Plastic waste: ‘A terrible and insidious threat to human and environmental health’

FromWhat on Earth?

Start listening View podcast show

Plastic waste: ‘A terrible and insidious threat to human and environmental health’

FromWhat on Earth?

ratings:

Length:

31 minutes

Released:

Oct 8, 2021

Format:

Podcast episode

Description

Following the launch of the new EIA report The Truth Behind Trash, Ocean campaigners Tom Gammage and Lauren Weir talk about the scale and impact of the problem and what EIA is doing to help address it.

Released:

Oct 8, 2021

Format:

Podcast episode

Titles in the series (45)

Environmental Investigation Agency Podcast - We investigate and campaign against environmental crime and abuse.

Skip carousel

Why is Indonesia abandoning its timber export regulations?: Twenty years ago, the chaos and violence in Indonesia’s forests spurred efforts to put an end to industrial-scale illegal logging and to keep stolen wood out of the country’s exports – but now the Government wants to significantly water down the rule... by What on Earth?
28 min listen
Exposing the nexus of environmental crime – where the illegal wildlife and timber trades intersect: James Toone, a Senior Campaigner who works across our Wildlife and Forests projects, talks about how timber and wildlife crimes actually have much in common. To tackle environmental criminals more effectively, it’s important to know how they opera... by What on Earth?
22 min listen
Why should you care about what’s going on with Vietnam’s timber sector?: New timber import regulations came into effect today (30 October) in Vietnam – which is currently implementing an agreement with the European Union to keep illicit timber out of its huge wood furniture industry. This week, Forests Campaigner Thomas C... by What on Earth?
24 min listen
Is the coronavirus pandemic a warning to stop exploiting wildlife?: The coronavirus pandemic has plunged a third of the world’s population into lockdown and thrown a harsh spotlight on our dysfunctional and exploitative relationship with wildlife. Is it a warning to seriously mend our ways? Aron White, an EIA Wildlif... by What on Earth?
24 min listen
Not-so-fantastic plastic - why the world needs a global treaty to end plastic pollution: Humans produce a staggering 275 million tonnes of plastic waste a year and very little of it is recycled – mostly, it ends up in the environment, polluting land and sea while having a terrible impact on our natural world. Could the solution be a new ... by What on Earth?
20 min listen
Following the money – hitting the illegal wildlife trade where it hurts: The global illegal wildlife trade is worth billions every year, money which fuels further environmental crime, drives corruption and undermines sustainable development and conservation – but these huge profits are seldom targeted. In this edition, Ju... by What on Earth?
22 min listen
Checking out on plastics - are the top UK supermarkets doing enough in the fight against plastic pollution: Whether it’s in the oceans or on the land, the scale of plastic pollution is increasingly impossible to ignore and there’s a rising tide of tide of public opinion wanting to see it tackled. Christina Dixon, EIA Senior Ocean Campaigner, reflects on th... by What on Earth?
27 min listen
How our new global Tracker zeroes in on environmental crime data: Plundering the world’s precious natural resources is a multi-billion dollar business and, as such, keeping on top of the facts, statistics, seizures and trends of environmental crime means understanding huge amounts of raw data – data which can now b... by What on Earth?
11 min listen
Tipping the scales in our favour - the burning case for urgent action to tackle climate change: Our attention may be consumed by the coronavirus crisis, but the very real threat of climate change hasn’t gone anywhere. Although the world is fast approaching potentially irreversible climate change tipping points, swift action to tackle refrigeran... by What on Earth?
23 min listen
How wildlife criminals have adapted to work from home under pandemic lockdown: The global coronavirus pandemic has dramatically curtailed the way human society functions, impacting on just about every aspect of modern life – but some things never change and wildlife crime has continued throughout the crisis. Just as many of us... by What on Earth?
21 min listen
Myanmar: ‘Anybody investing in the natural resource sector is, in essence, supporting the military’: EIA’s Forests team has been working on the ground in Myanmar since the country began to emerge from under the shadow of brutal military dictatorship in 2011, exposing illegal timber trade and helping to provide the tools for meaningful reform of its ... by What on Earth?
39 min listen
Africa’s epicentre of pangolin scale and ivory trade – tackling the drivers of wildlife crime: Just a few short years ago, pangolins were said to be the most trafficked species you’ve never heard of, poached for their meat and scales, but they became much more famous after they were potentially connected to the outbreak of the coronavirus pand... by What on Earth?
35 min listen
Out of Africa - why West and Central Africa is a hotspot for ivory and pangolin trafficking: In the week that we released our new illegal wildlife trade report Out of Africa, Senior Wildlife Campaigner Shruti Suresh and Senior Pangolin Campaigner Chris Hamley discuss its findings and what needs to be done to address the situation as a matte... by What on Earth?
24 min listen
Plastic pollution is in the air, land and seas – and now it’s been found in our blood: Billions of tonnes of plastics have been produced by human beings and it can be found polluting every corner of the planet, from the highest mountains to the deepest seas. New research has just revealed that it’s also present in human blood.In this e... by What on Earth?
22 min listen
