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Thanks for visiting. I made Plastic (solutions) looking for hope. It can be overwhelming, and more than a little depressing, to think about the damage caused to all life and the Planet through over production, over consumption and waste. It is important to retain a sense of hope. My art practice is focused on using waste, increasingly on using plastic waste. After time spent researching the multitude of negatives around plastic I needed to find the hope and so started to research good news stories instead. Here are a few of those I have looked at - solutions for better recycling systems, innovative clean ups, alternative plastics which aren't made from fossil fuels and chemicals, and more.

Feel free to comment on the posts, or contact me with more that you think should be added - info@rachaelbarns.art

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Artist and art student based in Norwich, UK. My current work mainly combines textiles, sculpture and text. I aim to work sustainably by limiting myself predominantly to the use of materials I already have, can source second hand or which would otherwise be discarded. Working from home I constrain myself to methods which can be carried out from my dining table or my sofa. My work has been described as riotous, playful and curious. I aim to produce work that I enjoy and hope others can find some enjoyment in it too.

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An international collective of artists, designers, and architects dedicated to intercepting plastic pollution. With less than 9% of global plastic currently recycled, we transform debris into innovative works of art—effectively sequestering material that would otherwise face landfill, incineration, or oceanic drift.

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Our Mission

Project Vortex is an international collective of artists, designers and architects actively focusing on the global problem of plastic pollution through our work. Operating at the intersection of art and science, we strive to inspire people to rethink and reinvent plastic debris through innovation, creative stewardship, and education. We aim to improve global understanding of the impacts of plastic pollution and to assist in the development of initiatives to restrict the flow of plastic debris to our oceans.

EDUCATION

Education has the unique potential to shift current trajectories in terms of our global plastic debris problem. With less than 10% of plastics created to date having been recycled, it is clear that recycling is not the primary solution to this problem. It is time to educate people around the globe on this timely, growing shared toxic waste problem. Click the link below to see various lesson plans and resources to help educators. Collective members often assist with implementation, or give talks and lectures on various aspects of creative stewardship and related initiatives.

THE COLLECTIVE

The cultural/environmental work we are engaged in supports all life on earth, ranging from plankton to people. Considering that scientists have identified alarming quantities of toxic micro-plastics in both bottled and tap water world wide, we ask you to consider supporting us so that we can continue to do this timely work. In addition to offering educational resources to approach this topic through a visually inspired lens, we also offer select works for sale through Project Vortex from which we donate a minimum of 50% of proceeds to related clean up and conservation organizations.

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Project Vortex is an international collective of artists, designers and architects actively focusing on the global problem of plastic pollution through our work. Operating at the intersection of art and science, we strive to inspire people to rethink and reinvent plastic debris through innovation, creative stewardship, and education.

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My favourite plastics artist! Her work and environmental action are inspirational. Also founder of Project Vortex.

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Environmental artist based in NY working predominantly with plastic debris.

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Wastesmiths CIC (including Precious Plastics East)

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Wastesmiths CIC (including Precious Plastics East)

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Wastesmiths is a Norwich based community interest company who hate human waste ending up in the environment. Wastesmith’s is a creative community with approaches to tackling human waste which are innovative and wide ranging, running projects that focus on plastic, clothing and growing natural resources for arts and crafts.

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The largest alternative plastic recycling system, run by a global community. There are around 1,000 groups with over 80,000 members globally, all working on small scale, open source, community based plastic recycling.

Our local (to Norwich) group Precious Plastics East is part of Wastesmiths CIC

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Say hi to the Precious Plastic Universe, the alternative plastic recycling system.

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Groceries, cleaning products and toiletries without the plastic. Ernie's has a large range of items that can be bought in store or ordered online for click and collect, local and cross UK delivery.

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Ernie’s Zero Waste Shop is an independent Plastic Free shop selling vegan products without the plastic! Make the switch today and help prevent plastic pollution!

