Rubber Made From Dandelions is Making Tires More Sustainable – Truly a Wondrous Plant
By Andy Corbley May 15, 2021
As companies continue to search for more environmentally regenerative materials to use in manufacturing, the tire industry is beginning to revisit an old Soviet method of rubber cultivation, using a plant that is considered a pesky weed in the West—dandelions.
Dandelion field in Russia by Vadim Indeikin, CC license
A major tire company in Germany has partnered with the University of Aachen to produce dandelion rubber tires in a bid to cut back on landfill waste, microplastic pollution, deforestation, and economic shortcomings related to rubber tree cultivation.
While the concept of “dandelion rubber” seems like a Harry Potter spell waiting to happen, as mentioned previously, it was actually developed by the Soviet Union in their quest for self-sufficiency.
Reporting from DW tells the story of a scavenger hunt across the largest country ever, and the testing of more than 1,000 different specimens before dandelions growing in Kazakhstan were found to be a perfect fit.
Previously, the world used the rubber trees, mostly Hevea brasiliensi, from Brazil, but during the Second World War the major powers of the USSR, UK, US, and Germany, were all cultivating dandelions for rubber manufacturing.
After the war ended, demand and supply gradually returned to Brazil and eventually to synthetic tires made from petrochemicals.
Aiding the bees and our environment
Now, Continental Tires is producing dandelion rubber tires called Taraxagum (which was inspired by the genus name of the species, Taraxacum). The bicycle version of their tires even won the German Sustainability Award 2021 for sustainable design.
“The fact that we came out on top among 54 finalists shows that our Urban Taraxagum bicycle tire is a unique product that contributes to the development of a new, alternative and sustainable supply of raw materials,” stated Dr. Carla Recker, head of development for the Taraxagum project.
The report from DW added that the performance of dandelion tires was better in some cases than natural rubber—which is typically blended with synthetic rubber.
Capable of growing, as we all know, practically anywhere, dandelion needs very little accommodation in a country or business’s agriculture profile. The Taraxagum research team at Continental hypothesizes they could even be grown in the polluted land on or around old industrial parks.
Furthermore, the only additive needed during the rubber extraction process is hot water, unlike Hevea which requires the use of organic solvents that pose a pollution risk if they’re not disposed of properly.
Representing a critical early-season food supply for dwindling bees and a valuable source of super-nutritious food for humans, dandelions can also be turned into coffee, give any child a good time blowing apart their seeds—and, now, as a new source for rubber in the world; truly a wondrous plant.
The US is studying how COVID-19 vaccines work in people with suppressed immune systems – after research suggested they develop fewer antibodies from the shots
Kelsie Sandoval May 17, 2021
Emanuele Cremaschi / Contributor/Getty Images
The US National Institutes of Health will analyze study participants’ T cells and antibodies.
It’s unclear whether people with immune disorders generate a robust immune response to the available the COVID-19 vaccines.
A study found that those taking immuno-suppressants were less likely to have developed a high level of antibodies after a jab.
The National Institutes of Health has launched a study to study how people with immune disorders respond to COVID-19 vaccines.
The study will include people with autoimmune diseases, such as celiac or lupus, and people on immunosuppressant medications, including those who’ve undergone a transplant or who have HIV/AIDS.
The US has thrown its weight behind vaccines in the hope that the three available shots – from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson – will provide a route out of the pandemic.
“If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said at a press briefing.
But questions remain for people with immune disorders, who were excluded from the COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials. As with pregnant people, the immuno-compromised are not included in US clinical trials given the higher risks of adverse events if there were safety issues with the medication being developed.
Studies suggest people on immuno-suppressants had a lower antibody response to the COVID-19 vaccine
In a recent study, researchers gauged how organ transplant recipients taking antimetabolites, a type of immunosuppressant drug, responded to the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine compared to patients who did not take antimetabolites.
Of the 473 participants who were taking the immunosuppressant, only 35% generated an antibody response after the second dose. Meanwhile, 50% of the 185 patients not taking the immunosuppressant had an antibody response after the second dose.
“I am quite disappointed that a significant amount of transplant patients did not get a reasonable response from both doses of the vaccine,” Dr. Dorry Segev, study author and associate vice chair for research and professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University, told NBC.
In two preprint studies, that have yet to be peer-reviewed by independent scientists, people taking immuno-suppressants for blood cancers or inflammatory disorders generated fewer antibodies after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine compared to people without an immune disorder.
So far, it’s unclear whether T cells or antibodies are better at protecting against COVID-19, Dr. Catherine Schuster-Bruce previously reported.
Emily Ricotta, a research fellow at the NIH and lead investigator of the study, said it’s imperative we find answers to these questions as early as possible. “We understand how frustrating it is,” she told NBC. “This has been a long, hard year for everybody and to have to continue that vigilance is tiring.”
Nineteen percent of adults with high blood pressure take drugs that worsen the condition
Linda Searing, Special To The Washington Post May 17, 2021
Among adults with high blood pressure, 19 percent of them are taking one or more medications that may be elevating their blood pressure, according to research presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology.
Prescription and over-the-counter drugs known to have this unintended side effect include antidepressants, pain relievers (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories such as ibuprofen and naproxen), some oral contraceptives, decongestants, antipsychotics and oral steroids taken to treat such conditions as gout, lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.
About 108 million U.S. adults have high blood pressure (hypertension), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That means they have a blood pressure reading at or above 130/80 mm Hg, putting them at increased risk for heart attack or stroke.
Just 24 percent have their hypertension under control, the CDC says. Lifestyle changes such as eating a heart-healthy diet, getting regular physical activity, achieving and maintaining a healthy weight and limiting alcohol consumption are usually the first things suggested to get blood pressure under control. If lifestyle changes are not enough, doctors generally prescribe medication, called antihypertensives, and may add more medication if the appropriate blood pressure goal is not reached.
But the authors of the research said that this may lead to people taking more antihypertensive medication than would be needed if their other medications were adjusted. They said they hope these new findings will make patients and doctors more aware of the possible effect on blood pressure that other medications can have. They estimated that if half of U.S. adults with hypertension discontinued one blood pressure-raising medication, up to 2.2 million patients might achieve their blood pressure goals. Their research was based on analysis of nearly a decade of data on 27,599 adults.
GOP resistance may be slowing Florida vaccine campaign. ‘We have to take this seriously’
Lautaro Grinspan, Ben Conarck May 18, 2021
During a late April meeting of the Republican Party of Miami-Dade County, it dawned on party member Gustavo Garagorry, 54, that his stance in favor of COVID-19 vaccines was far from unanimous.
