Word: plasticizers
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...film, many a desert-island castaway has put a message in a bottle and cast it out to sea, hoping it would someday reach land. Sorry, all you modern-day Robinson Crusoes, try that with a plastic bottle in real life, and your message will probably end up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, bobbing in a floating collection of trash known as the Plastic Vortex. It's an accumulation of plastic debris swept into the Pacific - whether directly from beaches or flowing out of rivers - and carried by equatorial currents into a swirling pattern to one spot between...
...Plastic bags, plastic bottles, plastic toys - even last year's Crocs - end up in the shifting vortex, which some scientists estimate to be twice the size of Texas. And as plastic use increases, especially in rapidly growing developing nations on the western end of the Pacific, that vortex will continue to grow. "It's huge," notes Doug Woodring, an entrepreneur and ocean conservationist in Hong Kong. But "unfortunately the ocean is a big place, and once it's out of sight, it's out of mind." (See TIME's photos: Fragile Planet...
Admission is eventually granted, and amid the hanging plastic carrier bags and dim lighting, the shop owner unhooks a large basket from the ceiling. She proceeds to reveal two Chanel clutches and a Hermes bag. San Remo buildings are simple in style, but something suggests that this shop is more than just an unpretentious guise. The owner pulls more and more high-end designer bags out of the cheaper merchandise, each item indistinguishable from genuine upmarket products. She claims that most of the bags are simply very good quality fakes, but admits that a couple may have...
...trash is sorted into 18 categories, which range from burnable waste, to metallic trash, to used tempura oil. City residents divide up their own waste and deliver it to nearby collection stations on designated days. This means that every second Thursday of the month, my host parents transport their plastic waste to the collection site near city hall – except, of course, on the second Thursday of an even-numbered month, during which plastic bottles, and not common plastics, are collected. Before they do this, however, they must drive to the nearby supermarket to purchase city-approved trash...
...Japan, these stringent regulations have also managed to reshape many residents’ views about trash and wastefulness. When doing groceries, my host mother seeks products with minimal wrapping—hoping to avoid the hassle of having sort through these later. My host siblings diligently wash out their plastic soda bottles before dumping them in the appropriate bin; they now tend to opt for milk when thirsty—it’s easier to dispose...