she's also looking forward to adding to her collection of memorabilia the tokyo games are set to open in under 200 days so. you're watching d.w. new year's live from berlin monica jones is up next with the covert 19 special. invalid and speak up and. the fight against the corona virus pandemic. has the rate of infection been developing what does the latest research say. information and context the coronavirus update nineteen's. on t w. can you hear me now here yes we can hear you and how last year's german chancellor will bring you an uncle a man called as you've never tried to have before surprised yourself with what is

possible who is medical really what moves and what also who talks to people who follows her along the way admirers and critics alike how is the world's most powerful woman shaking her legacy joining us from echols last stops. people with masks a common sight now around the world some of the masks are also not home others professionally made. and then there are the disposable masks the ones also used in hospitals they pose a huge risk to the environment because they contain plastic and often enough they end up polluting reverse and oceans. we've seen all around the world well it's washing up with plastic bags and bottles and then even our stomachs these masks are

another another edition no no better no worse than the rest of the trash. we can stop using masks but we should not have to chew. between saving lives or the environment. what should be done. hello welcome to the night in special. berlin and this here is a reusable mask we all have them here at the w. to keep each other safe and i certainly keep this one unlike those single use ones which most of us where only once or twice and then throw away but what happens then time to take a closer look at an item that's become essential for our everyday life. disposable masks are everywhere on the ground in hong kong in the rivers in ukraine on the beaches of italy and california and on the streets in germany a growing problem. and then to my isp pia you always think it's

a paper because you look at the tissue on the surface like that but inside it's at least 50 percent plastic and the rest is cellulose or paper but half of it won't biodegrade and then there is the elastic ear loops which are completely plastic you might think a clip over the nose is metal but it's also plastic so overall 70 percent of the white of this mask is plastic and therefore not biodegradable. bottles they're designed to be used by medical professionals but for many they've become a standard household item a lot of masks end up in the scene because they haven't been properly disposed of used basques are considered unsuitable for recycling as they contain germs not just corona viruses and this was in they basically made thermal treatment to get burned up in germany that means they're supposed to be disposed of as general waste which

means they'll be incinerated that's a process which can be used to generate energy producing electricity and heat. but not all countries treat waste this way in many places masks end up in dumps where they get buried or blown into waterways scientists are working on alternatives such as by would be great it will sell you those from bamboo the masks need to be robust and developing them will take time. schaffner i know the mass create new waste in which we cannot recycle these materials are definitely not compatible with the ideal of a circular economy hasn't got time we are burdening our planet with a lingering legacy one that is likely to outlast the pandemic by centuries. or. for more i'm joined by mark commute dominic from the university college london where he's professor of materials and society a project lead the plastics waste innovation hub good to have you with us let's

start 1st of all you putting things into perspective how big a global problem ah single you masks single use masks in comparison to to plastic bottles a box of force. so it's a very significant problem simply small so it's getting bigger so in the u.k. we did a calculation that every year it creates $124000.00 tons of single these plastic waste recyclable that's just in the u.k. with 65000000 people now if you think that well you know you've got a 1000000000 people and lot wearing single use mosques then you realize it's an enormous amount of the waste and it's growing every day of course i mean as long as the pandemic is with us we'll probably have to wear masks but why do single use mosques need to have components that are made of plastic. isn't there any all the material available. well yeah i mean so it depends what you say use and also for

the general public the masks ought to protect other people so in case that you have the virus and you don't know you have the virus but you're out and about meeting people there is to protect others and so you don't need to use a plastic mask which are designed for surgery and hostile environments you can use and we the data shows very clearly that cloth masks which are made of cotton or wool are as effective for doing this. so so you can use for usual must and i don't need a plastic bag but it's i mean as you said i mean surgical masks for medical staff they should use the single use masks that contain plastic that in itself is a huge problem as well. it is and what we've done is i mean i'm not saying plastic is about it so of course what we need to do is recycled plastic and so we should be designing things for recycling and what we've slept walked into in the medical

