(TXP) INTRODUCING TRANSIENT THERMAL BARCODES

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Barcode readers excel at quickly identifying groceries and other products. Could a similar idea work at industrial recycling facilities to make sorting different plastics quicker and more cost-effective? The answer, according to a research team at the University of Buffalo is yes.

Unlike traditional barcode scanners, which rely on optical sensors, the team is developing a system that creates "three-dimensional transient thermal barcodes" that could rapidly identify plastics moving on conveyor belts.

The work is described in a Communications Engineering study.

"Our goal was to develop a cost-effective, scalable and industrially relevant plastics sorting technique that addresses the key prevailing scientific gaps restricting the recycling of plastics," says corresponding author Amit Goyal, Ph.D., SUNY Distinguished Professor and SUNY Empire Innovation Professor in the UB Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.

Goyal directs the UB Initiative on Plastics Recycling and Innovation, which is designated as a New York state Center for Plastics Recycling Research and Innovation by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).
The system, he says, aims to "improve the quality of sorted plastics by reducing contamination and, hence, increasing the recycling of these materials to help enable a circular economy." He adds that it "is estimated that one ton of recycled plastic saves 5.7 megawatts of electricity, 685 gallons (2,593 liters) of oil, and 30 cubic yards (23 cubic meters) of landfill space."

Plastic recycling rates remain low

Plastic waste generated by households and businesses is sent to material recovery facilities, where plastic is separated from other waste. This is often done by hand, which can result in false identification and poor-quality sorted bales.

Plastics are then separated into different types. Presently, there is a lack of cost-competitive and accurate techniques that can effectively identify plastic types by their resin codes.

Developing techniques—including near-infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy—suffer from one or more issues. These include poor sensitivity, subpar selectivity, slow speeds, inability to detect black plastics, or an inability to operate in standoff mode (identifying plastics from a distance) that is often required in material recovery facilities.
These limitations explain, in part, why plastic recycling rates remain relatively low worldwide.

More of this article (techexplore.com) - link - more like this (digital scanning) - link - more like this (MRFs) - link - more like this (New York) - link

(DWC) EU BANS BPA

Most beverage cans in the EU are no longer lined with BPA‑based epoxy resins - Image: H. Tschanz-Hofmann/IMAGO

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an industrial chemical that has been banned from baby bottles and thermal paper receipts in the EU. Now, it will also be banished from food packaging.

From July 2026 onwards, food wrappers and containers made with BPA or other bisphenols will no longer be allowed to be sold in the EU.

Bisphenol A is a chemical used to manufacture polycarbonate, a hard, transparent plastic, as well as epoxy resins. Such resins can be found in the interior coating of food or beverage cans, for example. They are designed to prevent the metal from rusting and leaching into the food.

BPA can also be found in plastic films, printing inks and adhesives. An average 410,000 metric tons of BPA-containing products are sold in Germany annually, reports BUND, one of Germany's largest environmental non-governmental organizations. The new EU ban on BPA applies not only to single-use food packaging, but also to items such as plastic water bottles, lunch boxes and kitchenware.

How BPA harms our health

When chemicals like BPA are used in food containers, small amounts of the substance can leach into our food and beverages. Bisphenol A, in particular, is thought to pose a health risk to people of all age groups, according to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

BPA may, among other things, alter certain immune system mechanisms which could trigger asthma as well as autoimmune diseases, reports EFSA. There is also evidence that suggests BPA may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity.

Above all, however, BPA can interfere with our hormone systems. It may thereby impair male and female fertility or alter the onset or development of puberty. It has also been linked to certain cancer types.

The hormonal effects of BPA have been known for many decades. As such, it comes as no surprise that bisphenol A can mimic estrogen, a key female sex hormone. BPA was tested as a synthetic estrogen substitute as early as the 1930s. Researchers ultimately turned to estrogen derivative DES (diethylstilbestrol) instead, which bears a similar molecular structure to BPA.

DES was used until the 1970s to treat pregnancy complications. It turned out, however, that DES increased mothers' risk of breast cancer and childbirth-related complications, as well as the danger of vaginal and cervical cancer in their daughters. The prescription of DES was banned in 1971. More of this article (dw.com) - link - more like this (cancer) - link - more like this (packaging) - link - more like this (EU) - link

(TKT) KOREAN RECYCLING NEWS

Inspiration for image - Leonora Carrington - link

A severed human leg found at a public recycling facility in Incheon last week was mistakenly thrown out by a hospital volunteer worker, police said Friday.

The Incheon Yeonsu Police Station has been investigating the origin of the body part, which was discovered during a sorting process at the recycling center in the city west of Seoul on June 10.

