tv Reimagining Plastic Al Jazeera December 14, 2019 8:32am-9:01am +03
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protesters have rejected the result of algeria as presidential election which was won by a former prime minister many. to whom as part of a long ruling corrupt establishment. for humanitarian workers have been executed after being kidnapped by an armed group in northeastern nigeria according to a french aid agency they were in a group of 6 people abducted in july near the town of dumb aside where armed fighters including book ahau operate. the un has accused chile of seriously violating the human rights of i'm told government protesters investigators have detailed what they say are unlawful killings as well as torture sexual abuse and excessive force they're urging the government to end the indiscriminate use of lead pellets and tear gas those are the headlines the news continues here on al-jazeera thrice life enough to. counter the cost of i.m.f. low tax cuts for big businesses but the stairs he for the poor is just
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a perfect cocktail for street protests speak to the vice president of ecuador plus kenya's cash crunch the competition lining up to take netflix is. counting the cost on al-jazeera. the explosion of plastic waste across the world threatens the very survival of the light on our planet. every year up to $12000000.00 metric tons of plastic and oceans. from poisoning marine life to littering landscapes and cloaking waterways plastic waste and the environment is set to trickle in the next decades the problem is so vast it can seem overwhelming by reimagining this waste as
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a result we can begin to redress the balance i'm tony kenya in cameroon where a young entrepreneur is turning the tide on plastic waste by building boats out of bottles and on the back of a cop in the u.k. well one company is tackling a really sticky plastic problem also making unique and sustainable products in the process. here in cameroon's economic capital while the scale of the country's plastic problem is painfully clear plastic waste is clogging up the streets and rivers of cameroon's major cities polluting waterways threatening marine ecosystems and making life especially difficult for local fishermen. it's estimated that across the city of tijuana $1300.00 tons of plastic waste is generated every day.
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so much of it is thrown into the city's rivers you can see any trace of water. i. have never seen anything like this before. i don't even know how you begin to fix a problem this big there's no doubt this is a major challenge for the city. but one local man has made it his mission to deal with it head on his name is mile is so many issues. i says it to me to most a region that is i mean it's quite a place to meet i must say so is this normal here in douala you know it's so sad when you have older brasseries that truly whereby people in the east we in the house or and then you have the reverse the water the order with these bridge and you have people. in the river and you can see the last about
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the poor among educators who how the money deal with so fortunately these numbers it's overwhelming to see this but you don't find it overwhelming why do you see this and think that this is something you want to take on for yourself i realize that all the reaver a form of plastics no one cares no one what is these and i was shocked to see that so i decided to do something and work. suborn is shooting people. by showing the way. began an initiative to curate the waste from all of the one as 10 choked rivers. he calls his company mike did buy and nature meaning water and nature in the local sour language. he recruits a team of 30 volunteers and today i'm giving them a helping hand. but it quickly becomes clear to me what
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a tough job this is. so we're standing on this board because much of this looks like a bit of plastic there's actually a river underneath it so it's not very stable. and. it's very hot and very humid here so when you have this amount of waste in the water of course if holes into the toes of other kinds of water borne diseases and there are people who live all around here so this is not just an environmental crisis it's a possible health crisis as well kind of serious about. the work you're doing here is amazing that there are so many bottles and it feels like this is just a dent and it's really only individuals like you who are taking it on there is no citywide plan or nationwide plan to tackle this enormous problem no days no stark rings to spend here in car on our bridges. or the problem or the priorities so.