establishment and hospitals is this idea that it's be sold to us as a very hygienic way of making sure people are safe the hospital so everything is single use it's all incinerated off to it's and that hospitals it developed countries are all set up to do this but what this does to criticise of white cycle of waste and sea had to emissions which we have to wean ourselves off we can't continue like this even in hostile environments right i mean i don't know if you can answer that question it just popped into my head because i know that the european union wants to ban single use plastic this summer that would also include face masks are they still available then do we know. i think those those those directives they they only include the use for by the public so things being sold to the public they usually have exceptions and i suspect the hospital in violence will be exceptions because the whole of the hostile environment including injections and all the packaging and bolt is all

single use so i suspect what they're talking about there is banning single use plastics sold to the public in terms of food packaging. what we know that the pandemic helps temporarily at least to lowest c o 2 emissions do you think the pandemic will also all help create more awareness when it comes to plastic pollution. i think what people see with the with the disposable mosque is you see them on the ground all the time and why is that partly it's selfish people taking them off the contaminated soil and down the ground so it's partly that but it's because they're very lightweight then get blown around in the wind they end up in the seed and up in the rivers they end up in the in the countryside so yeah it's a very visible sign of our attitudes towards each other towards the environment and towards and this is that we become to get used to this terrible addiction to single

use plastic and the mavs really are and i'm on it and i'm at the model and really not a good example that yeah that's no doubt absolutely at the but i mean if they sort of incentives you know couldn't couldn't policymakers say every mask that you dispense properly we have containers put up outside supermarkets and wherever people ah let that be a feasible solution. well we looked into that very expensive solution so you could say well ok if you want to use a single use plastic mouse and we're going to put these containers everywhere and we're going to we're going to monitor that and give you some incentive but that's got to be a big infrastructure you could put into place when in fact an easier solution which is the one that most governments are trying to persuade the populations to follow is a really useful model one where you yourself as a citizen have the responsibility for cleaning and for using and for and for carrying around with you and and and that that in itself i think would

change people's attitudes that is the idea of disposability whether there is a structure or not is actually not very good for the environment rights market near dominic professor in london and said in an expert material society plastic waste innovation thank you so much for your time i was talking to. time now for more of your questions over to our science correspondent williams. is a new variant of the virus more dangerous than the old one. viruses mutate constantly producing a never ending stream of new variants but most of the time those mutations don't change the virus much or or they even have a negative effect on its ability to propagate still every once in a while

a mutation will provide advantages like making the virus for example better invading your cells or better at replicating and them and that appears to have happened with a new variant 1st identified in the united kingdom back in september which has in just a few short months become the form detected in most new patients there that rapid expansion the experts say is down to the fact that one or more of the mutations it's accumulated make the variant more contagious it seems to spread more easily exactly how much more easily is still kind of up in the air but but does that make it more dangerous the ensor is the with yes and no the know is if you look at things from an individual level although it looks to be a lot more contagious the fast spreading variant doesn't appear to be more virulent

so it doesn't seem to make the people who catch it in these sicker than the old variant does but but seen from a population perspective the new variant is more dangerous because the fact that it's more transmissible means that of course more people will catch it and more people catching it translates into more people ending up in hospital wards and i see. you units looking forward the new variant could prove more dangerous for another reason as well which is that contagiousness is directly linked to herd immunity the more contagious a pathogen is the more people have to be vaccinated to stop its spread the good news is that experts are still cautiously optimistic that approved vaccines should prove just as effective against the new variant as they are against the old

one. there are volumes there and he'll be back again tomorrow so if you have a question just send an e-mail to feedbag dot english to diddle the dot com and type experts in the subject line or you leave a comment on our you tube channel that's it for today thanks for watching stay safe . africa. south africa both. energy the initiative. to the point environmentally friendly conduct generally katrina energy from florida hydro power. is always energy on. africa. electric

emission free the basement this is a noble teacher of mobility the wheel is a. born at least it was 19 appears to be floating in the brakes on this development ordinary cars plans for a big one are back on the block and there are really no alternatives. made in germany. 16. total. young wrong emigrants. going on the police will stop them. they know that the road is not a solution. they know their flight could be fatal. but going back to using not enough. i mun and gravity are stuck in the