The leg belonged to an 80-something patient at a nursing hospital in the city, who underwent an amputation surgery two days earlier, according to the police. More of this article (The Korea Times) - link - more like this (clinical waste) - link - more like this (Korea) - link

(U24) RECYCLING DRONES

Illustrative image. Russian leader Vladimir Putin oversees FPV drone production. (Source: Russian media)

A Russian military laboratory is reportedly assembling hundreds of FPV drones each week using parts stripped from captured Ukrainian UAVs, according to a Russian officer cited by state news agency TASS on May 20.

The laboratory, which is said to operate within Russia’s Battlegroup South in the temporarily occupied Donetsk region, reportedly produces around 300 to 400 combat FPV drones every 15 days.

According to the officer, the workshop recycles components from approximately 1,500 captured Ukrainian drones to maintain that output.

The officer said it usually takes five to six captured Ukrainian UAVs to assemble one operational Russian drone. “I can say that in 15 days, two weeks, on average, our lab assembles about 300-350, maximum 400 drones. We have to sift through 1,500 Ukrainian drones to assemble 300-400 of ours,” he said.

The recycled components reportedly include printed circuit boards, motors, and other usable parts taken from Ukrainian drones intercepted by Russian anti-UAV systems.
The officer described the facility as operating like a small assembly line. Some specialists disassemble captured drones, others update firmware, while another group assembles finished FPV systems and trains pilots to use them.

Russian forces launch more than 1,000 attack UAVs per week at Ukrainian targets, according to various estimates. If the reported production figures are accurate, recycled Ukrainian drones may be helping cover roughly a quarter of that demand.
Ukraine has repeatedly accused Russia of evading Western sanctions to obtain critical drone components, including motors, microchips, and specialized materials used to produce propellers.

Russian forces have also reportedly deployed field 3D printers near the battlefield to manufacture certain drone parts locally when normal logistics channels are too slow or unreliable. Earlier, Russia acknowledged that it is lagging behind Ukraine in the field of heavy unmanned aerial vehicles, a gap that Moscow now says it is working to close. More of this article (United24 media) - link - more like this (drones) - link - more like this (Russia) - link

(PEU) CHINA'S SOLID WASTE ACTION PLAN

China has developed an ‘action plan’ to boost its solid waste treatment capacity in the next five years, aiming to utilize 4.5 billion tonnes of solid waste and recycle 510 million tonnes by 2030.

Drafted by 25 government departments, including the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the plan sets out measures to address the impacts of solid waste on public health and workplace safety.

“Solid waste should not be viewed as trash, but as valuable resources that are currently mismanaged,” said Zhou Haibing, deputy head of the NDRC.

The ‘action plan’ aims to reduce waste at the source, then improve its management and recovery. This includes extracting the recyclable components from domestic and industrial waste products (plastics, metals, glass, etc.). Manufacturers will be further encouraged to scale up their use of recycled materials, including plastics, metals and paper pulp, through institutional frameworks and market mechanisms.

To accommodate China’s ‘major’ agricultural sector, the plan will promote the use of fully biodegradable plastic mulch films and target an improved recycling rate for pesticide packaging, among other measures. Policy incentives will apparently be enhanced, and support will be introduced to encourage diverse stakeholders to invest in the agricultural solid waste recycling sector – a move hoped to increase the technical capacity of the relevant businesses.

Resources for existing funding channels will also be pooled to help develop qualified resource recycling projects, and research and development will increase for solid waste recycling technologies. Other measures include standardizing transportation and storage processes and boosting the capacity for safe disposal.

The plan will extend to solid waste like smelting slag, construction debris, and crop straw, which will apparently be directly reused or integrated into new components. The Chinese government intends to fast-track the development of a long-term, comprehensive framework to build sustainability-minded commercial frameworks, direct the market towards a circular economy, and achieve more comprehensive waste governance.

Last year, Packaging Europe published a specialist report focusing on the sustainable packaging landscape in China, featuring commentary from leading Chinese companies. The discussions covered China’s five-year Plastic Pollution Control Action Plan, which urges various sectors to replace their plastic packaging with alternative materials; and the “dual-carbon” approach of peaking the country’s carbon emissions by 2030, then targeting carbon neutrality by 2060.

In other news, Germany has transposed the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation into national law – raising recycling quotas for various materials and revising licensing and financing rules. New targets include a 95% recycling rate for aluminium and ferrous metals, and a 75% minimum for plastics – 70% of which must be mechanically recycled. More of this article (Packaging Europe) – link – more like this (China) – link – more like this (biodegradable plastic) - link

(ART) FREE SPEECH IS A HUMAN RIGHT

Image inspiration - René Magritte - link

Universal Declaration of Human Rights - link - Free Speech Union - link - more like this - link

(MOT) A NATURE NO LONGER SMELLING OF NATURE

A sunflower grow near a coal-fired power plant in Niederaussem, Germany.Bernd Lauter via Getty

Across the globe, human activities are changing the way our planet smells. In Egypt, increasing temperatures are shrinking yields of aromatic jasmine flowers; in France, extreme drought has reduced the production of fragrant, night-blooming tuberose, a major ingredient in many perfumes; in Italy, climatic extremes are altering the characteristic floral, citrusy scent of bergamot.

