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ellymackay · 4 years ago

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The Link Between Sleep Deprivation and Early Death May Run Through this Surprising Place: Your Gut

The Link Between Sleep Deprivation and Early Death May Run Through this Surprising Place: Your Gut Read more on: www.ellymackay.com

Not getting enough sleep can take real time off your life. The link between sleep deprivation and mortality has been shown in a wide body of rigorous scientific research. Sleep is essential for survival. Studies in animals have demonstrated that going without any sleep will eventually be, over a period of days or weeks, lethal.

And studies in people have established the association between short sleeping and an increased risk of death. For example, a review of research published in the journal Sleep found an average of a 12% higher risk of dying among short sleepers. Short sleepers were people sleeping less than 7 hours a night—in many studies sleeping less than 5.

(We’re talking about sleep deprivation today. But I can’t move on from mentioning this research review above without noting that it also found sleeping too much associated with higher risk of dying—a whopping 30% increase. I’ll come back to this topic of excessive sleeping again. It’s an important one. In the meantime, here’s an article I wrote about the risks of oversleeping.)

And a 12% average increase to risk means, of course, that some individual studies found the risk of early death associated with short sleep to be even higher—like this study, which analyzed the connection over a 22-year period in more than 21,000 twins, and found increases in mortality of 26% for men, and 21% for women.

The big question is: Why? Scientists have a well-established association between lack of sleep and risks of early death. But what is the cause underlying this association? That’s a powerfully important question with huge implications for treating sleep disorders and other health problems.

There’s not likely to be a simple answer, or a single route or mechanism that connects short sleep to mortality risk. That’s because sleep is connected to so much else that the body does—from metabolism to brain function to immunity. Poor sleep is a factor in the chronic, age-related diseases of our time, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s.

New research out of Harvard Medical School contains some potentially game-changing information about one particular pathway by which sleep deprivation causes death. It’s a path you’ve heard me talk about before in relation to sleep.

The GUT.

I’ve written a number of times about the sleep-gut connection and its widespread influence over health issues such as weight and metabolism, immunity, and stress. Recently, I talked about how prebiotic foods can help improve gut health,resulting in reduced stress and more time spent in deep and restorative stages of slow-wave and REM sleep.

You’re probably familiar at this point with how the health of your gut contributes to your overall health and well-being. Your intestines are home to the largest concentration of micro-organisms that make up what scientists call the “microbiome.”

How the gut microbiome relates to sleep

The human microbiome is made up of trillions of tiny microbes. Many are bacteria, but there are also viruses, fungi, and protozoa. These microbial organisms live all throughout the body, but the single largest microbial ecosystem is in the intestines.

The collection of organisms within the microbiome—both the types and amounts of different bacteria and other microbes—has broad effects on mental and physical health, influencing mood, metabolism, cardiovascular and circulatory health, as well as the immune system, and our risk for chronic disease.

The gut microbiome is frequently called our “second brain.” That’s because the gut is home to a nervous system and about 100 million neurons. The nervous system of the microbiome is in constant communication with the brain and our central nervous system, helping to regulate hormone production, immune system function, appetite, digestion and metabolism, mood and stress responses.

On the sleep front, the microbiome produces some of the body’s melatonin (which is also produced in the brain) as well as other hormones and neurotransmitters involved with sleep, including dopamine, serotonin, and GABA .

Our microbiome is regulated by circadian rhythms. Research has shown that when circadian rhythms are disrupted, the health and functioning of the microbiome suffers. At the same time, so is sleep. The health of the microbiome can also be disrupted by poor diet, stress, illness, and excessive use of some medications including antibiotics.

We know from recent research that:

Irregular sleep schedules can disrupt a healthy gut. This recent study in the journal Nature has reveals the connections between sleep, circadian bio rhythms, and the gut microbiome. It points to a regular sleep routine as one way to protect and promote optimal gut and immune system functioning. Sticking to a sleep routine, limiting nighttime light exposure, managing stress, and practicing healthy, sleep-friendly eating habits are all ways to keep your circadian clock—and your gut microbiome—functioning optimally.

A couple nights of poor sleep can harm your microbiome. The relationship between sleep and the microbiome is a two-way street. Our microbiota affects how we sleep. In turn, sleep and circadian rhythms affects the health and diversity of the influential microbial ecosystem that lives in our gut. Recent research shows not sleeping enough can quickly have a negative effect on microbiome health. After only two nights of partial sleep deprivation, European scientists who conducted this 2016 study found:

A signifiant drop in beneficial bacteria

Changes to the composition of micro-organisms in the microbiome that are linked specifically to obesity and type 2 diabetes

A significant reduction in insulin sensitivity

Restless, poor quality sleep affects the microbiome AND metabolic health. People who experience sleep disorders, particularly obstructive sleep apnea, often contend with this type of poor sleep quality, which keeps them from spending sufficient time in the most restorative stages of deep sleep and REM sleep.

We know fragmented sleep leads to changes in metabolism and eating patterns that increase risks for obesity and other metabolic disorders, including type 2 diabetes. In the past several years, we’ve also seen a growing body of evidence that dysfunction in the microbiome is a significant factor driving the metabolic changes that lead to obesity and other metabolic disorders. Recent research suggests that fragmented sleep may play an important role in the microbiome-driven effects on metabolic health, in part by triggering inflammation that leads to metabolic dysfunction.

What does the gut have to do with sleep deprivation and early death?

Clearly there’s a lot going on in the sleep-gut relationship. We’ve learned a lot already. This latest breakthrough is especially significant and interesting, because it suggests a cause-and-effect chain of activity between sleep deprivation and premature death.

The scientists studied the link between lack of sleep and early death in a population of fruit flies. Scientists deprived the flies of sleep, and during their prolonged wakefulness the scientists examined the flies for signs of physiological damage from their lack of rest.

Here’s a snapshot of what they learned:

Over a period of 10-20 days without sleep, all the flies eventually died. No big surprise here—as studies in animals have shown, sleep is essential for survival and prolonged lack of sleep leads to illness and death.

When sleep deprived, the fruit flies produced a lot of a particular type of molecule in their guts, known as reactive oxygen species, or ROS. ROS molecules are volatile and unstable, and sometimes known by another name you might know: free radicals. ROS molecules, aka free radicals, damage healthy cells and DNA, through a process that’s known as oxidative stress—essentially, when enough free radicals are produced that the body can’t limit the cellular damage they do. Research suggests that sleep is a time when the body works to suppress oxidative stress and neutralize the damage of free radicals. This study was showing the opposite to be also true: without sleep, damaging ROS molecules became abundant.