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no one's care for the environment and this is the morse urgent problem so we need to train for this year in many ways. it doesn't just see all this plastic as waste he sees it as a valuable material and an opportunity to do good. he turns bottles into boats for the region's fishing community. and it all happens here inside his workshop. botolf. yes i want her prayers in my house here so i'm here with some of margaret and we probably wish more. ishmael's boats built using traditional techniques he taught you how to do. you know i'm from a fishing community and my dad and fisherman oh well so when i was young i was fishing with my dad this technology are just the plastic bottles so is that why this idea came to you yes because i'm afraid the river and you
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cannot gush because. it is full of glasses so i do hope not only to clean. but also. because this is not easy in the video just for someone to buy a simple board so now we. board that could be us so we have part of our seed done what's next you are restless yeah i'd love to try to do that. so we tie this up and not tear. not so bad you know larry it is a little scary to think that. what we're putting together someone's actually going to be sitting on out in the water so i feel a little bit of responsibility to not mess this up but i proud of my handy way back yard oh you got me it isn't so bad you do it. once he's built the frame
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ties it to the base. and then he adds in the seats. his build 37 boats to date given that it takes 650 bottles to build one that's over 24000 bottles removed from his rivers and put to good use. so how much does it cost to make a boat like this with materials or lover in u. . simple jugnu bordeaux's the rares is you have done. the both take just a few hours to go. and they're so in my 28 they easily transported to the ocean. it's a 3 hour drive to nearby creek. gives the boats to local fishermen. traditionally made fishing boats can be extremely expensive but even so when 1st
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started giving away his eco boats it was easier said than done these look very different to all of the local fishing boats that we see what was the reaction from the local community when you brought these here the 1st time 1st i thought they was a joke show they will never go in the world enough but when we went to the water boy universe it is walking and then they start to move to try to understand and try to stick to go fishing with bears one. of the real proof of course is in the floating let's go test it out it's got this is going to lead the way. it was a bumpy entry but this feels so much better it feels stable i don't feel unsafe in any way i feel really comfortable fishing in one of the.
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good old would. just. talk about. what a great idea and there's so many possibilities of what you can do in the future back in at the same time the enormous issue of plastic waste of cameras doing what an incredible young man but that was really fun. now we know the bow to see where the we're delivering it to the latest happy customer. i was going to test it out on a nearby lake. county was it. really this is the me the fisherman having a good to meet you what do you think of your new boat that has been a development. how do you think having this new boat is going to change things for you. because they need to. be pretty soon here. with you all of us would really appreciate the
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argument put out of office so maybe the accessibility and affordability of eco boats will be something that convinces people to give them a try where it's safe to do. so but you will. be. forced to leave soothingly and you also when you all. do want to try it out you know let's. see how it works. how do you feel about camille's reaction to his very own eco boat harbor to see that i can make someone's my so one gets home maybe he's going to show would be better maybe he could have more income to his family. since he started in 2016
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the growing success of his eco boat has inspired to do more. it's his ambition to clear up cameroon and that begins with the country's 1st bottle recycling scheme. how. this is the brain i cover it is made out of 255 plastic balls and it will collect 1000 bucks supporters so this. is a place where people can come and bring their plastic waste this is starving for an offer to try to do we really astonished saudi system of plastic wasting water so the idea of this eco been what you're trying to do here where do you think it can grow that we won our city be example in that regard we just apply in areas of all the corner in front of all the shore the supermarket the school so it won't be easy to carry the cup in with the side of all this so
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that's division where we want to go there but how the which there is not is. despite the challenges it has even bigger plans for the future by producing bottle made furniture and by educating the next generation. recognitions are really being . recalled. was a cause of the junk food. you got it your. it's a legacy to take care of environment secure our planet and to clean our cities. it's an inspiration to me that even in this global sea of plastic one person really can make a difference. for environmental campaigners the global issue of plastic waste is now so serious it
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has risen to the top of the agenda. they believe we must rethink our whole approach to the material the scale of the plastic problem is huge when it's over $300000000.00 tonnes a year plastic packaging itself is $78000000.00 tonnes a year 32 percent of that leaks out and environment some of the biggest producers of plastic packaging in the world produce $3000000.00 tonnes a year so with that one producer changes the way they make plastic that is a massive change globally the. even the biggest producer of plastic packaging in the world can't fix this on their own this is about everyone competitors alike organizing around a system that can be regenerative and restored. if you look at our current economy it's predominantly linear we take the material out of the ground we make something out of it and then the majority that material gets thrown away we have a growing world population we have more and more pressure on resources the system we have today cannot run in the long term we need to shift that economy to be one that uses materials rather than using them up. within
