Don’t Be An Environmental Honey Badger

Think for a moment that you’re at the drugstore picking up a few items. Some products you may be loyal to, others you may be trying for the first time. Would the packaging play a role in what you buy at the store? Would you consider buying something in a recyclable container before buying a product with packaging that will go into the garbage?

Maybe you don’t care where it ends up. Maybe you do. Did you know that even if you were to you choose the packaging that says it can be recycled, will most likely end up in a landfill anyway? Surprising, I know! Don’t feel bad, most people don’t know this.

In an effort to be “green” those consumers, conscious of the environment, tend to purchase items with recyclability. Even though you may choose a product based on the “green factor” of its packaging being recyclable, ninety-four percent of recyclable products will end up in a landfill. Turns out your efforts to be “green” are mostly moot.

Recycling is a misnomer. I’m not suggesting that we stop putting items in our green recycling can on recycle day. Six percent of our recyclable items get recycled. I’m suggesting we take a closer look at where our products and its packaging are ending up.

What if you are the person who doesn’t care where the packaging goes? You throw it in the garbage and it magically disappears when that big truck stops in front of your house once a week and dumps all your problems. Not your garbage anymore, but it’s still your problem. How can it still be my problem you ask? Because you, along with me, along with billions of other people live on this earth. And what we do to our planet affects us all.

And for you do-gooders who buy “green” and recycle everything, nice effort! But, most recycling facilities are very picky about what they recycle. Do you know what happens to the material they don’t recycle? Yep, it ends up in a land fill.

Ultimately, a land fill seems to be the final resting place for most of our products’ packaging. Landfills that are quickly filling to capacity. Landfills that are full of packaging that will sit under the dirt for hundreds of years. It won’t be our problem by then, but it’s a problem we’re causing for the future. It’s a good thing if you’re wondering if there are any solutions to this environmental issue.

Biodegradable plastic is the solution. An additive added to the plastic manufacturing process that will allow the plastic to biodegrade when placed into a land fill. The plastic that is not recycled can now be discarded without worry that it will affect the environment.

Going “green”, as a consumer, is an end result not a purchasing result; unless what you’re purchasing will end “green”. Don’t be an environmental honey badger. Care enough to know where your products and its packaging are ending up.

Innovative Approach has 5 Times the Success of Recycling

The other day I was throwing out the trash and it caught my attention how much plastic waste is not accepted in my recycle bin. Wrappers, blister packs, bags, saran wrap, plastic containers and more all destined for the landfill. Comparing that to my recycle where all I have is beverage bottles, aluminum cans and a cardboard box, the magnitude of the waste problem hit me over the head. With overall plastics recycling in the US averaging near 7%, it is clear that something must be done to address the remaining 93%. And although reports show some increase in recycle rates, these increases are not keeping up with the massive increase in global plastic consumption. Perhaps it is time to focus on the reality of plastic waste – over 30 million tons of it that went into US landfills in 2009. To paint the picture for you, by the time you read this paragraph, the room you are sitting in would have filled up several times over with landfilled plastic. Every year we landfill over 96 million cubic yards of plastic!!

There is a silver lining to this, with today’s landfill management we are converting our landfilled waste to inexpensive clean energy. In fact, today 35% of all waste is placed in landfills that utilize this methane to energy (methane is produced during biodegradation in a landfill). If this plastic waste had been biodegradable, it would have converted about 10 million tons to clean energy and freed up 70 million cubic yards of landfill space!!

With today’s biodegradable technology, we have the ability to convert 35% of all our plastic waste to an environmental value, with no need for additional infrastructure or legislative programs. That is 5 times the success of recycling!!

After 30 years of recycling and only reaching a 7% recycle rate, I wonder how long it will take to reach the same or higher 35% rate of landfills collecting and converting landfill gasses into clean energy? Maybe its time we look at technologies that focus on solving the bigger part of the problem while also supporting the smaller aspect?

So as I finish, I can’t help but wonder, if in the future the power used to run my laptop will come from biodegradable plastics in the landfill…..

Click here to download our informational PDF on Landfills.

Bag Bans – Is That Really The Big Issue?

I recently read a short, but insightful, article surrounding the issues of bag bans. The bag industry claims that banning bags will result in job loss, negative effects to local economies, hidden taxes, and lower environmental impact compared to paper, etc. These are important issues to consider, but they really don’t address the real issue of lightweight plastic bags – litter. The crux of the bag bans are associated with littering of bags whether intentional or not. I think we have all seen these bags floating in the streets, in bushes and trees, and worse, marine environments. The bag littler looks ugly and in worse case scenarios it kills wildlife!