But anthropogenic factors are also reshaping environmental smellscapes, a word coined in the 1980s to describe the totality of scents in a given geographic area, in ways that are far more subtle—and potentially much more harmful.

While humans largely rely on sight and sound in our interactions with each other and with the world around us, many other creatures rely on smells. Ants, for example, require scents for colony cohesion; turkey vultures let scent guide them to far-away carrion; and male moths use scent to find females hundreds of meters away. “Scent is very important because it mediates so many interactions within an ecosystem,” says James Blande, a chemical ecologist at the University of Eastern Finland.

These scent-based interactions are crucial for the maintenance of ecosystem services that directly benefit humans, from the bees and moths that pollinate crops to the flies and dung beetles that recycle the nutrients from dead and decomposing matter. Intact channels of scent communication are likely also important for the preservation of biodiversity. For example, many rare orchid species use scent to attract the co-evolved pollinators they need in order to reproduce, and scent helps guide monarch butterflies to the single type of plant on which they lay their eggs.

But just as we are discovering how important these chemical communication channels are to the fabric of the natural world—and the many benefits we reap from it—we are also learning how drastically they can be disrupted by our activities, including climate change and air pollution.

Now, scientists are working to document human-induced changes in smellscapes across the planet—to understand how these changes affect communication between different organisms, and to try to figure out which systems are capable of adaptation and which may be at risk of failure.

Historically, researchers in the field of sensory pollution have been largely focused on noise and light, says Jeff Riffell, a sensory biologist at the University of Washington. Odor pollution, on the other hand, “is really hard to get a handle on because you need these big chemical analysis devices that [cost] hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to characterize it.” Plus, he says, “we’re just not very olfactory.”

Despite these challenges, a growing number of scientists are documenting how humans are changing the chemical signals of plants and animals. For example, researchers have discovered that air pollution degrades many of the volatile organic compounds that make up lavender’s characteristic scent, and increasing temperatures dramatically decrease the floral perfumes released by strawberry plants and wild white petunias. Agricultural chemicals, like fertilizers and fungicides, add additional VOCs to the air in fields and orchards around the world. now of this article (Mother Jones) - link - more like this (smell) - link - more like this (Finland) - link

(GUF) WASTE TO ENERGY TO WASTE TO ENERGY

Inspiration (Yves Tanguy) - link

Across the UK, local authorities are being encouraged to become more sustainable. They're being asked to reduce carbon emissions, encouraged to introduce electric vehicle fleets, expected to improve recycling rates and asked to do all of this while facing significant financial pressure.

At the same time, the waste industry is investing heavily in infrastructure that generates electricity from waste. Anaerobic Digestion facilities generate renewable electricity from food waste. Energy from Waste facilities generate electricity from residual waste that cannot currently be recycled. Together, these facilities produce substantial amounts of power every day.

Local authorities pay for waste collections; pay for waste treatment which generate electricity and the councils then purchase electricity separately to charge their electric vehicle fleets, and for an industry that talks endlessly about closing loops: this appears to be one of the most obvious loops left open.

If governments are serious about reducing emissions, should electricity generated from municipal waste and used to power municipal collection vehicles attract the same taxation and charging structure as electricity supplied through conventional commercial arrangements? After all, the public sector has already paid to collect the waste. It has already paid to treat the waste. The waste has generated the electricity. The electricity is then being used to support a public service.

Is there a case for recognising that circular relationship through reduced taxation, network charges or other fiscal incentives? Not as a subsidy, not as a grant but simply as recognition that the waste itself has already created the energy.

I fully appreciate that electricity markets, taxation, grid infrastructure and commercial arrangements are more complicated than this simple explanation. However, complexity shouldn't stop us asking sensible questions and if governments are serious about decarbonisation and if councils are serious about reducing costs, shouldn't we be looking for ways to connect these two objectives or is the phrase "circular economy" just more of the waste industry's smoke and mirrors?

Perhaps this is what a genuinely circular energy system should look like: not simply turning waste into electricity, but turning waste into electricity that directly supports the collection and management of that waste. The technology already exists. The vehicles increasingly exist. The energy already exists. The waste certainly exists.

This is not simply a theoretical discussion. In the private sector, companies such as Grundon Waste Management have already demonstrated the principle by using electricity generated from waste to help power electric waste collection vehicles so the concept clearly works and the relationship already exists.