Production of these ROS molecules in the gut always took place before the fruit flies died. To confirm that sleep deprivation led to increased production of ROS molecules in other animals, scientists tested mice. They, too, experienced a boost in ROS molecules in the gut when without sleep.

Scientists treated the flies with antioxidants, to neutralize the ROS molecules. This changed the course for the flies. With their ROS molecules eliminated, the fruit flies didn’t die, despite being sleep deprived. Moreover, scientists discovered the flies were able to maintain normal activity and normal lifespans, without sleeping.

The takeaway? Our guts may be a place where sleep deprivation inflicts direct biological damage that puts us at greater risk for illness and death. We need to see more research, but this is a really fascinating and important development.

Another takeaway? This new insight may offer new avenues to treating the negative effects of poor quality and insufficient sleep. Targeting oxidative stress in the gut might be a method for neutralizing and minimizing the damage that comes from not getting enough sleep.

What to do with this information

Take care of both your sleep and your gut! The good news is, both respond to many of the same habits and practices.

Control your stress. Not easy these days, I know. But really important, for both sleep and gut health. Here’s a recent primer I wrote on how sleep and stress intersect.

Exercise and eat well. You knew I’d be going here, right? Along with sleep, physical activity and diet are the foundations of long-term health and vitality. Both sleep routines and the health of the microbiome benefit from regular exercise and a diet that’s unprocessed, built on whole foods, and avoids sugars. Here’s my rundown on how to get more prebiotics into your diet for a healthier gut, better sleep, and less stress.

Stick to your sleep routines. Both sleep and the activity within the gut microbiome are regulated by circadian clocks (the gut microbiome is full of peripheral clocks that communicate with the master circadian clock in the brain). Our circadian rhythms create biological routines for our bodies—and these rhythms become stronger when we lean into those routines. Sleep on a consistent schedule. And use your chronotype to determine the best schedules for sleeping, eating, exercise—and everything else!

Sweet Dreams,

Michael J. Breus, PhD, DABSM

The Sleep Doctor

www.thesleepdoctor.com

The post The Link Between Sleep Deprivation and Early Death May Run Through this Surprising Place: Your Gut appeared first on Your Guide to Better Sleep.

from Your Guide to Better Sleep https://thesleepdoctor.com/2020/07/13/the-link-between-sleep-deprivation-and-early-death-may-run-through-this-surprising-place-your-gut/

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lcohen35 · 5 years ago

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Assignment 10 Final Draft: Are We Willing to be Inconvenienced For Sustainability?

According to physicist Albert Einstein, ‘A clever person solves a problem; a wise person avoids it’” (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 596). This is a perfect analysis of a zero waste lifestyle; zero wasters avoid making trash as a whole rather than looking for solutions of where to put it.

In my opinion, chapter 17 was a weird chapter because it focused highly on the effects of hazards on humans, and not the environment. It didn’t feel like it belonged in this text. Both chapters cited very controversial examples of responsible waste management/recycling, in my opinion. But, I digress. Here’s what I got out of it.

#WhatMajorHealthHazardsDoWeFace?

We face major health hazards from biological, chemical, natural and cultural factors along with our lifestyle choices. Biological hazards include bacteria, viruses, parasites, protozoa and fungi. Chemical hazards include harmful chemicals in air, water, soil and human-made products. Natural hazards include fire, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, tornadoes and hurricanes. Cultural hazards include unsafe working conditions, criminal assault and poverty. Lifestyle choice hazards include smoking, poor food choices and unsafe sex. The hazard of Coronavirus which we are facing right now is a biological hazard.

#HowDoBiologicalHazardsThreatenHumanHealth?

Biological hazards can be highly contagious, passing from one person to another, but they don’t have to be. The book talks about how the risks of these hazards, like infectious diseases are declining, but still remain relevant in less developed countries. That’s a bit ironic right now because of Coronavirus. The book also mentions how climate change amplifies the effects of these hazards due to their tendency to breed rapidly in warmer climates. This is a bit terrifying with summer approaching. Another major issue threatening humans is that some of the bacteria which causes infectious diseases have become immune to antibiotics, which makes them more difficult to treat and easier to spread. The spread is also made easier by population growth, which forces higher person-to-person interaction as cities become more dense.

Some believe the Coronavirus originated from bats in a Chinese province. If that is true, it wouldn’t be the first time a disease spread from one animal to another (us). There is a whole field of medicine called Ecological Medicine which studies this connection. Their findings have shown that it is increasingly important to regulate the consumption and trade of exotic animals to prevent the spread of infectious disease. However, in reality, I can see how this can be quite difficult and can come off as colonialistic, in imposing western culture on different cultural norms than our own.

Figure 1. Solutions to Infectious Diseases (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 452.)

#HowDoChemicalHazardsThreatenHumanHealth?

Some chemicals in the environment can cause cancers and birth defects, and disrupt the human immune, nervous and endocrine systems. Toxic chemicals can cause temporary or permanent damage or even death to humans. The EPA has found that almost ½ of the fish tested in 500 US lakes and reservoirs had above safe levels of mercury (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 453). Mercury is a toxic metal naturally released into the air. However, ⅔ of the mercury existing in our atmosphere comes unnaturally from human activity: coal, industrial plants, cement kilns, smelters and solid-waste incinerators. Since Mercury is an element, it cannot be broken down, and it builds up in whatever area it comes to pollute. Humans are exposed to mercury through the food we eat or the air we breathe. This exposure to mercury can cause reduced IQs and nervous system damage.

Figure 2. Movement of Different Forms of Mercury Through the Environment (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 454).

Figure 3. How to Prevent/Control Mercury Inputs (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 454).

Certain chemicals can affect the endocrine system because they have structures which mimic natural hormones. This can allow them to disrupt sexual development and reproduction. Some of these chemicals, or hormone disruptors, include the ones which are used to make plastics more flexible. Specifically, BPA has been a controversial material used in plastics, because research has shown that low levels of BPA can cause brain damage, early puberty, decreased sperm count, cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, liver damage, impaired immune function, impotence and obesity. Consumers have the power to choose BPA free products, but some manufacturers have just replaced the chemical with a similar synthetic, which defeats the purpose.

The book suggests that a simple way to help ourselves is to just switch to cleaner products. However, the book fails to recognize this is not accessible for many people in the US, because “clean” products tend to be more expensive.

Figure 4. Ways to Limit Exposure to Hormone Disruptors (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 455).

#HowCanWeEvaluateRisksFromChemicalHazards?

Scientists use animal testings, case reports, and epidemiological studies to estimate the toxicity of chemicals. They evaluate dosage, solubility, persistence, and biological magnification, to name a few factors. There are many ethical factors which go into animal testing, and since more humane options exist, consumers have the option to buy products that do not test on animals.

