Autor: Anja Krieger

Auch im Trinkwasser wurde schon Mikroplastik gefunden. Ist das ein Risiko für die menschliche Gesundheit? Für die RiffReporter habe ich bei Expertïnnen nachgefragt und die beruhigende Antwort bekommen, dass man sich um Plastikpartikel im Trinkwasser wenig Sorgen machen muss – auch wenn es noch ein paar offene Fragen gibt. (Tl;dr)

When it comes to solving the issue of plastic pollution, who would you say is responsible? Is it individuals like you and me, is it the corporations that produce plastics or products made from it, or is it the government with its rules and regulations?

Plastic pollution seems to be a pretty new issue, right? In the past few years, the topic has been all over the media. But if you explore the history of science, it turns out that the problem really isn’t all that new.

For this episode, Anja tried something new: She asked listeners, researchers and podcasters to send her audio comments on what is happening now during the coronavirus pandemic. In this episode, you’ll hear some of the messages that arrived in her inbox the past weeks.

What happens if bioplastics end up in the environment? In this episode, Anja takes a closer look at synthetic polymers marketed as more environmentally friendly. Can they contribute to a healthier planet, and in what way?

Plastic pollution also affects the soil, the thin layer of ground that feeds all of us. For a long time, this terrestrial plastic has been overlooked. Now scientists are starting to investigate the extent and impacts of plastic pollution in the soil and in the ground. What do we know about them?

Nathalie Mayroth war im indischen Bundesstaat Maharashtra, in dem auch die 20-Millionen-Stadt Mumbai liegt. Seit einem Jahr ist dort Einwegplastik verboten. Wie gut wird das jetzt durchgesetzt? Darum geht es in dieser eindrücklichen Reportage. Mehr lesen bei piqd

Chris Jordan has taken some of the most iconic pictures to shape our image of plastic pollution. He traveled to Midway Island on his quest to photograph the evasive „Great Pacific Garbage Patch“, which is really a soup of microplastics. There, he documented albatross chicks who had died with their guts full of plastic. His images went viral, but they also haunted him so much that he decided to return to the island. In this episode of the podcast, Chris tells Anja how working on his film „Albatross“ transformed him and his view on tackling plastic pollution.

Plastic pollution might be the most visible environmental issue we face today. But there are other kinds of pollution, and they are far harder to see. One of the most dangerous is the huge amount of greenhouse gases that we emit into the atmosphere. In this episode, Anja explores the connections between plastic pollution and climate change.

Anja calls up Dr. Jenna Jambeck and Amy Brooks from the University of Georgia on a research trip in Vietnam. In many Asian countries, a booming economy is coupled with more people using throw-away items. Informal recyclers and waste pickers who have traditionally sorted the waste cannot keep up. But, like millions of people around the world, they depend on waste as a resource for their livelihoods. How can the systems be reformed without leaving the people behind? To find out, Anja calls Dr. Sonia Maria Dias, a garbologist from Brazil.

This time on Plastisphere, Anja goes on a lab tour with Alexandra ter Halle from Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse. The chemist and her team were the first to detect nanoplastic in the open ocean – plastic so small that it is comparable in size to a virus. What do we know about these very tiny pieces, and how do researchers try to detect and understand them?

In this introduction to the Plastisphere podcast, Anja takes the listener on a journey back in time, from a remote plastic beach on the Big Island of Hawaii to the factory of a big chemical producer making bioplastics. She shares what she has learned about the issue of plastic pollution in the past years.