A severe heatwave is ongoing in Europe. Temperature records broken in France, Switzerland, Germany and Spain.
On 11 July 2023, the Land Surface Temperature (LST) in some areas of Extremadura (Spain) exceeded 60°C, as highlighted in this data visualisation derived from measurements from the Copernicus Sentinel-3 Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) instrument. The ongoing heatwave in Spain this week is resulting in a total of 13 autonomous communities, being at extreme risk (red alert), significant risk (orange alert), and risk (yellow alert) due to maximum temperatures that, in some cases, will exceed 40°C and reach a maximum of 43°C.
For reference, “in areas where vegetation is dense, the land surface temperature never rises above 35°C. The hottest land surface temperatures on Earth are in plant-free desert landscapes.”
Out of curiosity, how are paper bags more polluting than plastic ones?
Also, from what I have been reading, the problem with plastic is that it’s actually marketed as widely recyclable, but nobody actually recycles plastic as it is too expensive (water bottles, plastic packaging, etc…). Its actually cheaper to produce more plastic than to recycle.
in germany most plastic bottles are reused several times through a deposit system and after reaching a limit they are almost completely recycled. Always wonder why other countries can’t seem to be able to use a similar system
Is this audited in any way by authorities? How do you know what has been recycled and what is “virgin” plastic?
That’s definitely the way forward in my opinion. Do people get any incentive to use the deposit system or it’s already ingrained in the culture?
yeah searching for it, there seem to be certification institutes and audits. The system is quite nicely explained in this video: https://youtu.be/YQ2GOtpYiqk
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It takes more energy to produce paper bags and they last less… a paper bag that gets even slightly wet is useless while a plastic bag can be dried out and reused. I read that plastic bags that are reused 2x are less problematic than paper bags.
But that’s a big assumption to work from no? The fact that a plastic bag is going to be used more than once. I mean definitely a paper bag is less practical, but it won’t end up in a landfill trying to decompose for god knows how many years…
There are loads of single use plastics in our daily lives that are pretty much heading to a landfill as they won’t be recycled.