“‘Toxicologists know a great deal about a few chemicals, a little about many, and next to nothing about most’” (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 459). Though toxicologists are working hard to evaluate these risks, they overall recommend pollution prevention to reduce our exposure to harmful chemicals. Living in a developed country, we have all likely been exposed to potentially harmful chemicals, but we should avoid it whenever possible.

The book specifically cites 3M and Dupont as business leaders in chemical recycling, which is laughable. Both Dupont and 3M have been involved in environmental scandals of their own, ruined communities, and then tried to deny it when the time came to own up. I can’t fathom why the book would cite these two as examples of responsible businesses following the precautionary principle.

In order to follow the precautionary principle we (businesses, government, individuals) must:

assume new chemicals and technologies could be harmful unless proven otherwise

remove the existing chemicals and technologies that have been assumed safe thus far from the market until proven so

The European Union has already begun to apply the precautionary principle through pollution prevention by phasing out the dirty dozen.

Figure 5. Potentially Harmful Chemicals Found in the Home (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 460).

#HowDoWePercieveAndAvoidRisks?

We can avoid risks by becoming informed, thinking critically and making conscious choices. The best ways to avoid individual health risks are to avoid smoking, lose excess weight, reduce consumption of sugary foods, eat a variety of fruits and vegetables, exercise regularly, drink little to no alcohol, avoid excessive sunlight and practice safe sex. Technological risks can be difficult to estimate due to their complexity. But we can do so by calculating their probability of success (Reliability=Tech Reliability x Human Reliability).

Designer William Mcdonough came up with the cradle-to-cradle approach to the life-cycle of products; “we should think of products as part of a continuing cycle instead of becoming solid wastes that end up as litter or being burned or deposited in landfills” (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 574). This is a form of biomimicry, a cycle which replicates the cycle of nature. This way of thinking has also been called closed-loop, and needs to be implemented at the design stage of a product, planning out every step of consumption.

It is important to note that some people are unable to avoid risks. The poor and unimmunized are particularly susceptible to disease. There's a privilege to being able to avoid contact, as in many areas people live with many members of their family in tight quarters and are unable to avoid contact with germs. This fact outlines how for some communities, even if you know the risks, you might still just have to live with them. The cycle of poverty is also worsened during a pandemic due to lower level client facing jobs increasing the susceptibility to disease. The poor are also less likely to receive medical assistance and less likely to have health insurance. The intersection of vulnerabilities is an important factor to consider when avoiding risk. The basic rule of thumb is, the more vulnerable you are before a disaster, you are exponentially more after the fact.

#WhatEnvironmentalProblemsAreRelatedToSolidAndHazardousWastes?

Solid waste contributes to pollution and contains valuable resources that could be reused or recycled. Municipal solid waste (MSW) is what we throw out in our lives everyday–huge amounts of trash. We also produce industrial waste through agriculture, mining and industry. Without humans, this problem of this type of waste wouldn’t exist, because the natural wastes of one organism become nutrients or raw materials for another. We will always produce some waste, due to the law of conservation of matter, but cradle-to-cradle design could help reduce our waste and environmental harm by 80%. The United States produces the most waste in the world, “enough MSW to fill a bumper-to-bumper convoy of garbage trucks long enough to circle the earth’s equator almost six times” (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 576).

Figure 6. Composition of MSW in the US and Where It Goes After Collection (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 576).

Many people have the misconception that landfills operate as huge compost piles where biodegradable waste will eventually break down in a short time. But in reality, decomposition takes a long time in a landfill due to lack of sunlight, water, and air.

Hazardous waste contributes to pollution, natural capital degradation, health problems and premature deaths. This type of waste is corrosive, toxic, flammable, can be explosive and cause disease. The two major types of hazardous wastes are organic compounds and toxic heavy metals. E-waste is a large source of this type of waste. Much of e-waste is shipped to foreign countries where the labor is cheap and environmental regulations are lax. “More developed countries produce 80-90% of the world’s hazardous wastes, and the United States is the largest producer” (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 577). This means as human societies progress, we degrade the environment that allowed us to do so.

#HowShouldWeDealWithSolidWaste?

We should deal with solid waste by reducing our production of it, reusing or recycling it and safely disposing of it. Waste management is imperative to dealing with solid waste, but prevention and reduction are more effective. Integrated waste management combines all of these approaches, and is the most realistic.

Figure 7. Priorities Recommended by the US National Academy of Sciences for Dealing with MSW compared with The Reality (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 579).

The 4 R’s by priority are

Refuse: Don’t use it.

Reduce: Use less of it.

Reuse: use it over and over.

Recycle: Upcycle, compost, and follow local recycling rules.

The question becomes, is it the responsibility of individuals to take these actions, or the responsibility of the system to change and make it really easy for individuals to do so? I think a combination of both. Producers of trash tend to focus on source separation as the most cost effective form of recycling. However, this puts a lot of owness on the consumer to be knowledgable on their local recycling practices.

6 Strategies that industries and communities can use to reduce resource use, waste and pollution:

Change industrial processes to eliminate or reduce harmful chemical use.

Redesign manufacturing processes and products to use less material and energy.

Develop products that are easy to repair, reuse, remanufacture, compost or recycle.

Establish cradle-to cradle responsibility laws.

Eliminate and/or reduce unnecessary packaging.

Use fee-per-bag solid waste collection systems.

#WhyAreWeRefusingReducingReusingAndRecyclingSoImportant?

We refuse, reduce, reuse and recycle what we use to decrease our consumption of matter and energy resources, reduce pollution and natural capital degradation and save money.

Questions to ask yourself to avoid a throwaway economy:

Do I really need this? (refuse)

How many of these do I actually need? (reduce)

Is this something I can use more than once? (reuse)

Can this be converted into the same or a different product when I am done with it? (recycle)

Figure 8. Some Ways to Reuse (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 582).

Businesses are also forming out of people’s desire to avoid waste, such as rental clothing, furniture and child’s toys. Additionally recycling businesses are arising to give people points for recycling, or to recycle non recyclable products. Terracycle is a company that partners with brands to recycle their packaging in order to divert it from a landfill (Terracycle 2020).

Recycling is a complex and expensive process, so it is not the most sustainable form of waste diversion. Additionally, incorrect sorting for recycling is ineffective.

Figure 9. Advantages and Disadvantages of Recycling (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 585).

#WhatAreTheAdvantagesAndDisadvantagesOfBurningOrBuryingSolidWaste?

Figure 10. Trade-Offs of Burning Solid Waste (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 587).

Figure 11. Trade-Offs of Landfills (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 588).

#HowShouldWeDealWithHazardousWaste?

