A key week of negotiations kicks off in Ottawa on Tuesday, as representatives from 176 countries descend on Ottawa to tackle global challenges posed by plastics.
And as it does, the University of Toronto has posted a story about how researchers at the University of Toronto have developed a framework for measuring plastic pollution emissions – not unlike the global standard for measuring greenhouse gas emissions.
U of T News
Published: April 22, 2024
By Sean Bettam
Researchers at the University of Toronto have developed a framework for measuring plastic pollution emissions – not unlike the global standard for measuring greenhouse gas emissions.
They say the approach will boost identification of the biggest contributors to plastic pollution from local to national levels and improve strategies in reducing emissions worldwide.
Using Toronto as a model, the first-of-its-kind framework suggests that, in one year alone, Canada’s largest city emitted nearly 4,000 tonnes of plastic pollution.
“That’s roughly 400 garbage trucks’ worth of plastic that leaks into the environment annually from across the city,” said Alice (Xia) Zhu, lead author of a study outlining the method published in Environmental Science & Technology.
“Assigning responsibility for the pollution to a jurisdiction with the ability to enact laws means there is no hiding where the pollution came from. It presents an opportunity to identify major sources of plastic pollution within the area and inform measures to curb these emissions.”
A PhD candidate in the department of physical and environmental sciences at U of T Scarborough who is working with Assistant Professor Chelsea Rochman in U of T’s department of ecology and evolutionary biology in the Faculty of Arts & Science, Zhu developed the framework with colleagues at U of T and the Rochester Institute of Technology. The researchers took inspiration from guidelines for compiling emissions inventories of greenhouse gases established by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Adapting for physical differences between greenhouse gases and solid pieces of plastic, the researchers used a similar methodology of identifying the major pollution-generating activities in a particular area, calculating the amount of pollution generated by each activity within a given period and accounting for uncertainties associated with each source of pollution-generating activity.
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Read the full U of T News story here.
For more information on the Plastics Treaty negotiations you can consult the following articles.
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