“At that meeting there were lots of people against the vaccine,” he said. “They were saying, ‘First, I’m not going to wear a mask. And I’m not getting vaccinated, either. It doesn’t do any good.’ ”
Garagorry described his reaction that day as one of dismay rather than surprise. As president of the Venezuelan American Republican Club of Miami-Dade, the Doral resident is active in local Republican circles. For weeks, he’d noticed firsthand how misinformation about the vaccine was taking hold among many fellow conservatives.
“There’s a certain group of people that has bought into all the conspiracy theories. They say they’re injecting nanochips in people, that people are getting sterilized [because of the vaccine],” neither of which is true.
“I think they’re completely wrong, and I believe we have to take this seriously,” Garagorry said.
“There’s pretty significant resistance to getting vaccinated, especially on the Republican side. It’s crazy. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and I’m still seeing it.”
Garagorry’s observations on the ground in Miami track with the findings of poll after poll conducted at the national level this spring, which show Republican voters are significantly less likely to seek the shot than Democrats and Independents, a trend that could complicate the campaign to reach herd immunity in the United States.
By her own account, among those very unlikely to get vaccinated is Miami-based Muñeca Fuentes, who heads the Nicaraguan American Republican Alliance. Although she knows of people who’ve traveled to South Florida from Nicaragua to get the shot, Fuentes says most of her local friends are, like her, choosing against inoculation.
“Progressives talk about ‘my body, my choice’ when it comes to abortion. …My body, my choice,” she said. “I’m not getting vaccinated.”
REPUBLICAN VACCINE HESITANCY, IN DEPTH
Even as vaccines became increasingly available over the course of the year, Republican resistance remained high. Last month, polls released by Monmouth University and Quinnipiac University both found that nearly half of Republican respondents would avoid getting vaccinated if possible.
Per the Kaiser Family Foundation, vaccine enthusiasm rose among Republicans from March to April, but that group continues to be the most resistant, with 1 in 5 (20%) saying they will “definitely not” get vaccinated. By contrast, just 13% of independents and 4% of Democrats expressed similar levels of opposition to the vaccine.
In partnership with the Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that partisan vaccine hesitancy extends to the healthcare industry, with 40% of front-line Republican healthcare workers indicating they are not confident in the safety and efficacy of coronavirus vaccines (compared to 28% of Democrats).
Although there are a variety of reasons why people decline to be vaccinated, polls show a correlation between respondents’ political affiliations and their concern level about the pandemic in general. That could impact decision-making when it comes to vaccines. According to the Quinnipiac poll, for instance, 32% of Republicans say they are worried about another surge in COVID-19 cases, compared with 85% of Democrats. Notable gaps in concern level about the coronavirus have been fairly steady since the outbreak of the pandemic.
Republican state Sen. Manny Díaz represents parts of largely conservative Hialeah and chairs the Senate’s health policy committee. Based on conversations with constituents, he says the more significant dividing line for vaccine enthusiasm isn’t partisanship, but age, with older folks showing lesser hesitancy regardless of their politics.
“The interesting part is in my area, those older residents tend to be Republican, very much more so,” he said. And “there was no hesitation.” But Díaz says he’s noticed doubts among younger generations, with politics and “culture” playing a potential role.
“I think when anything’s new there’s some skepticism, and there tends to be more skepticism from those who have a little bit more mistrust in the government, and that tends to be more Republicans than anybody else. I think that’s part of it. I don’t think it’s tinfoil-hat-type stuff,” he said. “The folks that I have been speaking to, it’s a mixed bag. Some want to wait and see if there are any effects. Some are just not interested in the vaccine at all.”
Carl Latkin, a health behaviors researcher and vice chair at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said that younger people are also less likely to get routine medical care, and more likely to get their information from social media.
Latkin faulted poor government messaging on how the vaccines were developed so quickly without cutting corners on safety. Republican leaders did little to bolster it.
Former President Donald Trump offered a “half-hearted at best” endorsement for the vaccines, Latkin said. Prior to that, COVID skepticism from Trump and local conservative leaders almost certainly fueled hesitancy, he added.
“When we had a president that was spreading incorrect and bogus information, that just leads to this whole atmosphere of, ‘Who do you believe? What should I believe?’ ” Latkin said.
Also tempering enthusiasm in his district, Díaz noted, are reports of (rare) adverse reactions, as well as lack of clarity about whether booster shots will be needed and how long immunity from vaccines lasts.
As far as Fuentes is concerned, her principal source of unease is the speed with which the vaccines were developed, and a perception that their long-term effects could be dangerous. (The CDC says long-term health problems are “extremely unlikely.”)
“I’m not going to get the vaccine because I feel it would be very premature. They made it too fast. … We still don’t know the consequences. Five or 10 years could go by before we know the real consequences of the vaccine,” she said. “I’m nobody’s guinea pig.”
Fuentes added that she feels comfortable continuing to take the same set of safety precautions against the coronavirus that she is taking now, including mask-wearing “when needed,” abiding by social distancing guidelines and keeping a bottle of hand sanitizer in her purse.
“I also keep chlorine dioxide at home. Each time I go out and I’m exposed to the public, I come home and I drink 20 drops,” she said. “But honestly I don’t believe in the vaccine.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says chlorine dioxide, an ingredient in disinfectant, can’t treat or prevent COVID-19, and could “pose significant risks to patient health.”
VACCINE MISINFORMATION ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Likely fueling some conservatives’ vaccine hesitancy in South Florida is the spread of misinformation in Republican-oriented spaces and communities in social media, where conspiracy theories about vaccines abound both in English and Spanish
Screenshot from a pro-Trump group on the messaging platform Telegram.
Last month, using an ominous tone increasingly common during discussions of the vaccine, a group member falsely described the vaccination campaigns as an impending “mass die-off event,” with “millions of people already condemned to a death that will be certain, immutable, and agonizing.” She seemed to be citing a report from the ultraconservative website LifeSiteNews, which was debunked by the website Snopes.com, and which was removed from Facebook earlier this month for violating the platform’s policies regarding COVID-19.
On Facebook, anti-vaccine memes, posts and videos regularly crop up in the feeds of large groups and popular pages like Trump Team 2020 Florida, South Florida For Trump and Miami TRUMP Volunteers.
Juan Fiol, the leader of Miami TRUMP Volunteers, said he has no plans to get vaccinated. Public health experts say people who have previously contracted the virus do not enjoy the same immunity as those protected by the vaccine. But also playing a factor is his belief that a rise in new variants means the vaccine won’t be effective for long, and that getting vaccinated is no carte blanche to go back to normal.
“They tell you, ‘Did you get vaccinated? Well, it doesn’t matter. Wear a mask. You still can’t go out.’ It’s a joke. What more do they want?”