We should deal with hazardous waste by producing less of it, reusing or recycling it, converting it to less hazardous materials, and safely storing it. Most countries follow these priorities poorly. The long-term solution is prevention, but short term the other options will suffice. Hazardous waste can be detoxified physically, chemically or biologically. Additionally plasma gasification can be used to treat the waste, but it is quite expensive. Burial of hazardous waste is the most common form of storage in the United States and abroad due to low cost. But the environmental costs of leakage into groundwater are high. The current regulation for this type of storage is inadequate. Actually, 95% of the hazardous and toxic wastes produced in the United States are unregulated, and even less are regulated in less developed countries. The consequences of this is that about $1.7 trillion is spent on the cleanup of toxic waste, not including legal fees. And we pay for it through our taxes!

#HowCanASocietyShiftToALowWasteEconomy?

“Shifting to a low waste economy will require individuals and businesses to reduce resource use and to reuse and recycle most solid and hazardous wastes at local, national and global levels” (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 594). Bottom-up campaigns are essential in the process including sit-ins, concerts, protests, rallies, and petitions. Manufacturers of waste feel that it needs to be managed, while citizens feel that waste needs to be reduced; it is a constant struggle.

3 Factors hinder reuse and recycling

The market prices of products are not applying full-cost pricing.

The economic playing field is uneven because resource extraction usually receives more subsidies than reuse and recycling industries.

The demand and the price paid for recycled goods fluctuates since it isn’t a high priority for consumers.

We can reverse these factors by attaching deposit fees or fee-per bag charges and governments can pass laws requiring companies to take back, recycle and/or reuse packaging and e-waste. Overall, a change in mindset must be adopted to the way in which we consume in the following ways.

We must understand:

Everything is connected.

There is no “throw away” for our wastes.

Producers and polluters should pay for their produced wastes.

We can mimic nature by reusing, recycling, composting or exchanging MSW.

(Miller and Spoolman 2016, 596).

Additionally, I watched No Impact Man for this post, where Colin Beavin asks, what if we tried not to hurt the environment? And what are we willing to give up to do so? He spent a year living zero waste, only buying food within a 250 mile radius, and only traveling by foot and bike. He shopped at local farmers markets, turned off his electricity, homemade cleaning products and in the end adopted a different mindset towards life. Beavin began to understand the disconnection between humans and nature through consumption. Personally, I have been pursuing zero waste for 3 years, and even I thought the guy was a bit extreme. His critics felt the same way. In the film, Beavin noted how some environmentalists had reached out to him saying he was giving the rest of us a bad rep. But I think it’s important for people to understand the validity of the experiment, and how little thought goes into most peoples’ everyday impact. This strikes a nerve in American culture because we are a society built on American corporate capitalism. Through No Impact Man, Beavin also balanced the question of individual versus collective action. Some other critics said if we could do it without government and business aid, then what’s the problem? I think the problem is that living how Colin lived is seen as extreme and unrealistic for most people due to the inconveniences it causes. Individual action requires people to be engaged, and creates the demand for the world to look differently.

Figure 12. Zero Waste. Personal Photo.

Word Count: 3000 Words

Question: How can zero-waste lifestyles be more attractive and accessible?

Works Cited

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. 2016. Living in the Environment: Nineteenth Edition, 441-596. Canada: Cengage Learning.

Wurmfeld, E. (Producer), & Gabbert, L. (Director). (2009). No Impact Man [Motion Picture]. Toronto, ON : Mongrel Media.

Terracyle. 2020. “About Terracycle.” Accessed April 6, 2020. https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/about-terracycle?utm_campaign=admittance&utm_medium=menu&utm_source=www.terracycle.com

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clusterassets · 7 years ago

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New world news from Time: Poland Just Passed a Holocaust Bill That Is Causing Outrage. Here’s What You Need to Know

Poland’s Senate passed a controversial bill on Thursday that outlaws blaming Poland for any crimes committed during the Holocaust.

The bill was proposed by the country’s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) and calls for up to three years in prison or a fine for accusing the Polish state or people of involvement or responsibility for the Nazi occupation during World War II. The proposed legislation has raised concerns among critics about how the Polish state will decide what it considers to be facts. Lawmakers in Israel have pointed to historical records citing complicity by some Poles in the activities of the Nazi regime. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it an “attempt to rewrite history.”

Early Thursday morning, senators voted 57 to 23 for the bill, with two abstentions. The proposal requires approval by President Andrzej Duda, who supports it, to become law. “We have to send a clear signal to the world that we won’t allow for Poland to continue being insulted,” Patryk Jaki, a deputy justice minister, told reporters in parliament.

Here’s what you need to know.

What exactly would the law make illegal in Poland?

The legislation criminalizes any mention of Poles “being responsible or complicit in the Nazi crimes committed by the Third German Reich.” The harshest penalties are reserved for those who refer to Nazi-era concentration camps such as Auschwitz as “Polish death camps.” Only scientific research into the war and artistic work are exempted.

The use of the term “Polish death camp” has riled both the current nationalist government and its more liberal predecessors. According to Polish politician Jan Grabiec, the Polish foreign ministry issued 913 statements between 2008 and 2015 in response to the term being mentioned.

Interwencje MSZ ws. zwrotu "polskie obozy śmierci" w latach 2008-2015 913 razy. W 2014 r. – 151, 2015 r. – 277. W 2015 r. najczęściej w: Wlk. Bryt. (105), USA (35), Słowacji (17), Kanadzie (16), Niemczech (14), Izraelu (12), Danii (12) i Hiszpanii (11)#GermanDeathCamps

— Jan Grabiec (@JanGrabiec) January 29, 2018

Former U.S. President Barack Obama caused an uproar in Poland when he used the phrase “Polish death camp” while posthumously bestowing a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 to Jan Karski, a Polish World War II resistance fighter. Obama apologized for using the phrase after being denounced by current European Council President Donald Tusk, who was then the Prime Minister of Poland.

Why has the proposed law become a diplomatic incident?

The bill sparked outrage in Israel after it passed through Poland’s parliament on Jan. 26, on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day. Many in Israel call it an attempt to whitewash the role some Poles had in the detention and killing of around three million Polish Jews during World War II.

“The legislation will not help further the exposure of historical truth and may harm freedom of research, as well as prevent discussion of the historical message and legacy of World War II,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The bill was passed despite assurances from Poland that there would be a dialogue with Israel before the vote took place.

The U.S. State Department also warned Polish lawmakers against passing the bill, saying it could have “repercussion” on the country’s “strategic interests and relationships, including with the United States.”

What does the historical record say?

