Worldwide, we have all had a lot to deal with. We had to deal with being alone at times and have lost — in the worst cases — one or more people who were dear to us. When we enter the New Year at midnight on December 31st, I will first think of all the people that we will miss forever, in 2021 and beyond. Instead of lighting fireworks, I will be lighting lots of candles.
More happened in 2020. The earth warmed up even more.
More plastic also ended up in the environment, simply because we continue to produce more and more every year. That’s why I sometimes think that people, like frogs, stay calm in ever-hotter water and don’t realize the danger until it’s too late. According to the British writer and climate activist Mark Lynas, this is not due to the complexity of the problem, but because of a hostile attitude towards science and an anti-intellectual attitude encouraged by some politicians.
Lynas says “ignorance is not the result of politics à la Trump, it is the driving force behind it”.
It is, therefore, still not too late to turn the tide. Trump is “gone” and we are hopefully on the eve of a new political climate, a COVID-free world, and the realization that unlike a frog, you don’t have to stay in the water until it is too late.
That is why I hope for your support in 2021. We desperately need it. For the execution of our mission and the future of our children and grandchildren.
For an inhabitable world for generations to come.
The industry stated in 2018 that the use of plastic microbeads had decreased by 97.6% and pledged that no more personal care products with plastic microbeads would be sold by 2020. However, such products are still offered for sale, according to scientific research.
Journalist Laura Hoogenraad has been researching the reuse of old, shredded carpets full of chemicals in horse riding arenas, and this is what she found out:
In children’s playgrounds, industrial waste full of toxic substances is being used as part of the “circular economy”.
For the first time, scientists have found microplastics in the placenta. Recent research has also shown that babies consume 1.6 million microplastics daily via food from plastic bottles.
European plastic lobby loses lawsuit over BPA