I think the real issue with bag bans is that we are not identifying the main problem, litter.

Yes, it is true that plastic bags are more environmentally friendly when comparing the carbon footprint, but in the whole scheme of things, should we really be pushing lightweight plastic bags over alternative bag solutions like reusable bags or heavy gauge plastics bags? When is the last time you’ve seen a cotton reusable bag hanging in a tree? You don’t! They are much too heavy and they would end up going to the landfill, just like most of the other plastic packaging that comes with products we purchase.

Who is to blame for this problem? Can we change human behavior? What can be done to improve processes so that bags are not the problem? If there was a value to bags, like aluminum cans, would this result in a different outcome? A recent study titled: “Plastic Film and Bag Recycling Collection: National Reach Study” found that over 91% of U.S. residents have access to bag recycling facilities, but consumers are not utilizing them. Is bag recycling just too inconvenient? Not profitable enough for the recyclers? These are all questions we have asked to try to solve this problem, but perhaps there is a bigger question that we should be asking ourselves: Are there applications that we should not utilize plastic in?

If we zoom out of the minutia and look at the overall problem, human behavior is at the cause of all of these issues. But, maybe we can’t change human behavior. Maybe there are some plastic applications, such as bags, that we as humans should say, “let’s just get rid of them, because we aren’t able to solve the problem -other than to ban them”?

This blog is not going to solve the problem or answer the question “to ban or not to ban”, but to bring up the questions that we should be asking ourselves. Maybe we should be ok with banning certain applications of plastics, if they are resulting in damage to our environment. But, that doesn’t mean that we need to get rid of all plastics! After all, plastics do have a lower carbon footprint than the alternatives -and it is the material that 25 years ago the environmentalists wanted choose instead of paper. Who knows the absolute right answer? If we do now walk away from plastic bags, it would not be the first time our US society has come full circle in their overall opinion…

Methane Gasses: Least Expensive Form of Clean Energy?

Did you know that using the methane gasses generated from landfill sites are the least expensive form of clean energy we currently have available to us? It’s true, our waste when biodegraded anaerobically produce methane which is a flammable gas. Landfills are packed very tight and therefore do not allow oxygen to be used in the biodegradation process. This results in anaerobic microbes having an environment which allows them to thrive and break down the organic matter within the landfill cell. This also happens in Anaerobic Digesters where the by-product of the anaerobic biodegradation process produces the biogas Methane (CH4).

It is true that Methane gas is a potent greenhouse gas. It is also flammable and dangerous and as such it needs to be collected and converted into gases that are less impacting on the environment and/or to create clean energy. In the past many landfills would flare, or burn the methane to convert it to CO2 but over the years more and more landfills and businesses are recognizing that methane from landfills and anaerobic digestion can be used to create clean energy.

We are a long way from being a zero waste society and until we are we will have to deal with our waste. That waste if placed into anaerobic environments can generate methane which has a value that can offset our need for other fossil fuels.

Due to the stringent level of regulations the United States has the highest percentage of landfills with LFG (Landfill Gas) collection systems relative to any other country practicing landfilling. Nearly 60% of the worldwide capture of methane occurs in the U.S. even though the U.S. only generates 24% of the worldwide methane. From the perspective of the largest sources of methane emissions, landfills are the third largest. I provide these numbers to show that globally collecting and converting methane from landfills can provide the incentive to lower GHG (Greenhouse Gas) emissions. It should be noted that progress in lowering GHG emissions is best achieved by a concerted, integrated approach that employs all available technologies and methods, including reuse, recycling, composting, waste-to-energy, and landfilling with capture of LFG.

So here’s the question: What if all plastics were both recyclable and biodegradable, and would biodegrade in landfill environments?

If we do the math on the 31 billion plastic water bottles sent to a landfill instead of were recycled in 2006. It would result in enough energy to power a 100w light bulb for over 900,000 hours.

To calculate how much energy can be created from a plastic bottle enhanced with the ENSO additive take the weight of the bottle multiply it by % carbon, multiply by 1.33 (molecular weight of CH4 16 / molecular weight of carbon 12 – this converts the carbon to methane), then multiply by 22.4 (L/g – ideal gas law).