It actually does matter, as the vaccines are protective against existing variants. It is unknown if people will need booster shots in the future.
In a reversal of previous guidelines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on May 13 that fully vaccinated individuals can go without masks in most cases, even when they are indoors or in large groups.
René Garcia, county commissioner and chairman of the Republican Party of Miami-Dade, says that policy change could be key in swaying current vaccine holdouts like Fiol.
“I believe the best way to move forward is to say, ‘If you’re vaccinated, if you’ve done your part, then you don’t have to keep wearing a mask,’ ” he said. “I tell everyone: ‘I got vaccinated to stop wearing masks.’ I say it jokingly, but I believe it moves people.”
He added: “It needs to be a personal decision. I respect people who decided to get vaccinated and I also respect those who don’t want to get vaccinated, and might be waiting a little bit longer to see the long-term results.”
TAMING VACCINE HESITANCY AMONG REPUBLICANS
To date, about 48% of U.S. adults are fully vaccinated, a far cry from the 80% threshold many scientists say the country needs to reach to achieve herd immunity. To close the gap, it will be important to address concerns among all people, according to a Pew report.
But while many health departments at the local level have taken steps to reach minority communities and other groups disproportionately affected by the pandemic, there have been few if any Republican-specific initiatives to tackle hesitancy.
“I think we need to continue to provide facts,” said Díaz. And “whatever new information we can get for the questions they keep asking.”
Garagorry, leader of the Venezuelan American Republican Club, said it would be helpful for Donald Trump to more forcefully encourage his supporters to seek the shot. The former president got vaccinated shortly before leaving office, but behind closed doors. He was also absent from pro-vaccination spots by the Covid Collaborative project and the Ad Council that featured all other living former presidents.
“If President Trump were the face of a campaign telling people to go out and get the shot because we have a dangerous pandemic in front of us, I believe it would be very effective,” he said.
Latkin, the health behaviors researcher from Johns Hopkins, had his own idea for convincing Trump voters: Vaccine recipients would be entered into a lottery for a golf game with the former president.
But the position of Trump supporters like Fuentes show that may not be enough.
“President Trump may have gotten the vaccine, his entire family may have gotten the vaccine, but Muñeca Fuentes isn’t getting it,” she said.
For now, Garagorry says he will focus on “controlling what [he] can control,” and continue taking precautions for his own health, including mask-wearing.
“This isn’t a game. OK, this may not have killed everyone, but it has killed many people. I’ve lost over 10 friends. Earlier today, a friend of mine died,” he said. “He wasn’t vaccinated.”
Letters to the Editor: Apply the Clean Air Act to animal agriculture to fight climate change
Holstein cows at a dairy farm in Pixley, Calif., in March 2020. (Los Angeles Times)
To the editor: A massive industry with political influence works to preserve profits, knowing the harmful environmental and health impact of their products. Government leadership is channeled by lobbying pressure and campaign contributions, allowing business as usual to continue. (“Why meat and dairy corporations are the Achilles’ heel of Biden’s climate plan,” Opinion, May 16)
In the case of global warming, there are multiple industry players. In her op-ed article, Viveca Morris speaks of one: animal agriculture. In this case, the tantalizing promise of capturing carbon emissions from animals raised for food works as a smoke screen that obscures the primary problem.
If President Biden is to deliver on his climate pledges, his administration has to address all forms of carbon emissions, including those resulting from the meat and dairy conglomerates. His administration should apply the Clear Air Act to all greenhouse gas sources.
Gary Stewart, Laguna Beach
..
To the editor: I was disappointed that Morris did not mention the Good Food Institute, which is already working with huge global meat and dairy producers, including Tyson Foods, one of the companies she identified as “climate super-polluters.”
The aim is to produce lab meat and plant-based meats that will be as good or better in both taste and price. It will cut through the binary meat-eater versus vegan argument by simply changing the protein content of everyday products.
While I understand the urgency to address greener protein solutions, identifying Tyson and others as enemies misses the point. If these companies find a viable alternative that enables them to fulfill carbon policy and still make a profit, why wouldn’t they?
Jane Easton, Bristol, United Kingdom
..
To the editor: Morris’ piece shows exactly why a carbon fee is the best option to lower greenhouse gas pollution.
A carbon fee as proposed in the recently reintroduced HR 2307, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, does not discriminate. If your industry produces carbon pollution, your industry pays a fee, and the money is distributed to Americans to offset any increased cost of carbon-pollution products.
Therein lies the incentive for industries to develop comparable non-polluting products.
Column: We loved our pensions. Then our employers took them away. How was that allowed to happen?
Nicholas Goldberg May 19, 2021
Traditional pensions gave people a measure of financial security when they retired. (John Moore / Getty Images)
In a recent column in the New York Times, Paul Krugman argued that if President Biden succeeds in giving Americans affordable childcare, universal pre-K and paid family leave, it will be almost impossible to take them back.
People would never allow such desirable, transformational benefits to be taken away once they had become part of the fabric of our society, he wrote. Officials wouldn’t dare try because the backlash would be too great.
I hope he’s right. But all I could think, as I read along, was, “If that’s the case, where’s my pension?”
I’m talking about the kind of old-fashioned pension that many of our mothers, fathers and grandparents received — a “defined-benefit” pension, which provided employees with a guaranteed lifelong income as they grew old in retirement.
Pensions were part of the “fabric of our society” until they were taken away.
Most government workers still get them. But private sector workers? Fuggedaboutit. Although as many as half of private sector workers were covered by defined-benefit plans in the mid-1980s, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that by 2019, only 16% of private sector workers had access to them.
I’m not breaking any news here. This is a trend in the wrong direction that’s been underway for more than 30 years. But the story bears repeating because it is both a tragedy and a potential lesson.
The tragedy is obvious. The retirement plans that dominate now — 401(k)s mostly — were designed merely to supplement pensions, but became the go-to alternative instead. They offer no guaranteed income in retirement, but instead put the responsibility for saving and investing entirely on the individual, leaving people more worried about their financial futures — and often rightly so. An estimated third to a half of all Americans, including many who have 401(k)s, have insufficient funds to retire at their current standard of living.
As for the lesson, it’s that, yes, actually they can take stuff away from us, and there won’t necessarily be a backlash. Of course in the case of pensions it was our employers who did away with them, not elected politicians. That makes a big difference. Corporate America simply decided the pension system wasn’t penciling out, and since we don’t get to vote about what our employers do (except with our feet), they got away with it. Government, for its part, did not step forward to rescue us.