Intelligence Week special - meet the team behind the scenes of so much of our success!: As part of our special Investigator Week to celebrate the team’s work, in this episode we get to talk with Mel, our Senior Intelligence Analyst, and her two colleagues, intelligence analysts Martina and Denitsa, about what they do and why it’s key to... by What on Earth?
18 min listen
A global plastics treaty – why the world needs one and how it’s getting closer to reality: In just a few days, the United Nations Environment Assembly is due to start work on the creation of a global plastics treaty to tackle the very real planetary emergency of plastic pollution. In this edition, Christina Dixon, EIA Ocean Campaigns Deput... by What on Earth?
28 min listen
A dam too far – playing destructive power politics in the heart of a World Heritage wilderness: EIA’s Elephant Campaign Team has called for the Selous to be stripped of its World Heritage status due to the damage caused by construction of a massive hydropower project, but the World Heritage Committee stopped far short of taking such a step. Wil... by What on Earth?
19 min listen
Will a new national strategy to tackle environmental crime tame Nigeria’s Wild West?: In this edition, special guest Wilson Ogoke, Wildlife Policy Coordinator with the Africa Nature Investors Foundation, talks with EIA Wildlife campaigners Philip Rekret and Justin Gosling about the country’s new environmental crime strategy and how ef... by What on Earth?
31 min listen
A climate for action – as the dust settles on CoP26, what’s next in the fight against climate change?: The UN CoP26 climate change summit threw an international focus on global warming and what needs to be done to mitigate its worst potential impacts – but was the conference a success or a failure? And what needs to happen next to avert catastrophe? C... by What on Earth?
28 min listen
Ban it and keep on banning it … the high cost to elephants of restarting legal ivory trade: Last week, Zimbabwe hosted what it called an ‘Elephant Summit’ for itself and several other African nations – including Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia – with the aim of restarting the legal international trade in ivory and selli... by What on Earth?
22 min listen
We’re facing a grim future under runaway climate change – but we don’t have to choose it: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this week published its latest report pulling together all the latest data on global warming and its impacts and it makes for particularly harrowing reading. In this edition, EIA Climate Campaigner Sophie... by What on Earth?
24 min listen
The chilling illegal trade that’s helping to dangerously heat up the world: As another major bust of 17 tonnes of illegal HFC gases is made in Europe just days after the release of our new report Europe’s Most Chilling Crime, Climate Campaigner Sophie Geoghegan discusses the findings of our undercover investigations and loo... by What on Earth?
22 min listen
How we’re using artificial intelligence to help tackle the illegal trade in tigers: In partnership with the UK’s Alan Turing Institute, EIA is currently working on an ambitious project to create a database of tiger stripe patterns – as individual as human finger prints – to help identify and trace animals in the wild and in illegal ... by What on Earth?
19 min listen
Plastic waste: ‘A terrible and insidious threat to human and environmental health’: Following the launch of the new EIA report The Truth Behind Trash, Ocean campaigners Tom Gammage and Lauren Weir talk about the scale and impact of the problem and what EIA is doing to help address it. by What on Earth?
31 min listen
Cultivating Plastics – how the use of agriplastics sows the seeds of pollution in farming: The plastics used in agricultural production – commonly called agriplastics – account for only 3.5 per cent of the plastic used around the world each year, but they directly pollute the human food chain and harm the wider environment. As EIA releases... by What on Earth?
34 min listen
International Ozone Day - What’s next for the Montreal Protocol as it marks its 35th anniversary?: On 16 September, the United Nations marks the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer – and for EIA’s Climate team, it’s an opportunity to look back at the Montreal Protocol as it marks its 35th anniversary and to consider its role ... by What on Earth?
29 min listen
International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies - the problems with methane: Today (7 September) is the UN International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies and Climate Campaigner Kim O’Dowd talks about the dangerous impacts of methane pollution on climate change as well as on human health and what EIA is doing about it. by What on Earth?
25 min listen
Fighting for the forests - documenting a partnership forged to take on environmental crime: This episode, EIA Forests Team Leader Faith Doherty and Kaoem Telapak’s Mardi Minangsari talk with Senior Press & Communications Officer Paul Newman about the reasons for embarking on a major documentary project, the obstacles overcome and the specia... by What on Earth?
26 min listen
As negotiations for the first Global Plastics Treaty continue, what about the Big Oil lobby?: The UN Environment Assembly is in the process of negotiating a new Global Plastics Treaty, with the second phase of talks kicking off at the end of May to hammer out the detailed needed to properly address the fast-rising threat of plastics pollution... by What on Earth?
25 min listen
CITES meetings are a big deal in the environmental calendar, but just what is it and what does it do?: One of the biggest dates in the environmental calendar is happening in November when the 19th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora – aka CITES – opens in Panama City. But jus... by What on Earth?
21 min listen

More Episodes from What on Earth?