(bottle wt * bottle carbon %) * (methane mass 16 / carbon mass 12) * 22.4 L/g = vol. methane per bottle

(19.2 gram * 62.5%) * (1.33) * 22.4 = vol. of methane per bottle

(12) * (1.33) * 22.4 = 357.50 L * (1 m3/100 L) = .3575 m3

Once we know the volume of methane per bottle we need to convert that into how much energy can be created per volume of methane. The Thermal energy content of methane is approximately 26.73 – 32.7 kj/m3 therefore about (26.73 + 32.7) / 2 = 29.715 kJ/m3

.3575 m3 * 29.715 kJ/m3 = 10.623 kJ

1kJ/second = 1kW and considering a 100W light bulb:

10.623 kJ = 10.623 kW seconds * (1000 W/1 kW) * (1 hr/3600 s) = 2.95 W hr

To light a 100W light bulb for 1 hour would require 33.88 bottles:

100 W * (1/2.95 W hr) = 33.88

31 billion bottles = 31,000,000,000 bottles * (1 hr/33.88 bottles) = 914,759 hrs

Bacteria Strain that Biodegrades Polyethylene

Most people understand standard plastics to be resistant to the biodegradation process, but did you know that research from back in 2005 isolated a microbial strain called Brevibacillus borstelensis that is capable of utilizing polyethylene as the sole carbon and energy source?

So what does all that mean and how did they do this?

Soil taken from a polyolefin waste disposal site was used to isolate the bacteria strain that had adapted to its environment and energy source to be able to secrete the enzymes needed to utilize the carbon within the polyethylene chemical chain. From the research there were a few BIG discoveries with one being that Brevibacillus borstelensis was able to use the carbon found in polyethylene as the sole source of energy. This is important because we typically find that microbes will develop where there are easily accessible sources of energy. This is the reason traditional plastics take so long to biodegrade, the carbon is too difficult to utilize by microbes resulting in plastics lasting for hundreds of years in the environment. We now know of a microbe that is indifferent in using the carbon from polyethylene plastic or from other sources.

This research has opened the door to better understanding the adaptive nature of those microscopic creatures we share the planet with. Although we can’t see them, they outnumber the human inhabitants by a factor of many trillions of them to each one of us. They have also had millions of years more time on the earth than us humans have, and are instrumental in the cleaning process of creating a healthy viable planet. There is a lot we can and will continue to learn about the tiniest creatures we call microbes.

To read the full paper: Biodegradation of polyethylene by the thermophilic bacterium Brevibacillus borstelensis

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2672.2005.02553.x/full

BioPlastics Dirty Little Secret

So you know all about bioplastics, Right? You know they are difficult to process, often cause more detriment to the environment than traditional plastics, have limited shelf stability and can be very expensive. But what you may not have known is…..

Nearly every plastic on the market today is a bioplastic! In todays market, when one uses the term “bioplastic” they typically beleive they are refering to a plastic that is sourced from plant materials. What most don’t realize (and many try to avoid admitting) is that most all plastics are made from plant materials!

When I was in elementary school, I had an amazing 4th grade teacher. Of the many things she taught me, one was that fossil fuels were the remains of dinasour bones. Little did my teacher realize the error of her ways. Fossil fuel is primarily comprised of ancient algae (YEP, PLANTS!). So any product made from fossil fuels, is made of……

Plants.

Now, don’t get me wrong; I am not advocating the use of fossil fuels. Quite to the contrary, it is imperitive that we get away from the use of the ancient plants as quickly as possible. These plants have sequestered carbon for millions of years. Carbon that if released into our atmosphere could cause irrepairable damage.

What I am advocating is to educate properly, get rid of the fluff and marketing and call things as they are. The source is not the issue, it is the environmental impact of the source that is the issue. Perhaps we need to identify plastics as “sustainable” or “not sustainable” and leave it at that. Because you either are or your not, it’s that simple.

Compostable Products Go Straight To Landfill

In Marin, Many Compostable Materials Go Straight to Landfill

Despite proliferation of biodegradable foodware, those products aren’t being composted at the two waste management facilities in Marin. As a result, people’s choices might not be as eco-friendly as they think.

By Jim Welte
Email the author
February 22, 2012

Greenwood School 8th grader Leyla Spositto and her classmates knew something was amiss just a few weeks into the school year when they saw the trash piling up.

Greenwood administrators had chosen San Ramon, Calif.-based Choicelunch as the school’s new lunch provider largely because nearly all of its packaging was made of compostable materials – from corn-based bio-plastic cups to potato-based “spudware” forks and spoons – and therefore would be diverted from the landfill. The move fit with one of the school’s core values of environmental stewardship.

