The environmental charity Georgian Bay Forever (GBF) is inviting the public to its Tackling Plastic Pollution webinar series, which begins today.
The series includes 3 one-hour webinars focused to raising awareness about the abundance of plastic litter entering our local and global waterways and providing ways for all of us to help reduce its build-up in the environment.
Each webinar will end with alternatives you can implement in your life and descriptions of programs Georgian Bay Forever has put in place to combat each issue.
The first event will take place at noon today.
The Effects of Wearing Plastic: Wednesday July 7th at 12 pm
The 2020 Preferred Fiber and Materials Market Report reveals that global fiber production has doubled in the last 20 years. It reached a record amount of 111 million metric tons of fiber produced in 2019. Globally dominating the fiber industry are synthetic polyester, spun polyester fibers that are essentially plastic. In this first webinar, we will explore synthetic, natural, and semi-synthetic fibers and their impacts on environmental and human health. We will also speak about the Divert and Capture project headed by GBF to capture fibres in your washing machine, and some tips you can do to reduce fiber pollution.
Is Recycling Plastic Working? Thursday July 29th at 12 pm
Since mass-production began in the early 1900s, the use of plastic has spread to different fields from medicine to electronic manufacturers to restaurant chains. In Canada, domestic demand for plastic is about 4,667 kilotonnes annually, while on a national basis only about 9% of plastic thrown out ends up getting recycled. This can’t go on. What can be done about it? In 2018, the Canadian government joined the Ocean Plastics Charter that is working with businesses, international organizations, and other countries to ensure plastics are designed for reuse and recycling. How can we get there? This second installment will focus on the types of recyclable plastics, on the different recycling
processes, the status of recycling with a focus to Ontario, and what is needed to be done to drastically change how much plastic goes to harder-to-find landfills and litters the environment. We will also be going over strategies you can use to support initiatives around more sustainable approaches to plastic production, use, and management.
Plastic Waters: Thursday August 26th at 12 pm
The final webinar of Tackling Plastic Pollution webinar series will focus on the impact of plastics once they reach the open environment, specifically waterways. 29 kilotonnes of plastic waste is estimated to be littered into the Canadian environment annually. An astonishing 10 million kilograms of plastic are estimated to enter the Great Lakes [Hoffman, et.al]. How does it get there? Where does it go? What are its effects on local organisms? This webinar will cover those questions and will conclude with how GBF’s Diversion 2.0 program aims to trap some of that litter, and quantify it, so that the data can inform policy makers to stop plastic pollution at its sources.
Register for 1 or all 3, please click here.