Future Trend #5: Marine litter science is the equivalent of Mars exploration for the recycling & waste management industry

Many people were surprised by the recent NASA announcement that evidence was found for summertime water flows on Mars. Well, this is something that could change completely our perception regarding other planets. “Mars is not the dry, arid planet that we thought of in the past,” said Nasa’s Jim Green. 

I believe that marine litter science is a similar case - the findings that are already here and much more the ones that will come will change our perception for the plastics and they will create innovation waves that will reshape recycling and waste management. Well, maybe not so drastically as billionaire Elon Musk has spelled out that he wants to change Mars (he plans to create temporary suns over Mars in order to heat the Red Planet) but probably with a more concrete way.  

Marine litter will be a key-issue for waste management for the next 2-3 decades. The facts are shocking. According the recent study "Threat of plastic pollution toseabirds is global, pervasive, and increasing", 80 of 135 (59%) species with studies reported in the literature between 1962 and 2012 had ingested plastic, and, within those studies, on average 29% of individuals had plastic in their gut. Currently, the annual losses of sea birds, turtles and fishes related to the plastic pollution are estimated to be more than 1.5 million deaths per year and according to Laurence Maurice from the French Institute of Research for Development, the problem is likely to worsen.

Just imagine that we are speaking for concentrations that reach 580,000 pieces per km2 and the plastic production is increasing exponentially. So it is not a surprise at all, when it is forecasted that the increasing plastics ingestion in seabirds will reach 99% of all species by 2050!   

Together with climate change, marine litter and ocean garbage gyres prove that no matter if we understand it or no, local waste management practices create global impacts and that there is a need for global coordination in order to manage such global impacts.

Marine litter is also a certain signal for the limits of our societies, the technological, social and ecological ones. Marine litter is straight forward associated with ecosystem’s damages by plastic pollution and demonstrates the tangible and measurable impacts of our collective inertia to face the global waste management challenge.

I have gone through two recent research papers that demonstrate the long-term impacts related to plastic pollution and marine litter.

The first one (Global warming releasesmicroplastic legacy frozen in Arctic Sea ice) indicates that microplastics have accumulated far from population centers and that polar sea ice represents a major historic global sink of man-made particulates. The study suggests “the potential for substantial quantities of legacy microplastic contamination to be released to the ocean as the ice melts therefore needs to be evaluated, as do the physical and toxicological effects of plastics on marine life”.

In the second one (An anthropogenic markerhorizon in the future rock record),  researchers from Hawai have reported “…the appearance of a new “stone” formed through inter- mingling of melted plastic, beach sediment, basaltic lava fragments, and organic debris from Kamilo Beach on the island of Hawaii. The material, herein referred to as “plastiglomerate,” is divided into in situ and clastic types that were distributed over all areas of the beach. Agglutination of natural sediments to melted plastic during campfire burning has increased the overall density of plastiglomerate, which inhibits transport by wind or water, thereby increasing the potential for burial and subsequent preservation. Our results indicate that this anthropogenically-influenced material has great potential to form a marker horizon of human pollution, signaling the occurrence of the informal Anthropocene epoch.”

Well, obviously the case of marine litter represents a huge global and local challenge for the international stakeholders, the governments and the industry. The solutions required have just started to be discussed publicly and some pilots have started to be tested. For sure, the solutions required will need changes in the whole life cycle of plastic products and not just in the way they are managed when they are considered as “waste”.

But let’s focus on the other side of the moon. The case of marine litter highlights some new opportunities, as much as it reveals global long-term threats. I am not hoping for a megatsunami, like the one that 73,000 years ago was created by a large flank from the volcanic island Fogo in the Cape Verde islands, off the coast of Africa, that fell into the ocean and triggered a tsunami that moved mountains.

Let’s start with the obvious. Marine litter impacts (much more than climate change) are relatively easily understood and visualized, so I bet that there will be many communication campaigns, especially the ones related to plastic recycling, that will use the case of marine litter as a powerful communication “bridge” too, for broad audiences.  So, yes, what I mean is that marine litter opens the opportunity to influence much broader audiences and create global awareness about the waste management and the recycling challenge.

The huge impacts of plastic pollution, which have just started to be understood through the case of marine litter, create the dynamics to discuss about the necessity to reduce plastics from the waste streams and to identify appropriate final treatment techniques when they can’t be recycled, for one or another reason.  Even better, we have to use the case of marine litter to promote the discussion for a plastic waste – free society, where many products should be redesigned in order to reduce or eliminate plastics and substitute them with more ecologically friendly materials. 

Obviously, the big challenge is to create an appropriate systemic integration between supply chains - consumption and post consumption management of plastics and the emerging Internet of Everything with the possibility to develop digital passports is certainly a hope. 

I do hope that we will also have a lot of technical innovation related to the management of post-consumer plastics – some new patents have already attracted my attention like production of ethanol from single stream plastic recycling or preparation of high calorific value fuel from end of life plastics. But this is just the beginning, because the global magnitude of the problem has attracted the attention of the big donors that are pulling gradually a lot of money to the relevant research. Many local social innovation programs have also started and if they become mainstream, sooner or later the problem will become much more manageable than it is today.

Thus, I am waiting a lot of innovation in several sectors, like:

Plastic recycling

End of pipe solutions

Material innovation and substitutes

Manufacturing innovation

Design Innovation

Will this wave of innovation be enough to resolve the problem of marine litter? No one knows, but it is worthy to try…

The future of waste management as seen from Mars: the context

Well, sometimes I wish to travel with NASA's Curiosity, this magnificent spacecraft that has already provided us with many unique pictures and insights from Mars (some recent can be seen here). And I wish to be there just to see our blue planet from a distance and try to imagine, from such a time and space distance, the future of our planet and of course, the future of waste management. Some of you already know that I like to think a lot about the future, in many different ways.