Skip carousel

EIA at 40 – ‘You can take on the biggest, whether it's the oil industry or illegal logging’: In the countdown to EIA’s 40th anniversary later this year, as well as sharing films and stories from our archive, we’ve also recorded a short series of new podcasts with some of the longest serving campaigners to get an insight into how the organisa... by What on Earth?
23 min listen
With the clock ticking, can we agree a Global Plastics Treaty by the end of 2024?: After a strong opening to UN talks in pursuit of a Global Plastics Treaty, recent rounds of negotiation have been hindered by the efforts of fossil fuel industry lobbyists as well as by some countries keen to water it down and rein in its ambition. I... by What on Earth?
40 min listen
Will Mexico’s crackdown on illegal fishing give vaquita porpoises a fighting chance?: With only an estimated 10 individuals left, the vaquita porpoise is the world’s most endangered marine mammal, pushed to the edge of extinction by illegal fishing for the dried swim bladders of totoaba fish which are in high demand in Asia. But despi... by What on Earth?
41 min listen
EIA at 40 – ‘I've been threatened by senior government officials, shouted at and screamed at’: In the countdown to EIA’s 40th anniversary later this year, as well as sharing films and stories from our archive, we’ve also recorded a short series of new podcasts with some of the longest serving campaigners to get an insight into how the organisa... by What on Earth?
34 min listen
Oppression, sanctions and blood teak, hallmarks of Myanmar’s coup on its third anniversary: On the third anniversary of the Myanmar military seizing power, the country has effectively seen a return to the violence, plunder and human rights abuses of the former dictatorship in pursuit of control and hard currency. Despite international sanct... by What on Earth?
20 min listen
Drilling down into the detail of eco crime prosecutions on our open access Crime Tracker: More than two years ago, EIA unveiled our Environmental Crime Tracker, an open access online tool to help analyse and better understand wildlife and forest crime around the world. Recently, we expanded its capabilities even further with a new dashboa... by What on Earth?
27 min listen
Is the palm oil in so many of our products still a problem and will it ever be truly sustainable?: Palm oil is cheap, versatile and used widely in countess thousands of products and in biofuels, but its production has been linked to human rights abuses, illegal logging and deforestation, causing considerable harm to indigenous peoples and the habi... by What on Earth?
33 min listen
Why can’t we rely on technology to clean the oceans of our plastic waste?: The terrible scale of our planet’s plastic pollution crisis has been making headlines in recent years, as have a number of apparent technological solutions to the problem – but can we really rely on physical ocean clean-ups to sort out the mess for u... by What on Earth?
20 min listen
What to expect as we enter round three of talks for a Global Plastics Treaty: EIA’s Ocean campaigners were among the first to spot the rising crisis of plastic pollution and we’re proud to have helped lead the call for a new Global Plastics Treaty to tackle it. This month we’ll be in Nairobi to attend the third session of the ... by What on Earth?
22 min listen
The threatened species in traditional medicines and the big names investing in them: Illegal wildlife trade is happening on a large scale to supply the parts and products of protected species such as leopards, pangolins, rhinos and tigers to serve as ingredients in some traditional Chinese medicines. In this episode, EIA Legal and Po... by What on Earth?
25 min listen
Why are World Heritage Sites such a vital tool for saving endangered species and habitats?: In this episode, we take a look at the work of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which has just met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and discuss what happened – and what didn’t happen – at the meeting and how World Heritage Sites can be an important tool ... by What on Earth?
27 min listen
On World Rhino Day 2023, how is this magnificent species is doing versus illegal trade?: Much of the past decade has been a tough time for endangered rhinos, to judge from the recorded seizures of rhino horn being smuggled around the world – but it’s not all bad news for this threatened species … In this special episode for World Rhino D... by What on Earth?
24 min listen
Iceland has resumed its slaughter of whales, but what future does the industry have?: After spending most of the summer in port, Iceland’s last whalers have been given the green light by their Government to resume the hunting and killing of endangered fin whales. In this episode, EIA’s Senior Ocean Adviser Clare Perry and Senior Ocean... by What on Earth?
26 min listen
As negotiations for the first Global Plastics Treaty continue, what about the Big Oil lobby?: The UN Environment Assembly is in the process of negotiating a new Global Plastics Treaty, with the second phase of talks kicking off at the end of May to hammer out the detailed needed to properly address the fast-rising threat of plastics pollution... by What on Earth?
25 min listen
Cultivating Plastics – how the use of agriplastics sows the seeds of pollution in farming: The plastics used in agricultural production – commonly called agriplastics – account for only 3.5 per cent of the plastic used around the world each year, but they directly pollute the human food chain and harm the wider environment. As EIA releases... by What on Earth?
34 min listen
