Eight years after first flagging plastics as an issue, the United Nations Environment Assembly met in March 2022 for a historic decision. Delegates from more than 170 nations agreed on a mandate to put together a legally binding global plastics treaty within the next two years. Despite some lobbying against it behind the scenes, the draft for a strong resolution prevailed with just a few cuts. The treaty can now cover plastic pollution across the full lifecycle of the material, from production t...
Mar 14, 2022•30 min
Plastisphere is back with Brooke and Anja! For the tenth anniversary of #PlasticFreeJuly, we dive into solutions to plastic pollution. Hear about Anja’s waste audit and DIY projects during the pandemic year, from home-made milk and laundry detergent to fresh pasta. Making stuff from scratch can be fun and empowering, but what’s the impact of these lifestyle changes? Anja’s packaging bin is a bit lighter now, but still full of plastic - far away from the ideals of Zero Waste. How much influence d...
Jul 30, 2021•26 min
Take a break from plastics to explore the soil - a hidden world beneath your feet. It's the world of earthworms, springtails, fungi, and bacteria. We hardly ever see these little creatures, but their impacts are huge. Soil stores more carbon than the atmosphere and all plants together, filters water, is pivotal for biodiversity and at the center of agriculture and food security. This winter, Anja Krieger, host of Plastisphere, teams up with soil biologist Matthias Rillig and his lab to bring you...
Nov 24, 2020•2 min
When it comes to solving the issue of plastic pollution, who would you say is responsible? Is it individuals like you and me, is it the corporations that produce plastics or products made from it, or is it the government with its rules and regulations? That’s the question Brooke Bauman asks in her 4-part podcast series “Guilty Plastics”. Brooke is a student in environmental science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an amazing young audio storyteller. Anja chats with Brooke ...
Jul 26, 2020•30 min
Plastic pollution seems to be a pretty new issue, right? In the past few years, the topic has been all over the media. But if you explore the history of science, it turns out that the problem really isn’t all that new. Some scientists have been aware of plastic in the ocean for over half a century. So, how was plastic pollution first discovered? And why didn’t we hear about it earlier? In this episode, Anja speaks to scientists who called attention to the problem long before it was widely discus...
Jul 10, 2020•56 min
For this episode, Anja tried something new: She asked listeners, researchers and podcasters to send her audio comments on what is happening now during the coronavirus pandemic. In this episode, you’ll hear some of the messages that arrived in her inbox the past weeks. With input from Justine Ammendolia, Wade Roush, Brooke Bauman, Sedat Gündoğdu, Jacqui Kidman, Susanne Brander, Rebecca Altman, Sydney Harris, Tridibesh Dey and Merijn Tinga. Audio from Hong Kong by Gary Stokes. The Plastisphere is ...
Apr 28, 2020•37 min
What happens if bioplastics end up in the environment? In this episode, Anja takes a closer look at synthetic polymers marketed as more environmentally friendly. Can they contribute to a healthier planet, and in what way? Anja talks to Frederik Wurm, a chemist developing biodegradable plastics, Constance Ißbrücker of the industry association European Bioplastics, Zero Waste expert Enzo Favoino, marine microbiologist Linda Amaral-Zettler and ecotoxicologist Lisa Zimmermann. Though biodegradable p...
Jul 16, 2019•33 min
Plastic pollution also affects the soil, the thin layer of ground that feeds all of us. For a long time, this terrestrial plastic has been overlooked. Now scientists are starting to investigate the extent and impacts of plastic pollution in the soil and in the ground. What do we know about them? In this episode, Anja talks to artist Saša Spačal from Slovenia, soil biologist Matthias Rillig from Germany, Brazilian environmental scientist Abel Machado and geologist Reinhold Leinfelder. She learns ...
Apr 19, 2019•29 min
Chris Jordan has taken some of the most iconic pictures to shape our image of plastic pollution. He traveled to Midway Island on his quest to photograph the evasive "Great Pacific Garbage Patch", which is really a soup of microplastics. There, he documented albatross chicks who had died with their guts full of plastic. His images went viral, but they also haunted him so much that he decided to return to the island. In this episode of the podcast, Chris tells Anja how working on his film "Albatro...
Dec 30, 2018•29 min
Plastic pollution might be the most visible environmental issue we face today. But there are other kinds of pollution, and they are far harder to see. One of the most dangerous is the huge amount of greenhouse gases that we emit into the atmosphere. In this episode, Anja explores the connections between plastic pollution and climate change. She talks to ocean expert and publisher Nikolaus Gelpke, youth activist Lilly Platt, oceanographer Sarah-Jeanne Royer and climate expert Gunnar Luderer to un...
Dec 06, 2018•29 min
In this episode, Anja calls up Dr. Jenna Jambeck and Amy Brooks from the University of Georgia on a research trip in Vietnam to learn about their research on waste management and plastic pollution. In many Asian countries, a booming economy is coupled with more and more people using throw-away items. Informal recyclers and waste pickers who have traditionally sorted the waste cannot keep up. But, like millions of people around the world, they depend on waste as a resource for their livelihoods. ...
Oct 05, 2018•26 min
Anja goes on a lab tour with Alexandra ter Halle from Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse. The chemist and her team were the first to detect nanoplastic in the open ocean - plastic so small that it is comparable in size to a virus. What do we know about these very tiny pieces, and how do researchers try to detect and understand them? The Plastisphere is a research and interview podcast by German freelance journalist Anja Krieger. Transcript with links and pictures: http://anjakrieger.com/plasti...
Sep 14, 2018•27 min
In this introduction to the Plastisphere podcast, Anja takes the listener on a journey back in time, from a remote plastic beach on the Big Island of Hawaii to the factory of a big chemical producer making bioplastics. She shares what she has learned about the issue of plastic pollution in the past years. The Plastisphere is an interview and research podcast by German freelance journalist Anja Krieger. Transcript with pictures: http://anjakrieger.com/plastisphere/2018/09/02/ep1-transcript/ Twitt...
Sep 02, 2018•27 min