But when Greenwood environmental science teacher Julie Hanft told the students that so-called bio-plastics weren’t being composted in Marin, Greenwood’s 7th and 8th graders, who handle the school’s trash as part of their after-school chores, were stunned.

“All of the stuff from Choicelunch was going to the trash,” Spositto said. “We were very surprised that a system didn’t exist for the packaging to be composted like it was supposed to be.”

So was Greenwood School Director Debra Lambrecht.

“We were very, very surprised,” Lambrecht said. “And the fact that the children were shocked and appalled? We thought, ‘Well right on.’”

With lots of packaging that could neither be composted nor recycled – bio-plastics can’t be recycled like regular plastic – the students and Hanft arranged to have a large collection of their Choicelunch packaging taken to Recology near Candlestick Park in San Francisco, where bio-plastics are composted. But they quickly realized that having a parent or teacher drive a truck across the Golden Gate Bridge weekly wasn’t exactly a sustainable solution.

Greenwood’s students and school administrators found themselves at the crossroads of an issue that all involved say is riddled with complexities. As a result, many Marin residents who think they’re making eco-friendly decisions – buying only compostable plastic cups for their children’s birthday party, for example – are sending more garbage to the landfill than if they were using recyclable materials.

“That’s the big shame about bio-plastics – people think they’re doing the right thing,” said Jessica Jones, the district manager for Redwood Landfill and Recycling Center in Novato, where most of the trash, recycling and compost from northern and southern Marin is taken.

Jones said Redwood, a subsidiary of Waste Management Inc., doesn’t compost bio-plastics because the compost the company produces is sold to and used on organic farms. If its compost contained any materials that took longer to biodegrade – like corn-based foodware or bio bags, for instance – it could not be certified by the Organic Materials Review Institute, the Eugene, Ore., which provides independent review of products to be used in organic farming.

Jim Iavarone, managing director at Mill Valley Refuse, which sends all of its waste to Redwood, said the inability to compost bio-plastics “has been a continual issue for us” ever since the company rolled out compost service in August 2010.

“The makers of these products and food services (like ChoiceLunch) have hung their hat on that,” Iavarone said. “It’s a good idea that just isn’t delivering as hoped or as advertised.”

Devi Peri, the education coordinator for Marin Sanitary Service, which serves most of Central Marin, including San Rafael, Larspur, Corte Madera, San Anselmo, Fairfax and the Ross Valley and Las Gallinas sanitary districts, says her company is in the same boat as Redwood.

“Not all compostable plastics are created equal and we don’t even have any way to see if it’s a true biodegradable plastic,” she said.

But compostable bio-plastics are accepted by other Bay Area waste companies like Recology, which processes most of its OMRI-certified compost at Jepson Prairie Organics, a facility in Vacaville.

“There is a clear disconnect between how Recology can compost bio-plastics and how we can’t,” Jones said.

The difference, according to OMRO Program Director Lindsay Fernandez-Salvador, is that Recology has an extensive “foreign removal program.” That program, essentially a filtering system, calls for manual removal of any all bio-plastic products not clearly labeled compostable. Under California law, products labeled compostable must meet the Biodegradable Products Institute’s ASTM D6400 standards, which “determine if plastics and products made from plastics will compost satisfactorily, including biodegrading at a rate comparable to known compostable materials.”

“Any compost may become contaminated with compostable plastics, but if the program has a reasonably robust foreign removal program, that satisfies OMRI’s requirements,” Fernandez-Salvador said.

A foreign removal program means that bio-plastics that aren’t labeled clearly or don’t meet the standards either end up in a separate compost stream of only products that will degrade at a slower rate than food scraps or yard waste – or they’re tossed into the landfill.

Peri said there is some industry skepticism about how much bio-plastic material is actually ending up in the compost streams at places like Recology.

“I have a feeling that it might be more (going to the landfill) than people might want to hear,” Peri said. “And maybe more than they are reporting.”

Jack Macy, the Zero Waste Coordinator for the city of San Francisco, acknowledged that some “compostable stuff that is not labeled well ends up in the landfill.”

“But the reason that we accept compostable bags and compostable foodware is that it allows us to capture more of the organics that we’re trying to divert from the landfill,” Macy added. “Every composter would prefer not to take that stuff because of the challenges of identification and the breaking down aspect. It’s easier to say no.”