I remember how my grandmother took her pension the moment she became eligible for it at age 62 and lived off it in a comfortable-but-not-luxurious manner for 20 years after that.
I was covered by a traditional pension plan too at the very start of my career, but it was quickly frozen. My children? Are you kidding?
Let’s back up for a moment. The first private pension in the country was introduced by American Express for some employees in 1875. From there, the pension system grew and grew, especially after the Second World War.
By the 1970s and 1980s, employees who were covered by pensions could expect a pretty standard package: Benefits became available at age 60 or 65, as long as you’d worked for the company for five or 10 years. The longer you worked, and the more you earned, the higher the pension amount.
Workers knew in advance how much they’d be getting. No doubt they earned a bit less during their careers in return for a lifetime retirement income, but the trade-off was worth it.
I don’t want to suggest that everything was perfect. If people changed jobs, their pensions were not portable. Pension funds could be underfunded; sometimes workers were left in the lurch. The biggest problem was that companies were not required to offer pensions, so only employees of certain companies could participate.
But for decades, the system expanded. In the 1940’s, 4 million people were covered; in 1987, 40 million people were covered.
Why did the system collapse? A million reasons, including the rise of 401(k)s, which allowed employers to shift risks from themselves onto employees. (To be fair, some employees liked the idea of managing their own investments.) The declining strength of unions didn’t help. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, designed to safeguard set-aside funds, unexpectedly persuaded some companies to stop offering pensions at all.
“We’ve moved backwards,” says Josh Gotbaum, a Brookings scholar whose field is retirement economics. “If you had a pension — and let’s be clear, not everybody did — you knew that when you retired, you’d get a paycheck for your whole life and you’d know how much it would be. Now, you don’t know how much will be there when you retire or how long it will last.”
Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, who teaches public policy at UC Berkeley, says that corporate leaders used to feel a duty not just to shareholders but to all stakeholders, including employees. Since the 1980s, the emphasis has shifted to showing “greater and greater profits,” leading CEOs to slash wages and benefits. The move away from defined benefit pensions was part of that.
Pensions as we knew them are unlikely to return. But the fight for retirement security continues. California allows many people whose employers don’t offer 401(k)s to save for retirement through its CalSavers program. There are proposals to dramatically expand Social Security. Some argue for automatic enrollment in 401(k)s, rather than requiring people to “opt-in,” to increase participation.
I’m sure that once benefits are offered by government, it becomes a lot harder to repeal them, as Krugman suggests. But just to be sure, remember the pension lesson: If there are benefits we trust and rely on, we’d be wise to keep a close and protective watch over them so no one takes them away.
ExxonMobil is the world’s single largest producer of single-use plastics, according to a new report published today by the Australia-based Minderoo Foundation, one of Asia’s biggest philanthropies.
The Dow Chemical Company ranks second, the report finds, with the Chinese state-owned company Sinopec coming in third. Indorama Ventures — a Thai company that entered the plastics market in 1995 — and Saudi Aramco, owned by the Saudi Arabian government, round out the top five.
Funding for single-use plastic production comes from major banks and from institutional asset managers. The UK-based Barclays and HSBC, and Bank of America are the top three lenders to single-use plastic projects, the new report finds. All three of the most heavily invested asset managers named by the report — Vanguard Group, BlackRock, and Capital Group — are U.S.-based.
“This is the first-time the financial and material flows of single-use plastic production have been mapped globally and traced back to their source,” said Toby Gardner, a Stockholm Environment Institute senior research fellow, who contributed to the report, titled The Plastic Waste Makers Index.
The report is also the first to rank companies by their contributions to the single-use plastic crisis, listing the corporations and other financiers it says are most responsible for plastic pollution — with major implications for climate change.
Graph Credit: The Plastic Waste Makers Index: Revealing the Source of the Single-Use Plastics Crisis, Mindaroo Foundation.
“The trajectories of the climate crisis and the plastic waste crisis are strikingly similar and increasingly intertwined,” Al Gore, the former U.S. vice president, wrote in the report’s foreword. “Tracing the root causes of the plastic waste crisis empowers us to help solve it.”
The world of plastic production is concentrated in fewer hands than the world of plastic packaging, the report’s authors found. The top twenty brands in the plastic packaging world — think Coca Cola or Pepsi, for example — handle about 10 percent of global plastic waste, report author Dominic Charles told DeSmog. In contrast, the top 20 producers of plastic polymers — the building blocks of plastics — handle over half of the waste generated.
“Which I think was really quite staggering,” Charles, director of Finance & Transparency at Minderoo Foundation’s Sea The Future program, told DeSmog. “It means that just a handful of companies really do have the fate of the world’s single-use plastic waste in their hands.”
Graph Credit: The Plastic Waste Makers Index: Revealing the Source of the Single-Use Plastics Crisis, Mindaroo Foundation.
Meanwhile, the report suggests that public policy responses to the threats posed by plastic pollution have focused further along the supply chain, where things become more fragmented.
“Government policies, where they exist, tend to focus on the vast number of companies that sell finished plastic products,” the report finds. “Relatively little attention has been paid to the smaller number of businesses at the base of the supply chain that make ‘polymers’ — the building blocks of all plastics — almost exclusively from fossil fuels.”
While there are about 300 polymer producers currently operating worldwide, just three companies — ExxonMobil, Dow, and Sinopec — combined are responsible for roughly one out of every six pounds of single-use plastic waste, the report concludes.
In 2019, for example, more than 130 million metric tons of plastic was used just once and then discarded. ExxonMobil, the report concludes, was responsible for creating 5.9 million tons of that single-use plastic waste in 2019, with Dow right behind it, generating 5.6 million tons that year.
Neither ExxonMobil nor Dow responded immediately to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, 20 of the world’s largest banks lent nearly $30 billion that was used for the production of new single-use plastics, the report finds. That funding represents about 60 percent of the commercial finance that funds single-use plastics. An additional $10 billion in investment in new single-use plastics has come from 20 institutional asset managers, like Vanguard and BlackRock.
“Through our Investment Stewardship program, Vanguard regularly engages with companies on issues that are financially material to their long-term value and sustainability, including climate issues and environmental matters,” Vanguard spokesperson Alyssa Thornton said in an email to DeSmog. “We expect company boards to oversee climate and environmental risks and provide investors with clear disclosures of their risk oversight and decision-making processes. Importantly, we do not dictate company strategy, or operational or financial decisions; rather, we hold company board’s responsible for being aware of such risks and opportunities as part of a foundation for making the most sustainable long-term decisions.”
Barclays did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Graph Credit: The Plastic Waste Makers Index: Revealing the Source of the Single-Use Plastics Crisis, Mindaroo Foundation.