Poland was attacked and occupied in 1939 by Nazi Germany, which led to the building of concentration camps, including Treblinka and Auschwitz, that were operated by the Germans. The Germans killed about 1.9 million non-Jewish civilians and about three million Jews during the occupation of Poland, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. A number of Poles risked their lives to help hide Jews, according to the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.

But like certain citizens of other nations occupied by Nazi Germany, some Poles were complicit in the Nazi atrocities. According to the POLIN museum, a small minority of Poles either extorted money from Jews hiding from the Germans or outed them. The Nazis also recruited local collaborators to round up Jews for the camps. In addition, there were anti-Semitic pogroms during and after the war. The most infamous happened in 1941 in the town of Jedwabne, in which 400 Jews were set on fire in a barn by their neighbors.

The Polish prime minister tweeted a metaphor on Sunday intended to put these activities in context. Morawiecki wrote: “A gang of professional thugs enters a two-family house. They kill the first family almost entirely. They kill the parents of the second, torturing the kids. They loot and raze the house. Could one, in good conscience, say that the second family is guilty for the murder of the first?”

Kiedy okrutni bandyci napadają dom, w którym mieszkają razem dwie rodziny i jedną rodzinę bandyci mordują prawie całą, a w drugiej mordują matkę, ojca, torturują dzieci, rabują cały dom i go podpalają – wtedy nikt nie może mówić, że druga rodzina jest winna okrucieństwa bandytów.

— Mateusz Morawiecki (@MorawieckiM) January 28, 2018

Why Poland is doing this now?

Critics have accused the right-wing government of using the issue to bolster political support. PiS has been accused of pandering to nationalists and the far-right through xenophobic language and tailoring its message to appeal to a spectrum of right-wing voters. PiS’s leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski once said Muslim refugees carried “various parasites and protozoa” and the government’s education minister in 2016 discounted two well-documented massacres of Jews, including Jedwabne, by calling it a matter of “opinion, ” according to the Times of Israel.

There has been a resurgence of far-right sentiment in the country. A Polish government pollster found in a November survey that more than one in three polled said they supported far-right activities. That same month, far-right nationalists marched in Warsaw, brandishing slogans and signs that said “Clean Blood,” “White Europe, and “Europe Will Be White.” Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said the march wad fueled by “patriotic behavior of Poles” and displays of xenophobia were “incidents” that were “of course, reprehensible.”

Read more: It’s Almost Impossible To Get An Abortion In Poland. These Women Crossed The Border To Germany For Help

The government denies the bill was intended to limit free expression or rewrite history, but critics say otherwise. Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Israel, agreed that the term “Polish death camps” was a historical misrepresentation in a statement late last month. “However, restrictions on statements by scholars and others regarding the Polish people’s direct or indirect complicity with the crimes committed on their land during the Holocaust are a serious distortion” the statement read.

February 01, 2018 at 08:53PM ClusterAssets Inc., https://ClusterAssets.wordpress.com

#Time #world #news #ClusterAssets #ClusterAsset #Cluster Asset Inc.#ClusterAssets Inc.

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amazingviralinfo · 7 years ago