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Plastic has become the basis of our modern lives. And yet the waste it creates causes lots of trouble. Will we be able to develop a healthy relationship to this material we’ve created? Follow me on a journey into the world of synthetic polymers, their impacts on nature and ourselves, and the global quest to tackle plastic pollution. Listen to the Plastisphere podcast:

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Plastics Recycling With Enzymes Takes a Leap Forward - CleanTechnica

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Support CleanTechnica’s work through a Substack subscription or on Stripe. Key Process Improvements Save Energy and Cut Costs for Recycling Polyester With Enzymes A successful collaboration involving a trio of research institutions has yielded a road map toward an economically viable process for using enzymes to recycle plastics. The researchers, from ... [continued]

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Engineered algae may help solve the microplastics problem

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Scientists have developed algae capable of removing microplastics from water and converting them into reusable bioplastic.

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Tackling Plastic Pollution With A Hemp-Based Alternative

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This week’s Current Climate newsletter also looks at a Korean solar billionaire and The Ocean Cleanup’s Boyan Slat on trash interceptors and Great Pacific Garbage Patch

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In 2019, my scientific research was nearly brought to an early end when my team and I published the bombastic statement that natural forest restoration was the "best climate change solution" available in a paper for the peer-reviewed journal Science.

I remember a colleague from the World Wildlife Fund advising me that this message represented career suicide. He argued that people would be furious because reducing greenhouse gas emissions was the most urgent priority. The revival of nature might help with 30% of our carbon drawdown needs, but you cannot stop rising temperatures without cutting emissions.

I agreed both then and now. However, I explained that when we referred to the "best" solution, we didn't simply mean the one with the largest impact in terms of CO2; we meant the best option for improving the livelihoods and wellbeing of people, too. And that, as we shall see, plays a crucial role in magnifying the beneficial effect.

Many people believe the scale of the climate challenge calls for immense technological innovation, geoengineering, or the transformation of our economy. But with these solutions there are often painful trade-offs. Almost every technological or geoengineering fix you can imagine comes at the expense of something else.

Stratospheric aerosol injection is one example. Creating clouds of reflective particles could block the sun and cool the land below. But alterations in sunlight and rainfall patterns could disrupt the growth of the crops we depend on for food. Similarly, direct air carbon capture has incredible potential to remove C02, but the huge financial and energy costs currently stand in the way of deploying it at the scale we need.

There is one set of solutions, however, that present no trade-off at all when they are done right. The restoration of natural habitats like forests is an exception in our climate toolkit because it draws on the same network of connections that allowed life to flourish in the first place.

The resilience of the natural world comes from ancient, underappreciated forces known as feedback loops. A positive feedback loop occurs when the outcome of a process has an effect that amplifies the process itself. You can see these patterns all the time in different aspects of life: for example whenever your anxiety about sleeping makes it harder to drift off.

Around 3.8bn to 4.2bn years ago, feedback loops allowed life to spread on an otherwise toxic and uninhabitable planet: Earth. As life gained a foothold, it began to transform the environment, making it hospitable to more life. Species emerged that generated opportunities for even more species. This self-reinforcing process created the Eden that allowed our own species to thrive, as well as providing every ounce of food, oxygen, timber, medicine and fuel we have ever needed.

But as we are all aware, the success of our species has initiated new feedback loops. The exploitation of natural resources by human beings has allowed population growth that has driven even more exploitation, which has warmed the planet, causing carbon to be released from the soil, driving more warming. As forests dry out, they are able to store less moisture, which causes more drying. Many loops such as this are now in motion, threatening to tip our planet into an entirely new state.

If we can work with nature's feedback loops rather than distorting them, we can reap the benefits of their self-sustaining momentum

But just as feedback loops can cause damage, they can be harnessed as a pathway to recovery. They are not objectively good or bad: they are simply agents of change. If we can work with nature's feedback loops rather than distorting them, we can reap the benefits of their self-sustaining momentum.

In Argentina's Iberá national park, you can see a stunning example of runaway revival. After decades of degradation, the reintroduction of jaguars has reduced bloated herds of grazing herbivores, allowing wetland plants to recover. The plants' roots trap moisture in the soil, and their branches provide a habitat for species that make this one of the most spectacular wetlands - and carbon sinks - on the planet. After just a few years, caimans now bask on the banks, macaws flash scarlet across the sky and giant otters patrol the waterways.

Of course, nature-based solutions are not always so successful. Companies have created vast carbon farms via monocultural tree planting, destroying native species in the process. The drying of peatlands to reduce methane production leads to the release of huge amounts of CO2. Nature's power lies in its complexity, so attempting to simplify or reengineer the system often backfires.