Virtually all single-use plastic comes from fossil-fuel based feed-stocks, the report adds.
“One of the key findings of the report is that single-use plastics today is 98 percent fossil fuel-based,” Charles told DeSmog. “And that in itself is really, we say, the source of the plastic waste crisis. And that’s because if you’re only making new plastics from new fossil fuels, you’re taking away the commercial incentive, you’re undermining the commercial incentive to collect this plastic and to turn it into recycled plastic products.”
The report grades plastic manufacturers based on their preparation to transition away from fossil fuels and towards recycling — and found that most of the largest producers not only have made very little progress in that direction to date, they haven’t even set targets that would push them towards a “circular” model involving recycling.
“Over 50 of these companies received an ‘E’ grade — the lowest possible — when assessed for circularity, indicating a complete lack of policies, commitments, or targets,” the report found. “A further 26 companies, including ExxonMobil and Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics Corporation, received a ‘D-’ due to their lack of clear targets/timelines.”
In fact, fossil fuel producers appear to be counting on that failure to move towards recycling. “Two of the biggest markets for fossil fuel companies — electricity generation and transportation — are undergoing rapid decarbonization, and it is no coincidence that fossil fuel companies are now scrambling to massively expand their third market — petrochemicals — three-quarters of which is the production of plastic,” Gore wrote. “They see it as a potential life raft to help them stay afloat, and they’re telling investors that there’s lots of money to be made in ramping up the amount of plastic in the world.”
In a statement on the report, the American Chemistry Council pointed to the use of plastics in products like solar panels and wind turbines to highlight the role that plastics — though not single-use plastics — play in renewable energy. “The world needs plastic to live more sustainably, and America’s plastic makers are leading the development of solutions to end plastic waste,” the Council said. “We’re innovating and investing in efforts to create a more circular economy, where used plastics are systematically remanufactured to make new plastics and other products. In the last three years, the private sector has announced $5.5 billion in U.S. investments to dramatically modernize plastics recycling.”
Meanwhile, the plastics industry remains on track to continue rapidly increasing the amount of new plastic it produces each year, meaning more fossil fuel use — even while other industries are seeking to trim or eliminate their reliance on fossil fuels.
“Our numbers suggest a 30 percent increase in capacity compared to 2019,” Charles told DeSmog. “Now that is not out of line with the historical rate of growth, it’s about 5 percent per year. But if we are to see 5 percent growth in fossil fuel-based, that is a real threat towards the growth of circular plastics and recycling. So I think that’s a real cause for concern.”
As of 2019, plastic producers had created 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic — and 91 percent of it was never recycled, according to one peer-reviewed study. Even from the start, a NPR and PBS Frontline investigation found, industry insiders were skeptical that recycled plastic could compete against new production, with one industry insider warning in a speech — in 1974 — that “There is serious doubt that [recycling plastic] can ever be made viable on an economic basis.”
So where does the money for all this come from?
The financing of single-use plastics is complex, involving not only lending and investment by Wall Street fund managers and big banks, but also privately held companies. The report’s list of the top 10 equity owners of polymer producers includes not only state actors and massive asset managers like BlackRock but also private individuals like James Arthur Ratcliffe — co-founder and majority owner of INEOS, a UK-based petrochemical company.
“Transitioning away from the take-make-waste model of single-use plastics will take more than corporate leadership and ‘enlightened’ capital markets: it will require immense political will,” the report says. “This is underscored by the high degree of state ownership in these polymer producers — an estimated 30 percent of the sector, by value, is state-owned, with Saudi Arabia, China, and the United Arab Emirates the top three.”
The report calls not only for more disclosures from companies and financiers about their ties to plastic production, it also calls for global action to respond to the plastic pollution crisis — starting with a focus on the companies most responsible.
“A Montreal Protocol or Paris Agreement-style treaty may be the only way to bring an end to plastic pollution worldwide,” the report says. “The treaty must address the problem at its source, with targets for the phasing out of fossil-fuel-based polymers and encouraging the development of a circular plastics economy.”
That’s in part because the plastic waste crisis and the climate crisis share one other thing in common — their impacts are global in scope.
“The plastification of our oceans and the warming of our planet are amongst the greatest threats humanity and nature have ever confronted,” Dr. Andrew Forrest, chairman and founder of the Minderoo Foundation, said in a statement accompanying the report. “And we must act now.”
Sharon Kelly is an attorney and freelance writer based in Philadelphia. She has reported for The New York Times, The Guardian, The Nation, National Wildlife, Earth Island Journal, and a variety of other publications. Prior to beginning freelance writing, she worked as a law clerk for the ACLU of Delaware.
Twenty firms produce 55% of world’s plastic waste, report reveals
Plastic Waste Makers index identifies those driving climate crisis with virgin polymer production
Sandra Laville May 17, 2021
A woman collects recyclable plastics washed up on the beach in Bali, Indonesia. Photograph: Agung Parameswara/Getty Images.
Twenty companies are responsible for producing more than half of all the single-use plastic waste in the world, fuelling the climate crisis and creating an environmental catastrophe, new research reveals.
Among the global businesses responsible for 55% of the world’s plastic packaging waste are both state-owned and multinational corporations, including oil and gas giants and chemical companies, according to a comprehensive new analysis.
Quick Guide
The top 20 producers of single use plastic
The Plastic Waste Makers index reveals for the first time the companies who produce the polymers that become throwaway plastic items, from face masks to plastic bags and bottles, which at the end of their short life pollute the oceans or are burned or thrown into landfill.
It also reveals Australia leads a list of countries for generating the most single-use plastic waste on a per capita basis, ahead of the United States, South Korea and Britain.
ExxonMobil is the greatest single-use plastic waste polluter in the world, contributing 5.9m tons to the global waste mountain, concludes the analysis by the Minderoo Foundation of Australia with partners including Wood Mackenzie, the London School of Economics and Stockholm Environment Institute. The largest chemicals company in the world, Dow, which is based in the US, created 5.5m tons of plastic waste, while China’s oil and gas enterprise, Sinopec, created 5.3m tons.
Eleven of the companies are based in Asia, four in Europe, three in North America, one in Latin America, and one in the Middle East. Their plastic production is funded by leading banks, chief among which are Barclays, HSBC, Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase.
The enormous plastic waste footprint of the top 20 global companies amounts to more than half of the 130m metric tons of single-use plastic thrown away in 2019, the analysis says.
It’s not just oceans: scientists find plastic is also polluting the air.
Single-use plastics are made almost exclusively from fossil fuels, driving the climate crisis, and because they are some of the hardest items to recycle, they end up creating global waste mountains. Just 10%-15% of single-use plastic is recycled globally each year.