So if the waste can generate the electricity, and the electricity can power the vehicles, what exactly is stopping us from joining the dots? SEAT - landfill biomethane - link - more like this (waste to energy) - link - more like this (waste EV) - link

(REF) MAKING FUEL FROM BATTERY ACID AND WASTE PLASTICS

The acid from spent car batteries can now be used to produce clean hydrogen, thanks to research out of the University of Cambridge - Depositphotos

In a "triple win" for green research, scientists at the University of Cambridge have developed a new sunlight-activated reactor that uses one waste stream to tackle another – all while producing clean hydrogen, and promising to be profitable at commercial scale.

According to Our World in Data, a statistical-compilation site formed in partnership with the University of Oxford, plastic production now reaches 450 million tonnes per year, a staggering increase since 1950, when only 2 million tonnes were produced. The bulk of that plastic winds up in landfills (and about 0.5% lands in our oceans) after it is used, with only about 18% getting recycled and another 24% handled by incineration. That means finding a way to deal with plastic waste is of critical importance.

Current mechanical recycling methods can handle large amounts of plastics, but they have their issues. Contamination from food and other materials can foul large batches of potentially recyclable plastics. Also, new plastic produced this way is often inferior to the original product, so the process really results in downcycling more than recycling or upcycling.

Chemical recycling methods are much more effective, especially when a photocatalyst is used to alter the constituent building blocks of plastics using light. But to reach that point, acids are often used to initially break down the plastic, and most photocatalysts can't stand up to the harsh environment created by these acids.

However, the Cambridge study showed a path forward that makes use of both acids and photocatalysts.

A near accident

“The discovery was almost accidental,” says Cambridge's Erwin Reisner, who led the research. “We used to think acid was completely off limits in these solar-powered systems, because it would simply dissolve everything. But our catalyst developed didn’t – and suddenly a whole new world of reactions opened up.”

As a first step inside the new reactor, plastics are broken down using sulphuric acid through a process known as hydrolysis. In this case, the acid came from discarded car batteries. When applied to the plastics, the long molecular chains from which they were made are snipped apart at their chemical joints. In testing, when the battery acid was applied to PET plastics, such as the plastic that comprises drink bottles, it resulted in two chemical compounds: terephthalic acid (TPA), which settled to the bottom and could be easily removed, and ethylene glycol, the main component in antifreeze.

Next, the new powdered catalyst engineered by Reisner and his team was introduced. This catalyst consists of three basic components: carbon nitride, a yellowish powder good at absorbing visible light; molybdenum disulfide, a component in some greases; and small amounts of cobalt, that acted as a kind of turbocharger, boosting the conversion of the plastic components into hydrogen by a factor of three.

Once introduced to the liquid acid mixture, simply exposing the system to sunlight (well, an LED-simulated equivalent, anyway) allowed it to convert the ethylene glycol molecules into hydrogen and acetic acid, the main component of vinegar.
In testing, the team reports the reactor generated "high hydrogen yields" and ran for 260 hours without any loss in performance.

Because the catalyst doesn't use any precious metals, as is often the case with such chemicals, it is affordable and scalable. But most critically, it was able to do its job even in the presence of the harsh acid from the discarded car batteries, which are 20-40% acid by volume. That acid usually has to be neutralized before the batteries can be properly disposed of, which is a resource-heavy procedure.

“It’s an untapped resource,” says said lead author Kay Kwarteng, a PhD candidate in Reisner’s research group, who developed the photocatalyst. “If we can collect the acid before it’s neutralized, we can use it again and again to break down plastics: it’s a real win-win, avoiding the environmental cost of neutralizing the acid, while putting it to work generating clean hydrogen.”

At the moment, the amount of hydrogen produced by the system is modest, so the study functions more as a proof-of-concept effort than a deployable reactor. However, the researchers now plan to commercialize the system with the support of Cambridge's innovation arm, Cambridge Enterprise. More of this article (refractor.io) - link - more like this (batteries) - link - more like this (University of Cambridge) - link - more like this (chemical recycling) - link

(GUF) WASTE BROKERS - A WAKE UP CALL

(Inspiration - Leonora Carrington - link)

For decades we've focused regulatory attention on the companies operating waste facilities, driving vehicles, managing hazardous waste sites and carrying environmental permits. Meanwhile, anybody with a telephone, a laptop and a basic understanding of waste terminology could register as a broker and begin selling waste services with little or no technical competence requirement. Defra reforms may be about to change that.

The End of the Amateur Waste Broker?

Since the beginning of time, one of the great anomalies of the waste industry has been that the people making the most important compliance decisions often needed the fewest qualifications. A waste transfer station manager requires permits, inspections, technically competent managers, environmental management systems and regulatory oversight. A hazardous waste treatment facility requires even more; yet a waste broker could arrange the movement of hazardous waste, clinical waste, POPs, chemicals, batteries and even international waste shipments with virtually no formal demonstration of technical competence whatsoever.