Methane madness – why the EU must tackle harmful emissions from its energy imports: The European Union has ambitious plans to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 per cent by 2030 – but one major problem is its reluctance to address the huge amount of harmful methane released into the planet’s warming atmosphere from t... by What on Earth?
17 min listen
How we’re using artificial intelligence to help tackle the illegal trade in tigers: In partnership with the UK’s Alan Turing Institute, EIA is currently working on an ambitious project to create a database of tiger stripe patterns – as individual as human finger prints – to help identify and trace animals in the wild and in illegal ... by What on Earth?
19 min listen
What can we expect from the opening negotiations for the world’s first Global Plastics Treaty?: In March this year, the United Nations Environment Assembly agreed to forge ahead with a new Global Plastics Treaty and next week sees work start in earnest to get the detail in place to address the fast-rising threat of plastics pollution. In this e... by What on Earth?
25 min listen
CITES meetings are a big deal in the environmental calendar, but just what is it and what does it do?: One of the biggest dates in the environmental calendar is happening in November when the 19th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora – aka CITES – opens in Panama City. But jus... by What on Earth?
21 min listen
International Ozone Day - What’s next for the Montreal Protocol as it marks its 35th anniversary?: On 16 September, the United Nations marks the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer – and for EIA’s Climate team, it’s an opportunity to look back at the Montreal Protocol as it marks its 35th anniversary and to consider its role ... by What on Earth?
29 min listen
International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies - the problems with methane: Today (7 September) is the UN International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies and Climate Campaigner Kim O’Dowd talks about the dangerous impacts of methane pollution on climate change as well as on human health and what EIA is doing about it. by What on Earth?
25 min listen
Fighting for the forests - documenting a partnership forged to take on environmental crime: This episode, EIA Forests Team Leader Faith Doherty and Kaoem Telapak’s Mardi Minangsari talk with Senior Press & Communications Officer Paul Newman about the reasons for embarking on a major documentary project, the obstacles overcome and the specia... by What on Earth?
26 min listen
Ban it and keep on banning it … the high cost to elephants of restarting legal ivory trade: Last week, Zimbabwe hosted what it called an ‘Elephant Summit’ for itself and several other African nations – including Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia – with the aim of restarting the legal international trade in ivory and selli... by What on Earth?
22 min listen
Will a new national strategy to tackle environmental crime tame Nigeria’s Wild West?: In this edition, special guest Wilson Ogoke, Wildlife Policy Coordinator with the Africa Nature Investors Foundation, talks with EIA Wildlife campaigners Philip Rekret and Justin Gosling about the country’s new environmental crime strategy and how ef... by What on Earth?
31 min listen
Plastic pollution is in the air, land and seas – and now it’s been found in our blood: Billions of tonnes of plastics have been produced by human beings and it can be found polluting every corner of the planet, from the highest mountains to the deepest seas. New research has just revealed that it’s also present in human blood.In this e... by What on Earth?
22 min listen
We’re facing a grim future under runaway climate change – but we don’t have to choose it: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this week published its latest report pulling together all the latest data on global warming and its impacts and it makes for particularly harrowing reading. In this edition, EIA Climate Campaigner Sophie... by What on Earth?
24 min listen
A global plastics treaty – why the world needs one and how it’s getting closer to reality: In just a few days, the United Nations Environment Assembly is due to start work on the creation of a global plastics treaty to tackle the very real planetary emergency of plastic pollution. In this edition, Christina Dixon, EIA Ocean Campaigns Deput... by What on Earth?
28 min listen
A climate for action – as the dust settles on CoP26, what’s next in the fight against climate change?: The UN CoP26 climate change summit threw an international focus on global warming and what needs to be done to mitigate its worst potential impacts – but was the conference a success or a failure? And what needs to happen next to avert catastrophe? C... by What on Earth?
28 min listen
A dam too far – playing destructive power politics in the heart of a World Heritage wilderness: EIA’s Elephant Campaign Team has called for the Selous to be stripped of its World Heritage status due to the damage caused by construction of a massive hydropower project, but the World Heritage Committee stopped far short of taking such a step. Wil... by What on Earth?
19 min listen
The chilling illegal trade that’s helping to dangerously heat up the world: As another major bust of 17 tonnes of illegal HFC gases is made in Europe just days after the release of our new report Europe’s Most Chilling Crime, Climate Campaigner Sophie Geoghegan discusses the findings of our undercover investigations and loo... by What on Earth?
22 min listen

Discover this podcast and so much more

Plastic waste: ‘A terrible and insidious threat to human and environmental health’

Plastic waste: ‘A terrible and insidious threat to human and environmental health’

Description

Titles in the series (45)

More Episodes from What on Earth?