The risks and trade-offs tend to disappear, though, when you get one vital part of the equation right. Time and again, when the revival of local biodiversity improves the livelihoods and wellbeing of local people, change becomes truly sustainable. Whenever people are intrinsically motivated to protect the environment around them, they become an integrated part of a natural feedback loop that can quickly gather momentum.

In the Iberá wetlands example, ecotourism became the engine of a new "restoration economy" employing rangers, chefs, hosts, wildlife trackers and guides. There are hundreds of such examples around the world: in Saseri, northern India, strategic soil management and tree restoration is trapping water to improve the yields of more than 1,200 farmers. A thousand kilometres to the south-west, in Gujarat, Indigenous women are restoring mangroves to protect 12 coastal villages from erosion while simultaneously improving the productivity of fisheries, crops and livestock.

What these and countless other projects illustrate is that we do not need remarkable innovation or great sacrifice to move things forward. We just need to allow a tiny fraction of our collective attention and wealth (perhaps less than 1% of global GDP) to flow towards these rural land stewards, supporting their ongoing efforts. Cumulatively, they result in hundreds of millions of tons of C02 captured - but that is only the beginning of their potential impact.

The more degraded nature becomes, the more desperately we need it. When nature starts to bounce back, it doesn't only provide livelihoods, food security and carbon storage; it revives the hope, joy and inspiration that our species so desperately needs at this critical moment in time. Though they might seem beside the point, these emotional reactions are the lifeblood of nature restoration, with the potential to generate their own feedback loops, far into the future.

Prof Thomas Crowther is an ecologist and author of Nature's Echo (Torva). He is Founder of Restor.eco, a non-profit platform for nature restoration sites

Further reading

Just Earth: How a Fairer World Will Save the Planet by Tony Juniper (Bloomsbury, £10.99)

A Climate of Truth by Mike Berners-Lee (Cambridge University Press, £14.99)

Wilding by Isabella Tree (Picador, £10.99)

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Could nature itself hold the solution to climate change?

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Technological interventions face huge financial or practical challenges. Why not embrace the Earth's feedback loops?

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Biomimetic Societal Futures - University of Huddersfield

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The Centre for Biomimetic Societal Futures is a new and exciting research centre within the University of Huddersfield (led by Huddersfield Business School.

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Norfolk Beach Cleans was founded by Emma Sturman in January 2021. The group was created to encourage the local community to get involved in looking after the environment with litter picking activities, predominantly on the beach.

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Let’s Free Where We Live From Single Use!

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WRAP - The Waste and Resources Action Programme

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The UK Plastics Pact. The first in a network of global Plastics Pacts tackling plastic pollution.

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The scientists turning recycled ocean plastic waste into roads

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A team of scientists from Hawaii have been testing out making roads from recycled ocean plastic

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This common plant could clean microplastics from your drinking water

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Scientists have discovered that moringa seeds can help pull microplastics out of water, rivaling standard chemical treatments. The plant-based extract causes plastic particles to clump together, making them easier to filter away. In some conditions, it even outperformed conventional chemicals. This low-cost, natural solution could be a game-changer for cleaner drinking water, especially in smaller communities.

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The word ‘sustainability’ seems to be everywhere these days, but what does it actually mean in the context of a developing artistic career?

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Environmental Artists Transform Ocean Waste Into Powerful Art

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Raphaella Spence (U.K.), Pam Longobardi (U.S.A.), Veronika Richterová (Czech Republic) and Cindy Pease Roe (U.S.A.) are four influential female environmental artists who deserve greater recognition for their works on ocean waste.

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Book, podcast, website - hope

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Research paper for this story Solar-driven conversions of plastic waste to valuable chemicals with green hydrogen production - ScienceDirect

Other similar research Solar reforming of plastics using acid-catalyzed depolymerization: Joule

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Young inventor plans to stop 90% of floating sea plastic by 2040

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In an era of climate anxiety, a Dutch nonprofit is developing river-based technology that could dramatically cut ocean plastic within decades

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Irish student wins award for biodegradable plastic

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An 18-year-old student from Ireland has been named as the European winner of a global environmental sustainability competition.

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This 2019 essay isn't about plastic, and it also isn't full of hope for humankind. It isn't an easy or jolly read. However, it offers reasons to maintain hope and ways to do so.

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Found text from the articles within this padlet is embroidered on the hoop.