Finally, that may be about to change. At first glance, Defra's review of the Waste Carrier, Broker and Dealer system appears to be little more than a renaming exercise; Carriers become 'Transporters', Brokers and Dealers largely become 'Controllers' - but importantly the system moves into/towards the Environmental Permitting Regulations.

Whilst it sounds simple enough, it isn't. Buried within the consultation documents are clues that suggest something far more significant is happening. The original consultation proposed that applicants for 'Controller' permits should demonstrate "appropriate technical competence" and specifically described a 'Controller' as somebody capable of assessing waste and determining suitable destinations.

Subsequent commentary has reinforced this direction by confirming that 'Controllers' and 'Transporters' will eventually operate under Environmental Permitting Regulations with regulators requiring evidence of competence at application and renewal. More importantly, Defra has stated that the competence model is being developed using existing permit competence frameworks as a template and that should make everybody in the industry sit up and take notice.

The Shift Nobody Is Talking About

Historically, the waste industry has been built around operational competence. Can you safely operate a transfer station? Can you manage a treatment facility? Can you transport waste legally? The new proposals appear to recognise a different risk.

Increasingly, the most critical environmental decisions occur long before a waste vehicle arrives when someone decides how the waste is classified, whether it's hazardous, which EWC code applies, which treatment route should be used, whether a carrier is suitable, whether the receiving site is permitted to accept it and whether exports are lawful. In many cases that 'someone' is not the treatment operator, it's the broker, or rather, under the new terminology, the 'Controller'.

The person making compliance decisions is becoming more important than the person physically moving the waste. That is a fundamental change in regulatory thinking.

Why Brokers Should Be Paying Attention

Some brokers provide significant technical value through national account management, reporting and compliance support. Others operate largely as intermediaries, relying heavily on advice supplied by the contractors undertaking the work.

Some brokers may argue that they do not determine treatment routes and therefore should not be held to the same competency standards as permitted operators. However, the act of selecting a contractor is itself a compliance decision. If a controller appoints an unsuitable carrier, directs waste to an inappropriate facility or fails to undertake adequate due diligence, environmental harm can still occur. The regulator may increasingly view these decisions as requiring technical competence regardless of who physically handles the waste.

Many brokers simply obtain prices from waste management companies, add a margin and pass information between customer and contractor. The technical advice they provide is frequently little more than a reworded version of advice supplied by the waste company actually doing the work and the current system allows both models to operate under exactly the same regulatory framework.

Defra appears increasingly uncomfortable with that position because if a 'Controller' is responsible for ensuring proper classification, suitable treatment routes and lawful management arrangements, then competence becomes difficult to avoid.

Could Controllers Need WAMITAB Qualifications?

Not immediately, but eventually - possibly, and perhaps even probably. The consultation documents stop short of requiring Certificates of Technical Competence however, they repeatedly return to one theme: competence; which raises the obvious question - how can somebody demonstrate competence in waste assessment without understanding WM3 Hazardous Waste Assessment, The List of Waste, Mirror entries, Hazardous properties, Duty of Care requirements, Digital Waste Tracking, ADR interactions, Permit conditions, and and even International shipment controls.

For many experienced waste professionals, these subjects form part of everyday life. For many brokers, they do not.

What Might the Future Look Like?

The most likely starting point - a mandatory qualification covering waste classification, Duty of Care, hazardous waste awareness, waste tracking and permit awareness - perhaps a one-day course with an assessment. This would be relatively inexpensive and consistent with Defra's indication that costs should remain proportionate.

A more structured approach in my opinion would be 'Controllers' nominate a technically competent individual who must hold an accredited qualification and undertake periodic refresher training. This model would mirror many existing environmental permitting arrangements.

Controllers may eventually require formally qualified personnel, continuing professional development and demonstrable technical oversight. In effect, a Controller would begin to resemble a permitted operator. The irony is that some of the highest-risk organisations under the proposed framework may be those that have historically operated with the least technical expertise.

A Controller is expected to make decisions about classification, treatment and destination.

If those decisions are wrong, environmental harm can follow and Defra's reforms appear designed to close that gap and so they should. For too long the industry has operated on the assumption that responsibility sits with the company physically handling the waste.

By 2030, I expect the UK to have a dedicated Waste Controller Competence qualification. It will probably sit somewhere between a basic Duty of Care course and a full WAMITAB Certificate of Technical Competence - likely delivered through organisations such as CIWM, WAMITAB or equivalent accredited bodies.

And when Digital Waste Tracking, pEPR and the new permitting regime are fully operational, waste classification knowledge may become one of the most valuable skills in the industry. For forty years the waste sector has largely valued the person driving the wagon.

The next decade may belong to the person who understands what is in it. Government information - link - more like this (absence of guilt) - link - more like this (brokers) - link

(GUF) HENRY NOWAK - R.I.P.