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We've spent the past few months talking about animals here on Crash Course, specifically human animals, because... well, because humans... we love talking about ourselves, and also because animals are just really interesting. But it's high time that we talked about the rest of the living world. Because I hate to break it to ya, but most of the alive things on Earth are single-celled organisms. And by "most of the alive things" I mean that these organisms make up two of the three taxonomic domains of all life, plus one of the four kingdoms. I'm talking about archaea, bacteria and protists. With the exception of a few protists, they're all unicellular, and they are, by far, the most abundant and diverse organisms on Earth. More important, they lay claim to the world's oldest and earliest living lineages, dating back to the very first twinkle of life on this planet. So by understanding these three groups, you begin to truly understand life on earth, its origins, and how everything that came after them, including us, came to be. What's more, because their heritage is so ancient, these organisms often take weird, cool forms that don't look like life as we think about it, and they do amazing things. Some not only live but thrive in environments that would kill you, me, and everything we hold dear. And others make their living by invading organisms, including us, and causing disease. Then there are those that do the opposite, making life possible by, fixing nitrogen from the atmosphere and helping animals digest food. Members of these groups have names like Sailor's Eyeballs and Dog Vomit Slime Mold, and they can take the shape of rods, blobs, corkscrews or coils. Kinda like the doddering, eccentric relatives you're forced to spend some holiday with once a year, the archaea, bacteria and protists are our oldest, oddest relatives. And it's about time you got to know them. There's no denying it: Every multicellular organism on this planet, whether it be a mushroom or a vampire bat, evolved from a single celled organism. And while some of these single celled organisms evolved to populate the world as rhinos and strangler figs, others found happiness in the unicellular lifestyle, and they haven't changed much in the past few billion years. Today, nearly all unicellular organisms are either archaea, bacteria or protists. Protists, you'll recall, are eukaryotic organisms that make up the kingdom Protista under the domain Eukarya. Bacteria and Archaea, meanwhile, are their own prokaryotic domains. And I hope you haven't forgotten this, the big difference between prokaryotes and eukaryotes is that eukaryotic organisms, including you and the plants, and fungi and animals that you know, have cells with a nucleus that hold their genetic information, while prokaryotic cells don't have a nucleus or any organelles to speak of. These two groups do have some important things in common, like having plasma membranes that are filled with cytoplasm, and ribosomes that contain RNA and synthesize proteins. And they both have DNA that carries the instructions for operating the cell. But eukaryotic DNA comes in strands in the form of chromosomes, while prokaryotic DNA is found in rings called plasmids. So, again, and this time with feeling: Protists are mostly single-celled eukaryotic organisms. Archaea and bacteria are single-celled prokaryotic organisms. The word "prokaryote" actually means before the nucleus, which is a clue that prokaryotes are an older form of life. And we literally cannot find anything older than Archaea. The first Archaea fossils date back billion years ago I'm talking just a billion years after the Earth formed and was still bombarded by comets and meteors, not to mention fried by UV radiation. But in the midst of all that, archaea were just chillaxing. Earth's climate has calmed down since then, so today archaea are found in some of the world's most extreme environments: In underwater hydrothermal vents, oil wells, volcanic hot springs, even acidic mine drainage. Archaea were probably the earliest living things, and their adaptability is probably what allowed them to take root in Earth's early, kind of grody environment. One key group of the archaea are the methanogens. These guys prefer more moderate environments, like mud, swamps and your intestines, but they derive their energy from hydrogen gas and carbon dioxide, which is pretty cool and they emit methane as their waste product. Methanogens, methane generators. We know that waste as swamp gas, and also, other kinds of gas. The other groups are extremophiles, which not only tolerate but prefer really wicked surroundings. The most famous of these are the thermophiles, which live in temperatures that would melt your face off. I mean, serious: Pyrolobus fumarii, a species of archaea discovered in the late 1990's in a hydrothermal vent, live at temperatures around 113 degrees celsius. Not fahrenheit, celsius! Significantly above the boiling point of water! Most organisms can't take heat like that, because it causes their DNA to unwind and their proteins to denature or permanently change shape. But thermophiles have evolved adaptations that keep them stable at these screamin' hot temperatures. There are also halophiles, or salt lovers, which live in places like the Dead Sea or the Great Salt Lake, and probably Daniel Tosh's mouth. Most halophiles breathe oxygen and are heterotrophic, but there are some bizarro outliers, like species that use sunlight to make energy, but not like plants do they have light-harvesting pigments in their membranes that react with light and enable the cell to make ATP for energy. I know, it's crazy! But despite their alien-sounding ways of life, archaea really aren't all that different from bacteria, which are also prokaryotes. In fact, archaea and bacteria were classified together for much of the 20th century. It was only when scientists realized that they had some important genetic differences, like, in the sequence of their ribosomal DNA and the makeup of their RNA, that they were separated into two domains. Bacteria are nearly as ancient as archaea. Fossils show that they were widespread about billion years ago, but there's evidence that they've been around for more than 3 billion years. Today, they make up the vast majority of prokaryotes on Earth, and they're super slick when it comes to adapting quickly. Many bacteria are parasitic. Think strep throat, your staph infection, anything you've ever taken an antibiotic for. But bacteria can fend off antibiotics, and the ninjas in your immune system, by garbling up their DNA from one generation to another. They can randomly turn genes on and off, creating unique genetic combination as its population multiplies, keeping its host's immune system, and drug-makers, on their toes. Like archaea, bacteria don't reproduce sexually, but bacteria have devised a way to pass their genetic material to their buddies, a little trick called horizontal gene transfer. For example: you've heard of antibiotic resistance, right? Well, horizontal gene transfer is one reason for it. A strain of bacteria that has genetic resistance to an antibiotic can pass some of its DNA, and that drug resistance, to another strain, which is why we're always in kind of an arms race with the bacteria of the world. And of course bacteria are incredibly diverse, with too many phyla to name, more than two dozen. But one way of classifying them is by their different kinds of cell membranes, which react differently to a staining technique scientists use called Gram staining. Gram positive bacteria have thick cell membranes, and they're a huge group that includes species that live individually like staphlococcus and streptococcus, as well as some colonial bacteria that are responsible for diseases like leprosy and tuberculosis. There are lots of groups of Gram-negative bacteria too, which have thinner membranes. The biggest group here are Proteobacteria, named after Proteus because they take so many forms. These include bacteria that make our lives possible by converting nitrogen in the atmosphere into compounds available to plants, as well as others that cause stuff like food poisoning and Legionnaire's disease. Cyanobacteria, meanwhile, are the only prokaryotes that use photosynthesis to make their food, and they're some of the most important members of aquatic food webs, providing microscopic forage for all kinds of freshwater and marine ecosystems. Spirochetes are the corkscrew-shaped bacteria that you've no doubt heard of most are harmless, but a couple of parasitic species are the culprits behind illnesses like Lyme disease and syphilis. And speaking of sexually transmitted diseases, the last major group of bacteria worth mentioning are Chlamydias, which are strictly parasitic and live only in animal cells. They're scumbags, obviously, and are the leading infectious cause of blindness in the world, as well as that eponymous infection of the urethra that makes me kind of want to, cross my legs, just thinking about it. So, Archaea have managed to make a nice, multi-billion-year living by surviving in weird, out of the way places, and bacteria have developed ways to pass their DNA without sexual reproduction. But you know who's a hot freakin' mess? Protists. Evolutionarily, they're the youngest of the three, having evolved from bacteria around billion years ago, and in a lot of ways they're more sophisticated. For starters, they're eukaryotic, but also, some are multicellular, and a few kinds can even reproduce sexually. But their domain is a big crap circus, because some protists seem to be more closely related to plants or animals or fungi than other protists. So scientists tend to talk about them based on what else they resemble. There are Protozoa, which are kinda animal-like, Algae, which are kinda plant-like, and fungus-like ones, including the tastefully-named Slime Molds. The one thing all of these have in common is they need to live somewhere wet: in a bog, or in your body, or in a snow bank, wherever. Protozoa are actually really cool because they're like tiny animals. Like us, they're heterotrophs, so they have to eat other stuff in order to live. And because they need to eat, they've got mouthparts, or at least mouth-part sorts of things, and they can move around by using all kinds of really cool structures. Some have flagella, the whip-like tails, to propel them through the water, or cilia, little hair-like structures that work like oars, and some move around with a kind of blobby amoeba-like motion. I say amoeba-like because the protozoans that move this way are amoebas. And speaking of amoebas, some protozoans are parasitic. You've probably heard of amoebic dysentery: that's caused by amoebas. Malaria is caused by this little guy, a protozoan called Plasmodium vivax. While African Sleeping Sickness is caused by Trypanosoma brucei, this guy here. Moving on to the plant-like protists, which are algae. All algae photosynthesize like plants, even though they're not plants, because they use different kinds of chlorophyll molecules. Some are unicellular, like tiny diatoms, which have a hard shell made of of silica. But the amazing thing about single-celled algae is that they can get really honkin' huge. For example, ladies and gentlemen, cast your gaze upon the Sailor's Eyeball, thought to be the biggest single-celled organism on the planet. Also known as "bubble algae," it lives on the sea floor in tropical oceans and can grow up to 5 centimeters across. How is that thing one cell? Anyway, you already know multicellular types of algae, aka seaweed. They're closely related to land plants, as you can tell by looking at them, and they're generally grouped in to red, green and brown varieties, although these all have their unicellular forms as well. The green algae are probably what gave rise to land plants about 475 million years ago. They're the most abundant and diverse, and they have chloroplasts very much like land plants, so they can only live in shallow water because they need a lot of sunlight. Red algae is able to live at greater depths and has an extra pigment in it called phycoerythrin, which gives its chlorophyll a boost in deeper waters. And brown algae is what most of the seaweed you see in the ocean is. Kelp is an example. They're the largest and most complex of the multicellular algae. Finally, we have our fungus-like protists, which include the delightful slime molds. They absorb nutrients from their environment and produce fruiting bodies like fungi, but even though they look like piles of barf, they can actually move around like an amoeba and eat bacteria by phagocytosis. Slime molds can be pretty easy to spot because they're often brightly-colored, like this charming species which, in all seriousness, is known as Dog Vomit Slime Mold. You heard me. These organisms are so freakin' screwed up that scientists couldn't think of a better name for it than Dog Vomit Slime Mold. Like I said. They're old. They're odd. Get used to it. Thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course Biology. If you want to catch up on anything you're a little fuzzy on: table of contents over there! Thanks, of course, to all the people that helped put this episode together. And if you have any questions for us, please Facebook, Twitter, or the comments below. Goodbye..