That’s the choice Redwood has made, which spurred Greenwood’s 7th and 8th graders to take on the issue as a community action project. The students researched other options, spoke with potential vendors and made a presentation to Lambrecht right before the holiday break. The school intends to move to a completely independent lunch system next year, with an in-house chef making lunches dispensed with reusable plates and utensils. The move is one that only schools as small as Greenwood, with just 127 students, can afford to make.

In the meantime, Greenwood administrators have decided to dump Choicelunch and explore alternative options for the rest of this year.

“It is very disappointing,” said Karen Heller, the director of business development for Choicelunch, whose company supplies lunches for more than a dozen schools in Marin, including the Mill Valley and Ross Valley school districts. “But it hinges on the waste management company. Our hands are kind of tied.”

For two days a week, the school’s 8th graders will be selling lunch from Grilly’s and Tamalpie Pizzeria (one day apiece) to raise money for their 10-day spring trip. Lambrecht hopes to have a new deal in place in the coming days for the other days.

“We’ve really felt like we’ve accomplished something,” Spositto said of the student’s campaign. “We’re glad we had the authority to make this happen.”

Regulation: Friend or Foe? Is it coming soon to your town?

We have heard regulatory agencies wanting to do more to protect the consumer and the environment alike. And while regulation is a necessity for a properly functioning society, what does the current trends of regulation do for your business? What does it do for our economy? What does it do for innovation and ultimately the environment?

Unfortunately, there is also an additional qualifying question anyone familiar with the way the world spins around will ask themselves… “it depends on which private business is lobbying for, and what agenda…” Todays environmental issues have an opportunity to be treated with innovation and forward thinking. Perhaps never before in our history have we been more prepared and evolved to address the real problems relating to the environmental issues we face. Words like; Life Cycle Analysis, Carbon Footprint, Sustainability, green movement…the list goes on-all in the name of greening up business and consumer habits. But at the end of the day, what has been the net result? Because in the end, what is paramount is results-positive results.

How is regulating this “green movement” helping? Today, innovations have to answer questions of legitimacy and solid science. Federal agencies like EPA, FTC, FDA are all both educating and becoming more educated on what the market trends are doing, and what materials are available to help green up materials and processes. They demand companies to sufficiently demonstrate the validity of their claims, and help to curb “green washing” for the irresponsible opportunists looking to only capitalize on our consumer base sincerely wanting to do the right thing.

We at ENSO take this demonstration of legitimacy and solid science behind our innovative material VERY seriously. We have engaged top-of-their-field scientific minds to aid in the quest to help our innovation receive the understanding and market reception it warrants. Sometimes innovation outpaces conventional understanding, and what helps bridge the gap between innovation and acceptance is education and credibility. Some of these processes take more time than desired, but in the end, things that are worthwhile and lasting often endure hurtles. Many of our past innovations were looked at as a “pipe dream” only to turn into life changing propositions for markets-cars, electricity, a round earth etc. all took time for conventional wisdom to catch up to these innovations.

Today, I believe the market is ripe to receive an increase in both innovation and education, with responsible regulatory agencies sifting through relevant information to help environmental and economic impacts in our market. Although the budgets in many agencies have been drastically reduced, they are hard at work to create a viable market which will include an earth friendly future marketplace. Hopefully this work combined with everyone’s convictions and individual effort will drastically reduce the length of time processes can take, so we can more efficiently make innovative materials a positive conversion in our market. So all can answer, regulation is a friend, not a foe. One thing is for sure, we need regulation, as long as it helps an ever evolving marketplace. Indeed nothing these days seem to remain static, questions and answers will always evolve, and so will regulatory process.

Community for Biodegradable Plastics

The “Green” movement is growing at a breakneck speed. Brands are positioning themselves around their environmental initiatives in many ways, but whatever they do, addressing their use of plastic seems to be the most prevalent step in having a greener footprint on the environment. Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation and confusion in the marketplace about this subject. It seems like every time you turn around there is a new ban or an extreme move to address the use of plastic and it’s as if nobody really knows what to do at this point. But it’s my understanding that the advancements in new technologies are what we should really be focusing on embracing and bringing to market. I appreciate groups like the Community for Biodegradable Plastics that allow an open forum to discuss this matter. If you find yourself looking for answers to questions about biodegradable plastics and technology then this is the place where you can find them.

Secrets of the Amazon – A solution for the Pacific Garbage Patch?