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a circular economy right from the beginning you build economy so you design out waste and pollution you keep products cycling within the economy for as long as possible and then you look at regenerating natural systems through the biological materials to feed into that economy so effectively the straight line turns into a circle. to build that circular economy for plastics you need to go right to the beginning of the system we need to redesign the way we think about plastics the way we design plastics and the way we use plastics so we need to eliminate the plastic that we don't need we need to innovate for different forms of plastic which are 100 percent recyclable and we need to look at how we circulate plastics designing a system whereby that material is collected has value and feeds back into the system the thing that motivates me the most about the future is there is a massive opportunity to redesign global economy if we redesign the economy so it's circular not only will we build an economy that can run in the long term but it will unlock trillions of u.s. dollars of economic opportunity and it will effectively decouple economic growth
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from resource constraints. plastic pollution is the hot topic in the world environmental issues and the damage that it causes is long lasting and wide ranging but whilst there is a growing consciousness of the problems that plastic caused and you might even be doing things yourself to solve it there is one problem that is. be hiding in plain sight. every year week you always get your 374 trillion pieces and. what you might not know is that chewing gum is usage to be chewing this piece of plastic. bottles chewing gums and bubble gum from oil. in fact gum is a very similar material to latex bicycle in a cheap. and every year we trucked away $100000.00 tons of it globally much of it
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straight on to the federal. government is 2nd only to cigarettes as the world's most listed items. across the globe we spend $25000000000.00 every year. and demand is predicted to rise to $48000000000.00 in 2025. it is estimated that 92 percent of pavements in london have chilling gum stuck on with 300000 pieces estimated to be on oxford street and. it's up to a small army of workers to clear the one. i'm 70 miles southwest of london in winchester to find out what damage can do. and how do you counsel john warneke is in charge of keeping the city streets clean. how much of a problem is common when just they estimate that every year councils in britain or
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spending more than $60000000.00 pounds a year just clearing up go bust and say take me back that's a huge figure and i want. to well than just being spanked collecting all the waste off the full. of course is really only one way to get a true flavor of the gum problem on our streets. thanks very much counts to operations manager darren though it is often. show me the right. back yeah i'm going to wrangle me right i see that right that way yeah you go i want to yeah yeah it's very much like. the coming out to. be quite satisfying job to be honest but. children such tough loss of respect for the guys doing so it's hard to. know.
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what it's come is for me it usually ends up in a landfill. as a plastic gum isn't biodegradable and never decompose. but i've heard about an ingenious new initiative that's not only keeping the sticky stuff off the pavements but turning it into something useful. coffee cups i think the most impressive thing about them they're actually made out the recycled chewing gum him never knew you could reach that one but here you have it. it's quite impressive isn't it yeah i think and seriously doesn't want it so when they 1st came out and what were your cool i thought it was a bit of a joke to be honest i just couldn't believe that this could be made out of people just makes you think oh that's so on which i mean it's disgusting but that when you realise that's been true of heating prices it's completely down a tree it's just really inspiring what can be done with chewing. the cups and made from
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a base material. here when just to university the room terry was for the cops a collective will of the campus and distinctive bright pink bins. that cooled gum drops and inspiring idea from designer and the bullets. i must be honest highness me high and i sweet tea so these must be your pens tell me a bit about them yet these are the gumdrop pins that they all been specifically for the despise. and the idea is that somebody can come along they use chewing gum and then once it's full whole thing comes back to us and we recycle it and we can actually recycle 3 new gum drops out of one. it's based on a closed loop recycling process ok so why go all the solutions out there at the moment all address communists once it's already been dropped there is nothing out there that is actually addressing it from the front and so i saw a gaffe in the market for a product like this and also way of tackling behavioral change when it comes to
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governing and giving people as opposed to place to spaces that change so how does gum end up in a coffee cup. and it has offered to show me the prices in action at the gumdrop factory in worcester. so once we get the full gumdrop bins that goes through the 1st part of the process which actually size reduces it ok so you can actually see the comfort when it's been crushed up you see all the other list is that are in there along with chewed chewing gum chewing gum cupcakes. and then goes through the 2nd stage which separates the gum drop in the chewed gum and the other ways we then take this thing yeah we've been mix it with recycled materials which get heated in compound and. which go on forever she may then when you come to bed early i will start again.