spanish border area along side other young people there waiting for a chance that will probably never come. shattered dreams starts january 18th on d w. hello and welcome to the environment magazine co-produced by n.t.v. in uganda china's t.v. in nigeria and in germany i am sondra to know if you want with me today i was always a micro presenting new to egg. how are you today i don't know there sandra i am just fine thank you very much and i want well come see you are dead viewers out

there we have a lot in store for you on today's program so let's take a quick look at what's lined up today. in senegal we visit some students who are thinking with the new solar car. in germany we hear about a push to make textiles on locally sourced room. and can you know we learn once again how crucial it is to protect our water resources. first we had to the south of the continent south africa's energy comes almost exclusively from coal fired power plants which is a major factor behind rising air pollution and of an a.b.s. the government has announced plans to significantly increase the use of renewable sources within 10 years being solar wind or hydropower they nish of his being sped by green cape a nonprofit organization that provides assistance to innovative young green starts

off for. one year ago the protests cut in his school and kept town went on a without paying for the installation the system was financed by code funding platform their idea small investors buy ponies and earn an income from setting their atrocity to the school that is using them so far from cambridge is crowdfunding platform equipped over 30 schools and companies within 5 years if they plan to have more than $200.00 additional assistance. so if you want to put money in solar panels for an environmental reason put them in south africa you're offsetting $8.00 times the carbon emissions by the side of an hour here's africa than it would do in germany for example and you get a twice as much electricity out of it so it just makes more sense to put a solar power where you create more social environmental and economic impact and for the school the solar energy is cheaper than power from the grid with investment

as little as 4 euro's sun extant is also open to people with less income in fact many of the pupils that protests how it's invested in the solar cells themselves when the horn is the school's former principal she says that aside from clint cheap energy the project also brings another benefit it's really always that yeah kids are so excited allen is to actually get involved and interest in neuro things and actually buy still sells him sours and see how the money would increase or decrease or whatever i mean it was it created a huge interest in nero excitement and then he says what do you want to teach our children for the future isn't to premier all skills innovative models to fund and produce green energy gently need in south africa the government aims to produce a quote off on electricity from renewables by 2030. general jones works for green care a nonprofit organization committed to expanding the green sector together with other

lobby groups the on made sure that and i just thought taps gained an important role in government plans to transition south africa to its review op was. dismissive. and they said this this road to 20 cities in the road. it states that there were $20.00 gigawatts of renewable energy being procured and that comprises technologies within the renewable energy space but for the 1st time what is very interesting is that. they have. designated gigawatts of small scale generation in the. to the inside of the police document i r.p. integrated resource plan to have small scale solar power solutions account for some 10 percent or south africa's top 2 energy mix then they are in effect as who are looking to the question for have some on one big company developed an underwater pump powered by the ocean's waves it turns salt water into drinking water while at

the same time producing a constant source of energy that could power up to 10 european austell it's all year round is always energy. if we said we're looking at a whole range of waves that come from different areas there's a lot of stuff that's produced locally by the local winds but there's enormous amount of energy that's come from storms that could be thousands of miles away. there with pump is tied to a boy that leads with each wave that level movement pressure rises worked up to purify it and generator 2 cities at the same time for years the prototype unit was tested under water and is now back in the workshop for some maintenance work so far the unit has proven that the concept works the team says despite the challenges. we face a confidence that these systems are going to. be

a big part of the solution and future is not really outside or when but working in conjunction with them the the challenges with the ocean is that it's an expensive system to develop when there is very little funding available with sufficient funding the company could start you drag the pumps next year that would feed into the power grid the san extant card funding platform meanwhile has just received an additional $3000000.00 euros from one major investor powering on south africa's green energy translation. now it's off because of you was no we've. from feature reports on research for the environment from electric cars to doing it yourself wind turbines and recycling old laptop batteries they are the creations of inventive young minds on various countries hoping to make their visions reality that is right near to and this week we have an innovation from cynical a group of young to such as

a university in dhaka have been walking on the sun the poet they call for everyday use he is this week's doing give me. this isn't as though it was built by university students in dakar. it's powered by the sun. the idea was developed by students in canada. the technical drawings come from italy. the students in senegal put the pieces together. it has a range of 60 kilometers. goshi 8 bumpy surfaces. and carry 2 people or goods weighing up to 250 kilograms. more than half the population of senegal has no electricity.