For decades we have known that the Amazon is home to more species than almost anywhere else on Earth. Amazon Rainforest constitutes the world’s largest “pharmacy” yielding thousands of previously unknown substances found no where else. Compounds from tropical flora relieve headaches, help treat glaucoma and provide muscle relaxants used during surgery. The Amazon Rainforest has also yielded guanine for the treatment of malaria and periwinkle for the treatment of leukemia. Given the rainforest’s teeming biological diversity, its value to humanity as a laboratory of natural phenomena and as a medical storehouse is priceless.

Recently, the “pharmeceutical” benefits of the Amazon have been expanded to the potential of healing the Earth from the plague of plastic waste. A group of Yale students discovered, quite by accident, a fungus that appears to be quite happy eating plastic in airless landfills. This fungus shows a voracious appetite for a very common group of plastics: polyurethane.

Human beings have only begun to catalog and name the creatures that live here. Home to thousands of varieties of flowering plants, the rainforest supports endless varieties of hummingbirds, butterflies and insects such a the rhinoceros beetle and the army ant. It is also home to the spider monkey, pink and gray dolphins, Amazon river otter, piranha, anaconda, jaguar, blue and yellow macaw, toucan, harpy eagle, fishing bat, tapir sloth, tarantula, Cayman crocodile, manatee, etc.

The Amazon Rainforest, the largest rainforest and richest ecosystem on earth, has stood inviolate for thousands if not millions of years since its creation. The profusion and variety of life forms present in the rainforest and its critical role in supplying the world with air has resulted in its being called the “Heart and Lungs” of the Planet. Indeed, the majority of the world’s oxygen is supplied by its dense foliage and teeming plant life which upon first inspection, seems boundless and indestructible.

A recent study by the Smithsonian Institution indicates that about 90% of all of the plant and animal species extant in the world today reside in the Amazon Rainforest and depend upon its complex ecology. As the greatest repository of nature’s treasures and most significant source of air, the Amazon Rainforest is crucial to the survival of all life on the planet and to human beings’ understanding of their place in the web of life. In the words of Guatama Buddha, “The forest is a peculiar organism of unlimited kindness and benevolence that makes no demands for its sustenance and extends generously, the products of its life and activity. It affords protection to all living beings.”

Before the arrival of Europeans and up to the third decade of this century, the Amazon Rainforest covered nearly 45 million acres in what is today Brazil, parts of Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. Brazil has the greatest amount of tropical forest in the world. It is also experiencing the worse losses: between twelve million and twenty two million acres a year, according to the World Resources Institute.

Brazil’s rainforest is being decimated by a vast army of homesteaders, farmers, ranchers and corporate interests that include large scale mining and intensive farming. Drilling and mining leave scars, and farmers find that raising crops quickly exhausts the thin soil of cleared forest land. Many farmers merely abandon their plots and clear new ones. The cultivation of crop production leaves rivers polluted with chemicals. The extraction of gold and other metals fouls waterways with mercury and other toxins used in processing.

Today, scarcely twenty years since the intensification of the development of the rainforest, it has shrunk to 88% of its original size. It is estimated that each second, an area the size of a football field is destroyed, adding to the daily toll of approximately fifty thousand acres. In one year, an area the size of Italy is decimated and made uninhabitable to nearly all forms of life. Already thousands of plant and animal species about whom little was known have been irrevocably lost to the bulldozer, the chain saw and to the slash and burn methods employed by regional farmers, ranchers and miners.

Although its arboreal canopy reaches hundreds of feet into the air, the rainforest and its groves of giant trees are in fact rooted in very shallow soil and exist in a fragile balance. The rainforest experiences an abbreviated life cycle in which the creation of top soil is bypassed through the efficient decomposing activities of tropical bacteria and fungi. Rather than collecting in the soil, the nutrients are absorbed by the trees. A layer of nutrient-poor soil in the rainforest is generally less than four inches deep. Unlike other forests around the world, the rainforest once disturbed, cannot renew itself, remaining instead a barren sandy wasteland subject to erosion.

At the current rate of destruction, parts of the Amazon promise to turn into great stretches of desert within our lifetime. The repercussions of this activity are global. As the rainforest gets smaller, it is less able to supply the world with much needed oxygen or to absorb as much carbon dioxide contributing to global warming and the greenhouse effect. The burning forest adds even more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere jeopardizing the stability of ecosystems worldwide.

Given the immense size of the Amazon Rainforest and it’s unimaginable bio-diversity, we have just begun to scratch the surface of the solutions residing within. If we can find cures for cancer, malaria, polyurethane waste and more; perhaps it holds the ability to cure the incomprehensible problem we face today of plastic fragments choking our oceans? What other mysteries lie hidden within the green foliage and moist soil?