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tv   Reimagining Plastic  Al Jazeera  August 22, 2020 8:32am-9:01am +03

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the device went off killing them and injuring several others police have questioned the former prime minister of malta as part of the investigation into the murder of journalist daphne. here is of muscat stepped down earlier this year over the car bomb blast that killed in 2017 the brother of mexican president andres manuel lopez obrador has been implicated in a scandal after footage appeared to show him accepting cash the president insists his brother is innocent and joe biden come given their 1st joint television interview since being formally confirmed as the democratic party nominees for november's election biden says he would be prepared to shut down the country to prevent the spread of coronavirus if that's what scientists recommend. those are your headlines more news here on al-jazeera. on counting the cost cracks in the global economy stocks soared to record highs despite the coronavirus but that makes billionaires become richer but the poor get poorer so is the time to
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finally come from populism plus remaking china and president she's been. counting the cost on al-jazeera. the explosion of plastic waste across the world threatens the very survival of life on our planet. every year up to $12000000.00 metric tons of plastic and to start oceans. from poisoning marine life to littering landscapes and cloaking waterways plastic waste in the environment is set to trickle in the next decades the problem is so vast it can seem overwhelming reimagining this waste as
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a result we can begin to redress the balance i'm tony can you lay in cameroon where a young entrepreneur is turning the tide on plastic waste by building boats out of bottles and i'm back in the cabin in the u.k. where one company is tackling a really sticky caustic president 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 is 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 that or the way club does bridge and you have you pull. in the river and you can see the last
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about the poor among educated on how to money deal with so opportunities 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 k. no one's what is these and i was shocked to see that so i decided to do something and work. when shooting people. by showing the way. began an initiative to cure up the waste from all of the one is 10 choked rivers. he calls his company my dubai 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 a tough job this is. so we're standing on this board because much of this looks
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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 it 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 nor is dire green's just been hearing car on our bridges. or the problem for the priorities so. no one's care for the environment and this is the morse urgent
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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 travel more. ishmael's boats built using traditional techniques he taught you how to do. you know i'm from 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 cannot gush because your ear is full of glasses so
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i do hold 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 yeah i'd love to try to do that. so we tie this up and not tear. not so bad. 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 yeah all you got you 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. it has built 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 material 0 never in u. . simple jugnu bordeaux's the rest as you have done. to both take just a few hours to build. and there so in my 20 to be easily transported to the ocean. it's a 3 hour drive to nearby creek. gives the boats to local fish and. traditionally made fishing boats can be extremely expensive but even so when 1st started giving away his eco boats it was easier said than done these look very
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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 it 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 when there's one. of the real proof of course is in the floating let's go test it out it's got this is ok you lead the way up. 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 and want to be a. good
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old would. just. talk about. what a great idea and there's so many possibilities of what we can do in the future back in at the same time to be an almost issued a plastic waste a camera doing what an incredible young man said 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. the government of brazil. releases the me the fishermen have a good to meet you what do you think of your new boat that has been given to them and. how do you think having this new boat is going to change things for you. because they need to . be pretty soon here. with the hope of us with. the saudi money
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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 if they do get more preserved. he will. be. forced to leave so winningly pools and you're in your. do want to try it out you know let's see 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 will be better maybe with a good heart more income to his family. since he started in 2016 the growing
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success of his eco boat has inspired ishmael 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 $255.00 practical. and 1000 bucks or so this. the place where people can come and bring their plastic waste this is the starving for and offer to try to deal with the stories stories system of plastic waste in water so the idea of this eco been what you're trying to do here where do you think you can grow that we won our city be very example in that regard we just apply in areas of all the corner in front of all the show the supermarket the school so it won't be easy to carry pick up the west side of all this so that's the vision
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we want to do there but how to reach there is not easy. despite the challenges it has even bigger plans for the future by producing bottle made furniture and by educating the next generation. bigger issues i really don't. regard club. as a culture to jump. to because you think your. it's a legacy to take care of environment to 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 has risen to the top of the agenda. they believe we must rethink our whole approach
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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 butt. 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 a circular economy right from the beginning you build economy so you design out
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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 our 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 so. be hiding in plain sight. every year week you all way through 370 people trivia and pieces of. what you might not know is that chewing gum is a stench 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 achieves. and every year we chalk away $100000.00 tons of that globally much of it straight on to the federal.
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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 $300000.00 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 you councillor john warneke is in charge of keeping the city streets clean. how much of a problem is common with just they estimate that every year councils in britain
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spending more than 60000000 pounds a year just clearing up the will to say take me back over actually that's a huge figure and a war that could be put 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. thank you very much council operations manager darren know it is often. show me the right. back yeah i'm going to wrangle me right i see the right that way yeah you do what you 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 would 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 never knew you could reach that one but here you have it. it's quite impressive business yeah. and seriously doesn't want it so when they 1st came out and what were your couple 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's material 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 a gum based material. here at winchester university the room terry
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was for the cops are collected all of the campus and distinctive bright pink bins. that cooled gum drops and inspiring idea from design and the benefits. you must be on a high enough for me hi nice me to sew 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 up there use chewing gum in there 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 come in to 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 the
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governator and giving people as opposed to place to spaces that change so how does gum end up in a coffee cup. i know 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 sized reduces it you can actually see that come through when it's been crushed up you see all the of the letters 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 away yeah leave and mix it with recycled materials which get heated in compound and. which go on forever she may bend 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 stationery key rings. and she's. proud to call them 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 so you'll see the so here is actually a map of the story 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 say 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 and later. environment. it was behind introducing gumdrop to the campus. so how much of an effect have these cultures hard on the sale of plastic and general kind of coffee companies today we have saved 85000 disposable cups from being used there are now 10000 of these cups in
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circulation and we have just committed to eliminating single use plastic spice 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 gumdrop 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 character hands out if they're plentiful and they're calm like this earnest then you know that the system is going back and that they feel no threats and that fire are far rewilding patagonia on al-jazeera. the health of humanity is at stake a global pandemic requires a global response. w.h.o. is the guardian of global health delivering lifesaving tools supplies and training to help the world's most vulnerable people uniting across borders to speed up the development of test treatments and of that seed keeping you up to date with what's
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happening on the ground in the ward and in the lab now more than ever the world needs w.-h. on making healthy a world for you. to everyone. rewind returns with a new series and brand new updates on the past amount is a missed documentary this. rewind continues with saving sou'wester seeing the line 10 years later a lot of you average person community in south africa is no better this is a great motivator for us to keep giving back to these communities on al-jazeera. has one of the world's highest are based you know rides but many a take up the farmers against the military star white let's go to brighton surgery
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one o one east investigates as the chinese battle to get in shape on al-jazeera. through one of them or a colander haul these are the top stories on al-jazeera a russian opposition leader alexina vali is being flown from siberia to germany for a much as he treatment for suspected poisoning the plane carrying him is expected to land in the in the next hour where you know mohammed has. loaded onto a stretcher and into an ambulance. a critically ill alexei novelle in the in a coma given the all clear by russian doctors to be flown to germany at the airport in the siberian city of a medical team and private plane pants pulled the russian dissident.

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