the majority live in rural areas. and meant that a fair minded will provide power people need for their various endeavors in the field or for any other activity that requires electricity. is the answer to the problem. i said to. them. because the battery can be used to charge mobile phones. or to run a $500.00 watt water pump for a full 12 hours. and how about you if you're also doing your bit tell us about it visit our website both set us a tweet. hash tag doing your bit so. we share your story.

well roaming the countryside. for sheep or goats to graze. all over the was. there days it's gonna be a hard life but for different reasons in different places in germany is now privately owned and livestock has become increasingly rare another problem the prize award is so little it's not even selling but people would like to see these various not sure textile put to good use. shepherd florian pies has brought his animals to rest in a green patch between warehouses and factories in the industrial ruhr area in western germany he's one of the few shepherds left in the country. there are around a 1000 professional shepherds left in germany that's not so many really i don't know many young people who want to do this job i'll continue to do it with passion

until i have to step down it's certainly a dying profession that nobody wants to. you don't make much money. for. the sheep are eventually sold for their meat but the unisa polities also pay shepherds to have their flocks graze on public land. but wool has become a losing business these days sales don't even cover the costs of having the sheep sheared so that some uniform merino wool. is one reason or another i have merino sheep because they still have the best quality wool i get over a euro per kilo. one colleagues of mine who have other breeds get a lot less they get $45.00 to $0.65 per kilo. you know. some of them don't sell it anymore choosing to burn the wool or toss it instead. they're going to. his wool goes to china where it's processed and

ends up in bedding upholstery carpets and other textile products some of these end up back on the european market where they're sold at high prices that make spaghetti pappa furious as to talent it's totally absurd buyers here purchase the wall and send it all the way to china for washing and it sent to paris where it's packaged and suddenly everyone once it. begins to papa is a self-taught tailor but. she initially trained to be a dental assistant now she's a businesswoman with a passion for wool she calls her product mosel tweed habbush mr mcmullan i wondered whether the wall from the sheep in our region was also suitable for fabric and it turns out that it's very suitable for cloth. and at that point i told myself that i do my best to save local wool one of. the cloth is made in

germany soley from wool out of the region she already has about $100.00 metres in stock the company produces vests caps and sport coats from the material. so most assigns. have to receive support from the vatican felt spinning around in a globalised textile market producing fabric regionally is difficult the production costs are too high the quantities too low. or wool is processed here died and spun into yarn the vulcan felt spinning wheel wants to promote local wool but has no illusions about the future of wool from germany of almost like you're sadly consumers today are not willing to pay higher prices at the retail level they're more interested in getting new products faster they want to see trends in changes in fashion so the cost has to be low it would be nice if people could change their

priorities and still. get a couple remains enthusiastic about her will in fabric it may be expensive but demand from high quality sustainable fashion is growing her mission is to eventually produce quantities approaching 10000 meters of her muzzle tweet. the next away had to go on which is home to africa's largest a stable forest in a funk population but suddenly the numbers have increased dramatically in recent decades that's right sandra for farmers who lose their crops to roaming elephants that may seem like good news but in fact the large animals are important for maintaining that ecological balance so while i have a thought which is in the open national park i working to protect the elephants while helping the locals to protect their fields and their villages.

for the and his anti-poaching team this is the easy part of the job not far from their station in low pay national park they're gathering data on flora and fauna. the family of elephants passed through here they ate here. and then they moved here and left their traces. thanks to the rangers the nature reserve has experienced no major wildlife crime in the last 2 years. low pay is one of 13 national parks established in cabo in 2002 it's a you know asco world heritage site and home to elephants panthers gorillas buffalo and over 400 bird species he stays the elephants pose more of a problem than the poachers do an important part of the work of the park manager

and his team is communicating with the residents of the villages on the edges of the national park. we realized that the elephants were more or less fleeing the interior of the forest because of growing pressure from poachers from the south and southwest. thanks to fences that the park officials have set up around the villages the elephants are slowly retreating back into the forest. in 3 of the villages electric fences protect the plantations plus we've been going hungry for 2 years people were losing weight there wasn't enough to eat but this year we have enough again we have vegetables we've been able to harvest what we planted to get. the cooperation between.