Animal Digestible Food Packaging Initiative

The abstract of a September 15, 2021 Science of The Total Environment article https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147547 by researchers with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology reports that “…studies of how … [plastic waste] affects terrestrial environments such as islands are not as common … Plastic litter is being collected from wilderness areas through beach-cleanups by volunteers, schools and professionals. A question that needs to be addressed is whether macroplastic that is partially weathered and buried under vegetation should be taken out of the topsoil layer or left untouched to further degrade with the risk of negative impacts on soil organisms or removed from the topsoil layer … In this study, a survey was conducted … at Mausund and Froan landscape conservation area in Frøya municipality, Norway … Thirteen samples of vegetated soil from above the storm tide limit from eight remote and uninhabited islands were collected, quantified and analyzed, and the results showed high amounts of plastic. Potential future concentrations of microplastic in the samples if left untouched are estimated, based on a formula from existing literature …” #PlasticWaste #SingleUsePlastic #MicroPlastics @NTNU