My article on the future of waste management around 2030 has been a huge success, with hundreds of thousands readers. I guess this is time to rethink on that specific subject and this is not only by ...Curiosity. This is also because our world is changing much faster than we are able to adapt to the changes, faster even than McLaren 650S, this great piece of science and technique advances, which is going to be replaced in 2018.

Although it is very difficult to identify future trends with a relative certainty (as Niels Bohr put it “prediction is very difficult especially about the future”), there are certain ways that are helpful in order to outline the key-trends. First of all, the future of waste management should be studied in the context of the future trends of our world. Waste management is an integral part of our day to day life and the major shifts that affect people’s daily lives, in one or another way, affect behaviours, technologies, logistics and finally waste management arrangements too.

Listening to industry experts is a certain way to understand some future trends, especially the ones that are more close to industrial innovation activities. Industry experts are familiar with the major problems that they face to their day-to-day activities and they create the conceptual basis for the future improvements required, although this is usually done through continuous optimization procedures rather than radical shifts. Studying the evolution of research topics and activities, talking with researchers and following the most important scientific publications is another key-element to identify issues related to the future of waste management. A sensitive and careful analysis of the major research priorities and trends creates a good picture of “what’s next”. 

So, in my next blogs, I will present the major trends that I believe they will reshape the future of waste management and recycling industry. But let's start from the general global context.

We are living in an era of rapid technological growth that generates game-changers like drones, driverless cars, sensors for everything, big data systems, the web of machines and interconnected things etc. There is a growing literature that characterizes our era as the most transformative period of modern history. 

Information technology is entering the big data era. Process power and data storage are becoming almost free; networks and the cloud will provide global access and pervasive services; social media and cyber-security will be large new markets. This growth and diffusion will present significant challenges for governments and societies, which must find ways to capture the benefits of new IT technologies while dealing with the new threats that those technologies present. Fear of the growth of an Orwellian surveillance state may lead citizens particularly in the developed world to pressure their governments to restrict or dismantle big data systems. But the technological progress runs faster than Usain Bolt. As an example, see the recent Obama's call for 1 Exaflop super computer in next decade.

New manufacturing and automation technologies such as additive manufacturing (3D printing) and robotics have the potential to change work patterns in both the developing and developed worlds. In developed countries these technologies will improve productivity, address labor constraints, and diminish the need for outsourcing, especially if reducing the length of supply chains brings clear benefits. Nevertheless, such technologies could still have
a similar effect as outsourcing: they could make more low- and semi-skilled manufacturing workers
in developed economies redundant, exacerbating domestic inequalities. For developing economies, particularly Asian ones, the new technologies will stimulate new manufacturing capabilities and further increase the competitiveness of Asian manufacturers and suppliers.

Breakthroughs, especially for technologies pertaining to the security of vital resources—will be necessary to meet the food, water, and energy needs of the world’s population. Key technologies likely to be at the forefront of maintaining such resources
in the next 15-20 years will include genetically modified crops, precision agriculture, water irrigation techniques, solar energy, advanced bio-based fuels, and enhanced oil and natural gas extraction via fracturing. Given the vulnerabilities of developing economies to key resource supplies and prices and the early impacts of climate change, key developing countries may realize substantial rewards in commercializing many next-generation resource technologies first.

New health technologies will continue to extend the average age of populations around the world, by ameliorating debilitating 
physical and mental conditions and improving overall wellbeing. A recent example considers the world's first braille smartwatch that allows blind people to read i-phone messages. The greatest gains in healthy longevity
are likely to occur in those countries with developing economies as the size of their middle class populations swells. The health-care systems in these countries may be poor today, but by 2030 they will make substantial progress in the longevity potential of their populations; by 2030 many leading centers of innovation in disease management will be in the developing world.

So there is a major question: will technological breakthroughs be developed in time to boost economic productivity and solve the problems caused by a growing world population, rapid urbanization, and climate change?

The answer to this question depends a lot on (global, national and local) governance patterns and their evolution. During the next 15-20 years, as power becomes even more diffuse than today, a growing number of diverse state and non-state actors, as well as subnational actors, such as cities, will play important governance roles. The increasing number of players needed to solve major transnational challenges—and their discordant values—will complicate decision-making. Prospects for achieving progress on global issues will vary across issues. The governance gap will continue to be most pronounced at the domestic level and driven by
rapid political and social changes. The advances
during the past couple decades in health, education, and income—which are expected to continue, if not accelerated in some cases—will drive new governance structures. 

The widespread use of new communications technologies will become a double-edged sword for governance. On the one hand, social networking will enable citizens to coalesce and challenge governments. On the other hand, such technologies will provide governments an unprecedented ability to monitor their citizens. It is unclear how the balance will be struck between greater IT-enabled individuals and networks and traditional political structures.  And although the debate regarding the moral aspects of this revolution is going to be much stronger and substantial, as it is the case now in India, with the block of porn sites, the pace of change will continue to accelerate. 

The current, largely Western dominance of global structures such as the UN Security Council, World Bank, and IMF probably will have been transformed by 2030 to be more in line with the changing hierarchy of new economic players. Many second-tier emerging powers will be making their mark—at least as emerging regional leaders.

So another major question is will governments and institutions be able to adapt fast enough to utilize the change instead of being overwhelmed by it?

 Well, the answers to those questions will certainly determine the future of waste management too - but we will dig deeper later on that.