I've never, at any point in my life, judged whether someone deserves help based on their race, sexuality, religion or any other characteristic. 

If I see a person suffering and I believe I can help, my instinct is simply to help. Their humanity comes first.

‘Forever 18’: Henry Nowak’s sister shares tribute to murdered brother - link - Police Anti-racism and racial equity document - link - knife crime (The Ben Kinsella Trust) - link 

(REF) BLUE MOUNTAINS & PFAS

Forever chemicals can persist in nature for decades. Madalina Todica's Images/Canva

An article by:- Ian A. Wright, Amy-Marie Gilpin, & Katherine Warwick, Western Sydney University/ The Conversation

The fresh air, picturesque vistas, and pristine bush of the Blue Mountains west of Sydney draw millions of visitors a year.

Unfortunately, the Blue Mountains are also the site of a controversial investigation into water contamination with “forever chemicals”, also called PFAS. Our recent study investigated long-term PFAS contamination from two incidents, both involving petrol tanker crashes and fires. Both accidents occurred in drinking water catchments, and our study found contamination was present but undetected for 24 and 33 years, respectively. We have searched the international literature and could not find similar examples.

PFAS (Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a broad category of thousands of synthetic chemicals used in numerous consumer and industry products. Exposure to PFAS is associated with a greater risk of several illnesses. Our research shows how vulnerable drinking water supplies are to long-term PFAS contamination. It also shows how contamination can remain hidden due to an absence of PFAS monitoring.

Two historical accidents

The 1992 petrol tanker accident in the Blue Mountains at Medlow Bath caused PFAS contamination of the local drinking water supply. And 32 years later, it forced the closure of two storage reservoirs.

Despite limited data, we identified the source of contamination as a type of foaming material used globally by firefighters to help extinguish burning fuel fires. This foaming substance was mixed with water using perfluorooctane sulfonate, a type of PFAS.

Firefighters used this substance to form a foam “blanket” and coat burning materials and extinguish liquid fires. The PFAS foams were used for decades before their harmful human health and environmental impacts were understood.

Nine years after the first petrol tanker accident, another fuel tanker crash and fire linked to PFAS contamination occurred in 2000, near Ourimbah on the NSW Central Coast. The fuel tanker was carrying 40,000 litres of fuel, and the crash and fire were triggered by a collision with a car. This resulted in the tragic death of two people. Similar to the Medlow Bath accident, news footage showed water and foam were used to control the blaze. It also showed a foamy runoff draining from the accident.

Why are PFAS a problem?

PFAS, often called “forever chemicals”, are a broad category of thousands of synthetic chemicals. They are used in numerous products, such as non-stick cookware, stain-resistant fabrics, takeaway food packaging and even cosmetics. PFAS molecules don’t easily break down and readily accumulate in the tissues of wildlife across the globe. Exposure to small amounts of PFAS sees the chemicals build up in the vital organs of animals and people. Analysis of human autopsy tissue revealed accumulation of PFAS in the brain, lungs, liver, kidney, and bones.

In 2025, an Australian Bureau of Statistics report revealed nearly all Australians have PFAS chemicals accumulating in their bodies.

Should we be worried?

Exposure to PFAS is associated with a greater risk of several illnesses. These include decreased fertility, higher blood pressure, increased risk of cancer (particularly prostate, kidney and testicular cancers), liver disease, higher cholesterol, and obesity. One of the ways humans are likely to consume PFAS is through eating foods containing PFAS and drinking water.

The Upper Blue Mountains water supply serves about 40,000 people, and is operated by Sydney Water Corporation. It reported that one of the most hazardous forms of PFAS, PFOS, reached 16.4 nanograms per litre in the local drinking water on June 25 2024. This is double the safe amount, according to the recently revised Australian drinking water guidelines.

Discovery of PFAS triggered the closure of two drinking water reservoirs downstream of the Medlow Bath petrol tanker crash and fire. Although a lack of testing data creates uncertainty, it is likely PFAS contamination was undetected in the Blue Mountains drinking water supply for more than 30 years.

What our study showed

Our study showed contaminated creek water contained 2,000–2,400ng/L of PFOS in October 2025. This is 250–300 times the maximum safe concentration (less than 8ng/L) recommended by the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines. More of this article (refractor.io) - link - more like this (PFAS) - link - more like this (Australia) - link

(TST) WAITING TO DIE - RECYCLING IN VIETNAM

A woman picking up plastic waste at a landfill on the outskirts of Hanoi. - PHOTO: AFP

Crouched between mountains of discarded plastic, Lanh strips the labels off bottles of Coke, Evian and local Vietnamese tea drinks so they can be melted into tiny pellets for reuse.