The analysis provides an unprecedented glimpse into the small number of petrochemicals companies, and their financial backers, which generate almost all single-use plastic waste across the world.
Al Gore, the environmentalist and former US vice-president, said the groundbreaking analysis exposed how fossil fuel companies were rushing to switch to plastic production as two of their main markets – transport and electricity generation – were being decarbonized.
“Since most plastic is made from oil and gas – especially fracked gas – the production and consumption of plastic are becoming a significant driver of the climate crisis,” said Gore.
“Moreover, the plastic waste that results – particularly from single-use plastics – is piling up in landfills, along roadsides, and in rivers that carry vast amounts into the ocean.”
By 2050 plastic is expected to account for 5%-10% of greenhouse gas emissions.
“An environmental catastrophe beckons: much of the resulting single-use plastic waste will end up as pollution in developing countries with poor waste management systems,” the report’s authors said. “The projected rate of growth in the supply of these virgin polymers … will likely keep new, circular models of production and reuse ‘out of the money’ without regulatory stimulus.”
The report said the plastics industry across the world had been allowed to operate with minimal regulation and limited transparency for decades. “These companies are the source of the single-use plastic crisis: their production of new ‘virgin’ polymers from oil, gas and coal feed-stocks perpetuates the take-make-waste dynamic of the plastics economy.”
The report said this undermines the shift to a circular economy, including the production of recycled polymers from plastic waste, reusing plastic and using substitute materials. Just 2% of single-use plastic was made from recycled polymers in 2019.
“Plastic pollution is one of the greatest and most critical threats facing our planet,”saidDr. Andrew Forrest AO, chairman of the Minderoo Foundation. “The current outlook is set to get worse and we simply cannot allow these producers of fossil fuel-derived plastics to continue as they have done without check. With our oceans choking and plastic impacting our health, we need to see firm intervention from producers, governments and the world of finance to break the cycle of inaction.”
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ExxonMobil is the world’s single largest producer of single-use plastics, according to a new report published today by the Australia-based Minderoo Foundation, one of Asia’s biggest philanthropies.
The Dow Chemical Company ranks second, the report finds, with the Chinese state-owned company Sinopec coming in third. Indorama Ventures — a Thai company that entered the plastics market in 1995 — and Saudi Aramco, owned by the Saudi Arabian government, round out the top five.
Funding for single-use plastic production comes from major banks and from institutional asset managers. The UK-based Barclays and HSBC, and Bank of America are the top three lenders to single-use plastic projects, the new report finds. All three of the most heavily invested asset managers named by the report — Vanguard Group, BlackRock, and Capital Group — are U.S.-based.
“This is the first-time the financial and material flows of single-use plastic production have been mapped globally and traced back to their source,” said Toby Gardner, a Stockholm Environment Institute senior research fellow, who contributed to the report, titled The Plastic Waste Makers Index.
The report is also the first to rank companies by their contributions to the single-use plastic crisis, listing the corporations and other financiers it says are most responsible for plastic pollution — with major implications for climate change.
Graph Credit: The Plastic Waste Makers Index: Revealing the Source of the Single-Use Plastics Crisis, Mindaroo Foundation.
“The trajectories of the climate crisis and the plastic waste crisis are strikingly similar and increasingly intertwined,” Al Gore, the former U.S. vice president, wrote in the report’s foreword. “Tracing the root causes of the plastic waste crisis empowers us to help solve it.”
The world of plastic production is concentrated in fewer hands than the world of plastic packaging, the report’s authors found. The top twenty brands in the plastic packaging world — think Coca Cola or Pepsi, for example — handle about 10 percent of global plastic waste, report author Dominic Charles told DeSmog. In contrast, the top 20 producers of plastic polymers — the building blocks of plastics — handle over half of the waste generated.
“Which I think was really quite staggering,” Charles, director of Finance & Transparency at Minderoo Foundation’s Sea The Future program, told DeSmog. “It means that just a handful of companies really do have the fate of the world’s single-use plastic waste in their hands.”
Graph Credit: The Plastic Waste Makers Index: Revealing the Source of the Single-Use Plastics Crisis, Mindaroo Foundation.
Meanwhile, the report suggests that public policy responses to the threats posed by plastic pollution have focused further along the supply chain, where things become more fragmented.
“Government policies, where they exist, tend to focus on the vast number of companies that sell finished plastic products,” the report finds. “Relatively little attention has been paid to the smaller number of businesses at the base of the supply chain that make ‘polymers’ — the building blocks of all plastics — almost exclusively from fossil fuels.”
While there are about 300 polymer producers currently operating worldwide, just three companies — ExxonMobil, Dow, and Sinopec — combined are responsible for roughly one out of every six pounds of single-use plastic waste, the report concludes.
In 2019, for example, more than 130 million metric tons of plastic was used just once and then discarded. ExxonMobil, the report concludes, was responsible for creating 5.9 million tons of that single-use plastic waste in 2019, with Dow right behind it, generating 5.6 million tons that year.
Neither ExxonMobil nor Dow responded immediately to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, 20 of the world’s largest banks lent nearly $30 billion that was used for the production of new single-use plastics, the report finds. That funding represents about 60 percent of the commercial finance that funds single-use plastics. An additional $10 billion in investment in new single-use plastics has come from 20 institutional asset managers, like Vanguard and BlackRock.
“Through our Investment Stewardship program, Vanguard regularly engages with companies on issues that are financially material to their long-term value and sustainability, including climate issues and environmental matters,” Vanguard spokesperson Alyssa Thornton said in an email to DeSmog. “We expect company boards to oversee climate and environmental risks and provide investors with clear disclosures of their risk oversight and decision-making processes. Importantly, we do not dictate company strategy, or operational or financial decisions; rather, we hold company board’s responsible for being aware of such risks and opportunities as part of a foundation for making the most sustainable long-term decisions.”
Barclays did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Graph Credit: The Plastic Waste Makers Index: Revealing the Source of the Single-Use Plastics Crisis, Mindaroo Foundation.
Virtually all single-use plastic comes from fossil-fuel based feedstocks, the report adds.
“One of the key findings of the report is that single-use plastics today is 98 percent fossil fuel-based,” Charles told DeSmog. “And that in itself is really, we say, the source of the plastic waste crisis. And that’s because if you’re only making new plastics from new fossil fuels, you’re taking away the commercial incentive, you’re undermining the commercial incentive to collect this plastic and to turn it into recycled plastic products.”
The report grades plastic manufacturers based on their preparation to transition away from fossil fuels and towards recycling — and found that most of the largest producers not only have made very little progress in that direction to date, they haven’t even set targets that would push them towards a “circular” model involving recycling.
