Twenty plastic-busting inventions to clean our rivers and seas
From plastic-devouring machines to watchful drones, these technologies are helping tackle plastic pollution in the ocean
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Plastic waste collected in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by a prototype boom (Image: The Ocean Cleanup)
There’s an incomprehensible amount of plastic in the ocean – estimates put the known total at 5 trillion individual pieces, or around 150 million tonnes. An additional 8 million tonnes finds its way into the ocean every year. That’s only increased thanks to Covid-19 and the resulting surge in single-use items like masks and gloves.
Most plastic enters the ocean via rivers, which carry vast amounts of waste from inland sources. Once in the ocean, plastic is broken down by the sun’s rays and by wind and waves, eventually transforming into smaller fragments called microplastics. But the hardy nature of the material means that this process can take hundreds of years. In the meantime,
10 May 2021 (IOM) Gender inequality is magnified in situations of conflict. Women are disproportionately disadvantaged in terms of personal safety, access to employment, resources and basic services in fragile, conflict-ridden environments. They are most affected by poverty and the value of the support they provide at home is mostly rendered invisible.
Photo: IOM Afghanistan
In a society like Afghanistan, traditional norms often make it difficult for women to access employment, get a loan or start a business. Yet, when women are given an opportunity, they make significant contributions to the growth and development of their families and their communities at large.
THOMAS LOHNES/AFP via Getty Images
6 May 2021
The German migrant taxi NGO Sea-Watch dropped off 454 migrants in the Sicilian port city of Trapani this week after Italian authorities granted the vessel port access.
The Sea-Watch 4 picked up 455 migrants after four separate encounters with vessels off the coast of Libya and elsewhere in the Mediterranean Sea over a 72-hour period. One of the migrants was evacuated for medical treatment by Italian authorities.
According to a report from the European Union-funded website Infomigrants, onboard the vessel were pregnant women, young children, and unaccompanied minor migrants. Sea-Watch claimed that some of those on board had made multiple attempts to cross the Mediterranean sea to reach Europe.
FAO + European Union Investing in a sustainable and food secure future
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Partnership at a glance
In 1991, the European Union became the 161st Member of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), marking an institutional breakthrough: it was the first time that FAO welcomed a Member Organization. The European Union–FAO partnership has since been sound and growing, as evidenced by the upward trend of the European Union’s voluntary contributions in recent years. This has enabled FAO to work extensively across the globe and in those regions where assistance is most needed.
The technical dialogue and cooperation with the European Union started in 2004 with a Memorandum of Understanding and culminated in the European Union– FAO Strategic Dialogue in 2017 with contributions from ten European Commission Directorates-General.
Dietary tool aims to cut disease, climate change risks
Sharing a meal. Researchers have created a dietary tool to promote healthy eating and cut climate change risks. Copyright: UNICEF Ethiopia/Martha Tadesse, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
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Unhealthy food choices cause 9.1 million premature deaths globally annually from heart diseases
Researchers have created a dietary tool to aid healthy food choices and cut climate change risks
The tool provides healthy messaging on nutrition for consumers, says an expert
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