More waste arrives daily, piling up like technicolour snowdrifts along the roads and rivers of Xa Cau, one of hundreds of “craft” recycling villages encircling Vietnam’s capital Hanoi where waste is sorted, shredded and melted.

The villages present a paradox: They enable reuse of some of the 1.8 million tonnes of plastic waste Vietnam produces each year, and allow employees to earn much-needed wages but the recycling is done with few regulations, pollutes the environment and threatens the health of those involved, both workers and experts told AFP.

“This job is extremely dirty. The environmental pollution is really severe,” said 64-year-old Lanh, who asked to be identified only by her first name for fear of losing her job. It is a conundrum facing many fast-growing economies, where plastic use and disposal has outpaced the government’s ability to collect, sort and recycle. Even in wealthy  countries, recycling rates are often abysmal because plastic products can be expensive to repurpose and sorting rates are low.

But the rudimentary methods used in Vietnam’s craft villages produce dangerous emissions and expose workers to toxic chemicals, experts say. “Air pollution control is zero in such facilities,” said Mr Hoang Thanh Vinh, an analyst at the United Nations Development Programme focused on waste recycling. Untreated wastewater is often dumped directly into waterways, he added. The true scale of the problem is hard to judge, with few comprehensive studies. In Minh Khai village, Mr Vinh said, a sediment analysis found “very high contamination of lead and the presence of dioxins”, as well as furan – all of which have been linked to cancer.

And in 2008, the life expectancy for residents of the villages was found to be a full decade shorter than the national average, according to the Environment Ministry. The local authorities and the ministry did not reply to AFP’s requests for comment.
Lanh believes the toxic waste in Xa Cau gave her husband blood cancer, but she still spends her days sorting rubbish to pay his medical bills. “This village is full of cancer cases, people just waiting to die,” she said.

Sickness and wealth

No data exists on cancer rates in the villages, but AFP spoke to more than half a dozen workers in Xa Cau and Minh Khai who reported colleagues or family members with cancer.

Vietnam Zero Waste Alliance coordinator Xuan Quach said sustained exposure to the “toxic environment” made it inevitable that residents face “health risks that are of course higher”.

A 60-year-old villager known as Dat has been sorting plastic in Xa Cau for a decade and said the job “definitely affects your health”. “There’s no shortage of cancer cases in this village.” But there is also no shortage of workers, keen for the economic lifeline recycling provides. In Xa Cau, plastic piles up around multi-storey homes, some with ornate facades noting the years they were built.
“We get richer, thanks to this business,” said 58-year-old Nguyen Thi Tuyen, who lives in a two-storey home. “Now all the houses are brick houses... In the past, we were just a farming village.” Most of the waste the villagers recycle is home-grown, researchers and residents say. But even though Vietnam recycles only about a third of its own plastic waste, it also imports thousand of tonnes annually from Europe, the US and Asia.

Imports soared after China stopped accepting plastic waste in 2018, though recently Vietnam has tightened regulations and announced plans to phase out imports too.
For now, US and European Union trade statistics show shipments to Vietnam from the two economies reached over 200,000 tonnes in 2024. In Minh Khai, the owner of a plant producing plastic pellets said domestic supply “is not enough”.
“I have to import from overseas,” 23-year-old Dinh, who gave only one name, explained over the whir of heavy machinery.

Most domestic waste does not get sorted, so it cannot easily be reused. There have been efforts to improve the industry, including a ban on burning unrecyclable waste and building modern facilities. But burning continues and unusable waste is often dumped in empty lots, according to Mr Vinh. He said the government should help recyclers move to industrial parks with better environmental safeguards, formalising a sector that handles a quarter of the country’s recycling.

“The current way of recycling in recycling villages... is not good to the environment at all.” AFP - more of this article (The Straits Times) - link - more like this (Vietnam) - link - more like this (health) - link

(GUF) BATTLE FOR THE BOTTLES

(Inspiration - Man Ray - linklink)

The next battle in the recycling world isn't going to be about collecting the bottles – it's going to be about who gets them afterwards.

Deposit Return Schemes were designed to answer the return issue. Consumers pay a small deposit when purchasing a drink, return the empty container and receive their money back. In theory, everybody wins; litter reduces, recycling rates increase and valuable materials are recovered for reuse, hoorah.

For decades, this has been the holy grail of beverage recycling but what happens when we actually succeed? What happens when the bottles come back, because the next challenge may not be collecting them at all, instead, it will be deciding who controls them once they're returned.

DRS Creates Something Very Valuable

The UK Deposit Return Scheme is expected to generate enormous volumes of highly segregated material and to quote Depeche Mode, 'everything counts in large amounts'. Being specific, were not talking mixed plastics; not contaminated kerbside collections and not reject material from a Materials Recovery Facility.