“Over 50 of these companies received an ‘E’ grade — the lowest possible — when assessed for circularity, indicating a complete lack of policies, commitments, or targets,” the report found. “A further 26 companies, including ExxonMobil and Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics Corporation, received a ‘D-’ due to their lack of clear targets/timelines.”
In fact, fossil fuel producers appear to be counting on that failure to move towards recycling. “Two of the biggest markets for fossil fuel companies — electricity generation and transportation — are undergoing rapid decarbonization, and it is no coincidence that fossil fuel companies are now scrambling to massively expand their third market — petrochemicals — three-quarters of which is the production of plastic,” Gore wrote. “They see it as a potential life raft to help them stay afloat, and they’re telling investors that there’s lots of money to be made in ramping up the amount of plastic in the world.”
In a statement on the report, the American Chemistry Council pointed to the use of plastics in products like solar panels and wind turbines to highlight the role that plastics — though not single-use plastics — play in renewable energy. “The world needs plastic to live more sustainably, and America’s plastic makers are leading the development of solutions to end plastic waste,” the Council said. “We’re innovating and investing in efforts to create a more circular economy, where used plastics are systematically remanufactured to make new plastics and other products. In the last three years, the private sector has announced $5.5 billion in U.S. investments to dramatically modernize plastics recycling.”
Meanwhile, the plastics industry remains on track to continue rapidly increasing the amount of new plastic it produces each year, meaning more fossil fuel use — even while other industries are seeking to trim or eliminate their reliance on fossil fuels.
“Our numbers suggest a 30 percent increase in capacity compared to 2019,” Charles told DeSmog. “Now that is not out of line with the historical rate of growth, it’s about 5 percent per year. But if we are to see 5 percent growth in fossil fuel-based, that is a real threat towards the growth of circular plastics and recycling. So I think that’s a real cause for concern.”
Marine debris collected on Midway Atoll, Photo Credit: Holly Richards, US Fish and Wildlife Service.
As of 2019, plastic producers had created 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic — and 91 percent of it was never recycled, according to one peer-reviewed study. Even from the start, a NPR and PBS Frontline investigation found, industry insiders were skeptical that recycled plastic could compete against new production, with one industry insider warning in a speech — in 1974 — that “There is serious doubt that [recycling plastic] can ever be made viable on an economic basis.”
So where does the money for all this come from?
The financing of single-use plastics is complex, involving not only lending and investment by Wall Street fund managers and big banks, but also privately held companies. The report’s list of the top 10 equity owners of polymer producers includes not only state actors and massive asset managers like BlackRock but also private individuals like James Arthur Ratcliffe — co-founder and majority owner of INEOS, a UK-based petrochemical company.
“Transitioning away from the take-make-waste model of single-use plastics will take more than corporate leadership and ‘enlightened’ capital markets: it will require immense political will,” the report says. “This is underscored by the high degree of state ownership in these polymer producers — an estimated 30 percent of the sector, by value, is state-owned, with Saudi Arabia, China, and the United Arab Emirates the top three.”
The report calls not only for more disclosures from companies and financiers about their ties to plastic production, it also calls for global action to respond to the plastic pollution crisis — starting with a focus on the companies most responsible.
“A Montreal Protocol or Paris Agreement-style treaty may be the only way to bring an end to plastic pollution worldwide,” the report says. “The treaty must address the problem at its source, with targets for the phasing out of fossil-fuel-based polymers and encouraging the development of a circular plastics economy.”
That’s in part because the plastic waste crisis and the climate crisis share one other thing in common — their impacts are global in scope.
“The plastification of our oceans and the warming of our planet are amongst the greatest threats humanity and nature have ever confronted,” Dr. Andrew Forrest, chairman and founder of the Minderoo Foundation, said in a statement accompanying the report. “And we must act now.”
‘It’s like a place of healing’: the growth of America’s food forests
Mike Jordan in Atlanta and Salomé Gómez-Upegui in Miami
May 8, 2021
Atlanta is home to America’s biggest food forest which also offers composting, beekeeping and bat boxes. Photograph: Peyton Fulford/The Guardian
There are more than 70 ‘food forests’ in the US as part of a growing movement to tackle food insecurity and promote urban agriculture
America’s biggest “food forest” is just a short drive from the world’s busiest airport, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson, but there is a relative calm as you wander through the gravel paths that weave through its fertile 7.1 acres (2.8 hectares).
When the Guardian visits the Urban Food Forest at Browns Mill there are around a dozen volunteers working on a warm morning. Among them are a mother and son clearing weeds from a secluded area soon to become a yoga and meditation space. “I wanted to help,” Rina Saborio said. “I thought it was a really cool opportunity for the community.”
Hundreds of volunteers have come before them in Atlanta, and thousands at similar schemes across the US.
Food forests are part of the broader food justice and urban agriculture movement and are distinct from community gardens in various ways. They are typically backed by grants rather than renting plots, usually rely on volunteers and incorporate a land management approach that has a focus on growing perennials. The schemes vary in how they operate in allocating food and policies on harvesting, but they are all aimed at boosting food access.
Organizers in Atlanta stress that they properly distribute the food to the neighborhoods that the food forest is intended to support and it’s not open to the public beyond volunteer workers. Other schemes have areas where the public is free to take what they want.
Atlanta’s Urban Food Forest opened in 2019 with a plan to be a model for urban agriculture and to increase food access, a challenge that long predates the pandemic but which has been terribly exacerbated by the economic crisis caused by Covid-19.
This scheme is located in Atlanta’s southside Lakewood community, less than five miles from downtown. Lakewood is a food desert, as defined by the USDA, and the nearest grocery store with healthy food options takes 20 minutes via public transportation. Most nearby “food marts” offer far more sweets, processed foods, and canned goods than fresh fruits, vegetables and produce.
Celeste Lomax, who manages community engagement at the Brown Mills forest and lives in the neighborhood, believes education is key to the forest’s success and beams like sunlight when sharing her vision for the fertile soil she tends. “We’re using this space for more than just growing food. We have composting, beehives, bat boxes, and this beautiful herb garden where we’re teaching people how to heal themselves with the foods we eat. We’ll be doing walkthrough retreats and outside yoga. This is a health and wellness place. It’s so much more than just free food.”
Celeste Lomax, top left, manages community engagement at the Urban Food Forest at Browns Mill in Atlanta. Rosemary Griffin, bottom left, waters the garden. The food forest gives the community access to fresh, nutritious food with garden beds, herb gardens and fruit trees. Photographs by Peyton Fulford/The Guardian
The land, once owned by a pecan farming family, sat vacant for years and almost became a multi-family housing unit after being purchased by developers in 2000. It was acquired by the city in 2016, through a partnership with Trees Atlanta and The Conservation Fund, and a grant from the USDA Forest Service’s Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program.