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jjbrouckaertus-blog · 8 years ago

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Roaches, do they freak you out?

Oriental Cockroach

I bet you didn't realize that cockroaches have existed for over 300 million years. How do we know this? Through fossils that have been found over the years we have learned that these insects were neighbors of some of the most feared predators that once roamed the earth-dinosaurs. With over 3,000 species in existence today, 55 have made the United States their home. Of the 55 species only 4 have made their presence known to homes and establishments. They include the German, American, Brown-banded, and Oriental cockroaches.

What is the Oriental Cockroach?

The Oriental Cockroach or Blatta Orientalis is often referred to as a water bug. And one thing you can bet on is that this insect isn't an attractive pest. Next to Godzilla these critters are probably the second most unwanted monster you'd want in your home. But truth be told, we all know that our chances of seeing Godzilla are slim to nothing. As far as our chances of seeing one of these unwelcome intruders, the chances are far greater. Most of us have seen or will see a few of them in our life time. So just where do they lurk? This insect prefers to hang around dark and damp areas that are cool like basements or under sinks and washing machines. These pests can be quite a bother because they have been known to take family vacations traveling through sewer pipes. They basically survive off of filth. If that isn't disgusting enough try having a house full of them and you are asking for potential threat of illness and disease.

The adult Oriental cockroach is around one-inch long and dark brown in color which is big compared to the German cockroach. Both female and males have an oily sheen. Females have larger bodies and wing pads that have no apparent function. The male cockroaches also have wings that cover 75% of their abdomen; however, they aren't able to fly. Kind of makes you wonder why they even have wings doesn't it?

Both adults and young cockroaches (also known as nymphs) can be found scurrying about in decaying organic matter. How gross is that? They will be getting down in the darkest corners of your home or establishment. They can be seen in sewers, drains, crawl spaces, floor drains, and even under your porch. The truth is that these guys manage to get around. You can even find them outside in your yard beneath leaves and around your shrubs. They can be seen having a siesta in your flower beds and in your gardens. Other places they can be seen are in foundations such as stone walls, garbage and trash dumps, and trash chutes. Nymphs and adults are not quick moving critters, so they won't be seen indoors on walls or in cupboards. Oriental cockroaches like to socialize in large numbers around leaks in the basement or crawl space areas. The majority of their social gatherings occur outdoors in warm weather. If there are long periods of dry spells, then they will scurry to find any place that's moist. You could find them hiding in your laundry basket or in food packages. They may simply squeeze under your door or through air ducts. They are certainly clever and will do anything to survive.

Eggs, eggs, and more eggs

The female Oriental cockroach carries eggs that are laid in capsules for around 30 hours. After which time she then drops these capsules near a convenient supply of food. These eggs are not glued to the surface. So just how many capsules is the female capable of producing? On average she can produce up to 8 capsules. Each capsule contains 16 eggs. After around 2 months these eggs hatch under normal temperature conditions. Have you figured out how many babies are born? If you guessed 128 then you happen to be correct! If there are 50 females with 16 eggs, then that means 1500 newborns have hatched. An adult female can live anywhere from 5-26 weeks with around 200 offspring. And unlike her cousins, she has a seasonal developmental cycle. Peak time for adults is late spring to early summer.

Health Risks

Because these insects like to forage through rubbish and other decaying organic matter, cockroaches also carry diseases. Filth can be carried into our kitchens and spread to your food supplies, dishes, utensils, and other surfaces. Before you know it contamination has set in and this poses a huge problem. They carry bacteria, protozoa, and viruses. And all these disease producing organisms are passed onto us. We can suffer from food poisoning, dysentery, and diarrhea from Oriental cockroaches, not to mention allergies with severe reactions such as watery eyes, skin rashes, congestion, sinus problems, and even asthma. Prevention is the key to control and management. Keeping trash emptied and food wrapped is also important. Leaving dirty dishes in your sink is a definite no-no. Caulking any crevices and cracks is also a great idea. You can use commercial sprays or baits, but in my experience they are temporary fixes. If you discover that a new family has moved in, then you'll have to take more drastic measures. If you're on a budget the cheapest and most effective way to have these pests on their backs with legs up in no time is good old Boric Acid. For the mere cost of around 2 dollars you can get rid of them for good. If you must go organic, then Diatomaceous Earth works great. It has more of a hefty price tag, but it has so many other uses you are really getting your money's worth. Not only can you use this stuff to get rid of unwanted cockroaches, but you can also use it on your pets to keep fleas and ticks away. No matter how you choose to do it, you don't want your home or establishment to become the next breeding ground for the oriental cockroach's next social gathering.

Call Your Local Residential Pest Control Experts to get rid of them nasty roaches

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lcohen35 · 5 years ago

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Assignment 10 First Draft: Are We Willing to be Inconvenienced For Sustainability?

According to physicist Albert Einstein, ‘A clever person solves a problem; a wise person avoids it’” (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 596).

Chapter 17 was a weird chapter because it focused highly on the effects of hazards on humans, and not the environment. It didn't feel like it belonged in this text. Chapter 21 cited very controversial examples of responsible waste management/recycling, in my opinion.

#WhatMajorHealthHazardsDoWeFace?

We face major health hazards from biological, chemical, natural and cultural factors along with our lifestyle choices. Biological hazards include bacteria, viruses, parasites, protozoa and fungi. Chemical hazards include harmful chemicals in air, water, soil and human-made products. Natural Hazards include fire, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, tornadoes and hurricanes. Cultural hazards include unsafe working conditions, criminal assault and poverty. Lifestyle choice hazards include smoking, poor food choices and unsafe sex.

#HowDoBiologicalHazardsThreatenHumanHealth?

Biological hazards can be highly contagious, passing from one person to another, but they don’t have to be. The book talks about how the risks of these hazards, like infectious diseases are declining, but still remain relevant in less developed countries. That’s a bit ironic right now because of the global pandemic, Coronavirus. The book also mentions how climate change amplifies the effects of these hazards due to their tendency to breed rapidly in warmer climates. This is a bit terrifying as summer is approaching. Another major issue threatening humans is that some of the bacteria which causes infectious diseases have become immune to antibiotics, which makes them more difficult to treat and easier to spread. The spread is also made easier by population growth, which forces higher person-to-person interaction as cities become more dense.