Instead, DRS produces something far more valuable - clean PET bottles; clean HDPE containers, clean aluminium cans; all highly predictable material streams representing a consistent quality feedstock. In other words, exactly the type of material every recycler wants.

For years, the conversation around DRS has centred on recycling. Increasingly, particularly following the Government's decision to recognise chemically recycled content within Plastic Packaging Tax obligations, the conversation may need to shift. DRS is not simply creating recycling; it's creating one of the largest sources of clean, segregated plastic feedstock the UK has ever seen.

Most discussions about DRS quietly assume the same thing. The consumer returns bottle, the bottle gets recycled, the bottle becomes another bottle, job done, but there's a hidden assumption within that model. It assumes the traditional recycling industry will always be the preferred destination for that material, but what if that assumption is wrong?

Enter government endorsed chemical recycling - a process marketed as the solution for plastics that conventional recycling struggles to handle including flexible films (in scope - Simpler Recycling in March 2027), laminated packaging, mixed plastics, contaminated plastics, basically, the difficult stuff.

Chemical recyclers face the same challenge as every industrial process: feedstock quality matters a lot which raises an obvious conclusion - if a chemical recycling facility has access to millions of tonnes of clean, sorted PET and HDPE generated through DRS, why would it ignore them? Why would it deliberately choose lower-quality, contaminated materials when higher-quality material is readily available?

The Petrochemical Industry Twist

The waste industry often discusses chemical recycling as though it is simply another recycling technology but what if it evolves into something else entirely? What if chemical recycling becomes the next branch of the petrochemical industry? After all, plastic is fundamentally a hydrocarbon.

Chemical recycling seeks to convert plastic back into hydrocarbon feedstocks capable of becoming new plastic products and viewed through that lens, a returned PET bottle is no longer waste, it's a raw material, a resource, a feedstock and feedstocks attract competition.

Who Controls The Bottles?

Imagine a future where DRS return rates exceed 90%. Billions of containers are returned every year. The material is clean, consistent and has value which means suddenly multiple sectors are interested.

• Traditional recyclers want it.
• Bottle manufacturers want it.
• Supermarkets interested in closed loop packaging may want it.
• Environmentally aware brands may want it.
• Chemical recyclers will definitely want it.
• Petrochemical companies will want it.

At that point the question is no longer can we collect the bottles; the question becomes who gets them?

DRS As A Feedstock Harvesting System

The first generation of recycling policy focused on collection. The second generation focused on recovery. The third generation will without doubt focus on ownership and viewed like that, DRS begins to look less like a recycling scheme and more like a sophisticated feedstock harvesting system. More like this (DRS) - link - more like this (chemical recycling) - link - more like this (oil industry) - link

(MOJ) POTOMAC - AMERICA'S MOST ENDANGERED

Pipes divert raw sewage into the C&O Canal around a broken section of the Potomac Interceptor on Feb. 16 in Cabin John, Md.Chip Somodevilla/Getty via Inside Climate News

The warning signs were years in the making. And yet, regulators failed to heed the writing on the wall, according to Dean Naujoks.

An investigator with the Potomac Riverkeeper Network, Naujoks spent three years documenting what he calls a systemic failure that culminated in dual environmental catastrophes now threatening the health of the entire Potomac River system, which is already stressed.

In January, a 60-year-old sewer pipe known as the Potomac Interceptor, running along the Maryland shoreline of the Potomac, collapsed near the Clara Barton Parkway corridor in Montgomery County, releasing an estimated 243 million gallons of raw sewage into the river over approximately three weeks.

But even before that spill, another crisis had already begun to unfold elsewhere in the watershed. At Joint Base Andrews in Prince George’s County, a fuel system failure on Dec. 11 led to thousands of gallons of jet fuel entering the headwaters of Piscataway Creek, a tributary that feeds directly into the Potomac. The leak continued for months before state regulators were notified.

Stretching more than 400 miles, the Potomac River is a source of drinking water for more than 5 million people in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. In April, American Rivers, a conservation nonprofit, named it the most endangered river in the country, citing both the sewage spill and the rapid expansion of data centers.
Piscataway Creek, an 18.6-mile tributary of the Potomac, begins at the edge of Joint Base Andrews and slips back into the Potomac at Fort Washington Park. Its name derives from the indigenous Piscataway people, who’ve stewarded these waters for thousands of years and maintain a living relationship with the creek and the river to this day.

Naujoks believes neither crisis happened in a vacuum.

He first began tracking contamination in Piscataway Creek around 2022, after reports emerged of tainted fish. A researcher named Pat Elder, Naujoks said, who worked for an organization called Military Poisons, which investigates PFAS contamination at military bases across the country, initially raised the alarm.

More of this article (Mother Jones) - link - more articles by the brilliant Aman Azhar - link - more like this (PFAS) - link - more like this (sewage) - link