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become tech material can be molded into a whole range of products. not just cups that station key rings boots and shoes. or a little then he says some of the products that we have at the moment ok. to the gum she sassed this is actually really fun projects we had it was done in collaboration with the council. in answer i want to highlight the amount of the minister of such on the streets and abstract sale see the so here is actually a map of the street that we looked at. the gumdrop story continues to grow. there now some 650 come drop locations across the u.k. from train stations and city centers to airports and schools and with new interest in europe and the usa and has global ambitions for the company and its ethos.
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working more publicly is definitely something that we want to do because that will save broaden the the awareness and the message around behavioral change and but we can actually do with with the recycle change. at the university of winchester where the gumdrop charles began were they employed a scheme designed to do more than just keep going off our streets. as well as installing the gum drops they also gave away the 10000 reusable gum based. scheme inspired a paradigm shift to waste. environment. it was behind introducing gumdrop to the campus. so how much of an effect have these cops had on the sale of plastic and general kind of copy companies today we have saved 85000 disposable cops from being used there are now 10000 of these cops in circulation
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and we have just committed to eliminating single use plastic spike 2022 so the cops are really good stuff in the right direction and i think it has really captured people's imaginations because it's quite nice that we could link it to the chewing gum recycling and by having your coffee or helping to close the way. these gum truck bins have started a chewing gum recycling craze but it's much more than that it's about changing people's behavior. and people like anna are inspiring people to think about the way they use single use products which is so critical if we're going to be able to reverse any of the current worrying environmental trends. entrepreneurs across the globe tunning their attention to the plastic menace. in september 201824 year old dutch inventor boy and slots launched an ambitious
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operation to use a giant boom on the ocean's natural currents to clean up the pacific's giant island of plastic waste known as the great pacific garbage patch. 2 months later a crack in the system forced the prototype back to pool but the team was still able to collect terabytes of data and over 2 tons of ocean plastic waste. they reports they'll soon be ready to relaunch. what can we do with all the waste plastic we collect. in the u.k. one in france has found a clever way to plug holes with a new road material made in part from waste plastic. and in the philippines a 15 year old schoolboy undertook to tackle the country's plastic bag problem with a biodegradable variety made from coconuts. with clever ideas like these we may just be able to stand the plastic toy.
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after years of overgrazing the damage caused to the precious grasslands of chile is being reversed with one of the world's biggest ever conservation projects. they're pretty emblematic of the paddock area so that if they're plentiful and they're calm like this arnaz then you know that the system is going back and that they feel no threats towards and that's why you're for rewilding patagonia on al-jazeera. and the slaughter the most incredible stories are often true. and cheering go on experiences. makes it on from your for me or. in this life no versity makes a difference understanding the importance of being part of something much greater
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there are so much and this lot of what i want to lose is freedom of expression. the right to mortgage. sean and to march into the dawn. because you dislike the desire to understand the. make sure she. and the human condition is she reverse. from ancient emperors to cope mislead us. age old philosophies and the rule of order remain central to the world's oldest living civilisation in the 2nd of a 2 part series the big picture charts the rise of a 21st century superpower i think some of the challenges it now faces from the
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outside and from within. the china complex are to find out his ear. i'm rob matheson in doha the top stories on a congressional committee has approved 2 impeachment charges against donald trump next week the house of representatives is expected to vote in favor of a trial in the senate today is a solemn and said day for the 3rd time in a little over a century and a half he has judiciary committee has voted articles of impeachment against the president for abuse of power and obstruction of congress the house will act.
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