Food access has been a long-term challenge in the city. According to a June 2017 report in the Atlanta Studies journal, food insecurity rates were above 25% in downtown Atlanta and nearby in southern Fulton and DeKalb counties, where residents are mainly people of color with lower incomes. In Atlanta Regional Commission’s annual Metro Atlanta Speaks survey, 18% stated they received food bank assistance since March 2020.
Before the pandemic, Lomax had enough herbs of all types, to give volunteers tea packs for homebrewing after a day’s work. Today, the volunteer maximum is set at fifteen people, but back then as many as fifty volunteers worked the forest on scheduled days. She is hopeful that there’ll be enough catnip, lemon balm, chocolate mint, and other herbs to keep up with demand as members of the community near and far come back to help. “Once this stuff grows, and I can start giving things away again, I’ll be blessing the volunteers. They call it sweat equity; I call it blessing those who bless us.”
‘A living system’
Some 35.2m people lived in food-insecure households throughout the US according to a report by the US Department of Agriculture in 2019. Last month a Guardian/Northwestern University investigation showed the scale of the crisis in the past year with one in four facing food insecurity before Christmas, amounting to some 81 million people. It also highlighted the racial divide in the food system with Black families reported to be facing hunger four times more often than white families.
The Dr George Washington Carver edible park in Asheville, North Carolina, was the first public food forest to open in the US, back in 1997. Since then, many more have emerged around the country, and though there is no official data, according to the non-profit Sustainable America, as of 2018 there were more than 70 public food forests in the United States.
As Mark Bittman writes in his book, Animal, Vegetable, Junk, urban gardens, farms and food forests “can’t compare in scale, appearance, or yield to large rural farms but by supplying populations with real food, and bringing power and understanding of food systems to urban eaters, they become important pieces of the puzzle.”
As defined by expert Michael Muehlbauer, Orchard Director at the Philadelphia Orchard Project who is currently working to bring a food forest to public land in Philadelphia, food forests “are a gardening technique or land management system, which mirrors and works with woodland ecosystems by incorporating trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals that produce human food. This creates a living system with numerous benefits including wildlife habitat, resilient biodiversity, an abundance of food and medicinal yields, carbon sequestration, increased urban tree canopy, local food security, and an opportunity for community gathering and education.”
Muehlbauer was one of the very first volunteers at the Beacon Food Forest in Seattle. It began back in 2009 when four friends from the neighborhood of Beacon Hill came together to transform a seven-acre plot of public land into an ecosystem that could provide local food to neighbors.
The role of community and volunteers is crucial to places like the Urban Food Forest. Volunteer Rina Saborio, bottom left, pulls weeds in the learning area. “We do something unique where we empower people to show up,” said Elise Evans, a long-time volunteer and former board president of Food Forest Collective. Photographs by Peyton Fulford/The Guardian.
Elise Evans, a long-time volunteer and former board president of Food Forest Collective, the nonprofit that manages the Beacon Food Forest, shared that the forest has helped in many ways with food insecurity.
“We’re not a food bank,” she clarified, “but we do something unique where we empower people to show up. We accept all volunteers who are kind and want to have a sense of purpose in growing food together. It’s sort of a large-scale demonstration site. Anyone can do this in their ecosystem and we’re showing them how that can be done.”
The Beacon Food Forest in Seattle is mostly an open harvest site. Except for areas designated as food bank plots and City of Seattle P-Patches, they allow free foraging on-site. Over the past eleven years, they’ve seen successful results and haven’t observed anyone “wiping out” a harvest. Evans said: “In the golden hour of the evening, we see many people on site harvesting food for their dinner or food for a neighbor. They get to harvest something and walk two blocks away to go home and have dinner.”
The role of community and volunteers is crucial to keep these initiatives going. And Evans knows this from personal experience. She first became involved in the Beacon Food Forest after attending the first “ground making party”, a monthly community gathering that pre-Covid that would attract more than 100 people of all backgrounds to work on the forest while enjoying pots of soup and salads picked from the site.
“It was a glorious communal experience,” she recalled. “At first I thought I would learn about permaculture, but in the end, it was a vivid experience with energy from people of all backgrounds. So I ended up making friends and stayed for the people, which is a story of many people at the Beacon Food Forest.”
J Olu Baiyewu, Urban Agriculture Director of the City of Atlanta, says that as urban agriculture installations continue to come into communities, digging more deeply into community engagement and outreach is essential: “I think what has become clearer for everyone involved is the need for a continuous community engagement beyond the visioning plan, continuous kind of check-ins,” he said.
Yet, consistent community engagement comes with challenges of its own. There are issues of governance, organizing and commitment to be sorted out, and as projects grow, these matters become increasingly complex.
Muelhbaur, who has worked for the past five years to bring a food forest to public land in Philadelphia, emphasized that “challenges for public food forest projects include volunteer burnout, as it can be quite a bit of work to organize these projects, which often fall on the shoulders of passionate volunteers Finding the right structure is important to keep the project organized.”
Citing his experience with the upcoming food forest, he added, “it’s taken five years of community organizing, talking to the city, making sure we have the right insurance policy in place, and negotiating a lease”.
As Evans put it, many volunteers are driven by wanting a change from large mono-crop agriculture. And aside from knowing where their food comes from, they want to know their neighbors. “In a world that’s increasingly digital and stressful, it’s consistent that we need community and this provides that. It’s nourishing both for our bodies and our hearts to show up to this space.”
Celeste Lomax shares her knowledge of the food found in the forest with other volunteers. Photograph: Peyton Fulford/The Guardian
‘This is so much bigger than us’
“This is good for stomach ailments,” Lomax recommended, speaking to one of the Atlanta volunteers about anise growing near lavender. “It’s good for insomnia, so I would use this in a tincture and also in a tea.”
As she continues explaining the potential of the forest, including her excitement about meeting a volunteer earlier in the day who offered to lead a cooking class on the property using herbs and produce grown in its dirt, Rina Saborio walks over to say goodbye after finishing her day of volunteering. In her hand is a bunch of chives she’s carefully uprooted from the area she and her son were clearing. She offers them to Lomax, who says she can keep them in exchange for her service.
“This is so much bigger than us,” Lomax said. “We thought we were just gardening but it’s grown to be so much more. It’s like a place of healing. I’ve had a lady cry because she was able to release stress in this place. That’s when I said, “Wow, this place is really magical. It takes a village to raise a child but it takes a community to change the world.”
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