Some believe the Coronavirus originated from bats in a Chinese province. If that is true, it wouldn’t be the first time a disease spread from one animal to another (us). There is a whole field of medicine called Ecological Medicine which studies this connection. Their findings have shown that it is increasingly important to regulate the consumption and trade of exotic animals to prevent the spread of infectious disease. However, in reality, this can be quite difficult and can come off as colonialistic, in imposing western culture on different cultural norms than our own.

Figure 1. Solutions to Infectious Diseases (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 452.)

#HowDoChemicalHazardsThreatenHumanHealth?

Figure 2. Movement of Different Forms of Mercury Through the Environment (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 454).

Figure 3. How to Prevent/Control Mercury Inputs (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 454).

Figure 4. Ways to Limit Exposure to Hormone Disruptors (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 455).

#HowCanWeEvaluateRisksFromChemicalHazards?

Scientists use animal testings, case reports, and epidemiological studies to estimate the toxicity of chemicals. They evaluate dosage, solubility, persistence, and biological magnification, to name a few factors. There are a lot of ethical factors which go into animal testing, and since more humane options exist, consumers have the option to buy products that do not test on animals.

In order to follow the precautionary principle we (businesses, government, individuals) must:

assume new chemicals and technologies could be harmful unless proven otherwise

remove the existing chemicals and technologies that have been assumed safe thus far from the market until proven so

The European Union has already begun to apply the precautionary principle through pollution prevention by phasing out the dirty dozen.

Figure 5. Potentially Harmful Chemicals Found in the Home (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 460).

#HowDoWePercieveAndAvoidRisks?

Designer William Mcdonough came up with the cradle-to-cradle approach to the life-cycle of products; “we should think of products as part of a continuing cycle instead of becoming solid wastes that end up as litter or being burned or deposited in landfills” (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 574). This way of thinking has also been called closed-loop, and needs to be implemented at the design stage of a product, planning out every step of consumption.

#WhatEnvironmentalProblemsAreRelatedToSolidAndHazardousWastes?

Solid waste contributes to pollution and contains valuable resources that could be reused or recycled. Municipal solid waste (MSW) is what we throw out in our lives everyday–huge amounts of trash. We also produce industrial waste through agriculture, mining and industry. Without humans, this problem wouldn’t exist, because the wastes of one organism become nutrients or raw materials for another. We will always produce some waste, due to the law of conservation of matter, but cradle-to-cradle design could help reduce our waste and environmental harm by 80%. The United States produces the most waste in the world, “enough MSW to fill a bumper-to-bumper convoy of garbage trucks long enough to circle the earth’s equator almost six times” (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 576).

Figure 6. Composition of MSW in the US and Where It Goes After Collection (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 576).

Hazardous waste contributes to pollution, natural capital degradation, health problems and premature deaths. This type of waste is corrosives, toxic, flammable, can be explosive and cause disease. The two major types of hazardous wastes are organic compounds and toxic heavy metals. E-waste is a large source of this type of waste. Much of e-waste is shipped to foreign countries where the labor is cheap and environmental regulations are lax. “More developed countries produce 80-90% of the world’s hazardous wastes, and the United States is the largest producer” (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 577). This means as human societies progress, we degrade the environment that allowed us to do so.

#HowShouldWeDealWithSolidWaste?

We should deal with solid waste by reducing our production of it, reuse or recycle it and safely dispose of it. Waste management is imperative to dealing with solid waste, but prevention and reduction are more effective. Integrated waste management combines all of these approaches.

Figure 7. Priorities Recommended by the US National Academy of Sciences for Dealing with MSW compared with The Reality (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 579).

The 4 R’s by priority are

Refuse: Don’t use it.

Reduce: Use less of it.

Reuse: use it over and over.

Recycle: Upcycle, compost, and follow local recycling rules.

6 Strategies that industries and communities can use to reduce resource use, waste and pollution:

Change industrial processes to eliminate or reduce harmful chemical use.

Redesign manufacturing processes and products to use less material and energy.

Develop products that are easy to repair, reuse, remanufacture, compost or recycle.

Establish cradle-to cradle responsibility laws.

Eliminate and/or reduce unnecessary packaging.

Use fee-per-bag solid waste collection systems.

#WhyAreWeRefusingReducingReusingAndRecyclingSoImportant?

We refuse, reduce, reuse and recycle what we use to decrease our consumption of matter and energy resources, reduce pollution and natural capital degradation and save money.

Questions to ask yourself to avoid a throwaway economy:

Do I really need this? (refuse)

How many of these do I actually need? (reduce)

Is this something I can use more than once? (reuse)

Can this be converted into the same or a different product when I am done with it? (recycle)

Figure 8. Some Ways to Reuse (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 582).

Businesses are also coming out of people’s desire to avoid waste, such as rental clothing, furniture and child’s toys. Additionally recycling businesses are arising to give people points for recycling, or to recycle non recyclable products. Terracycle is a company that partners with brands to recycle their packaging in order to divert it from a landfill (Terracycle 2020).

Recycling is a complex and expensive process, so it is not the most sustainable form of waste diversion. Additionally, incorrect sorting for recycling is ineffective. It is recommended that households and businesses understand this issue and separate their trash into plastics, metals, glass, paper and compost. This puts a lot of owness on the consumer, which can empower them or make them feel inconvenienced.

Figure 9. Advantages and Disadvantages of Recycling (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 585).

#WhatAreTheAdvantagesAndDisadvantagesOfBurningOrBuryingSolidWaste?

Figure 10. Trade-Offs of Burning Solid Waste (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 587).

Figure 11. Trade-Offs of Landfills (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 588).

#HowShouldWeDealWithHazardousWaste?

#HowCanASocietyShiftToALowWasteEconomy?

3 Factors hinder reuse and recycling

The market prices of products are not applying full-cost pricing.

The economic playing field is uneven because resource extraction usually receives more subsidies than reuse and recycling industries.

The demand and the price paid for recycled goods fluctuates since it isn’t a high priority for consumers.

We must understand:

Everything is connected.

There is no “throw away” for our wastes.

Producers and polluters should pay for their produced wastes.

We can mimic nature by reusing, recycling, composting or exchanging MSW.

(Miller and Spoolman 2016, 596).

Word Count: 2346 Words

Question: How can zero-waste lifestyles be more attractive and accessible?

Works Cited

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. 2016. Living in the Environment: Nineteenth Edition, 441-596. Canada: Cengage Learning.

Wurmfeld, E. (Producer), & Gabbert, L. (Director). (2009). No Impact Man [Motion Picture]. Toronto, ON : Mongrel Media.

Terracyle. 2020. “About Terracycle.” Accessed April 6, 2020. https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/about-terracycle?utm_campaign=admittance&utm_medium=menu&utm_source=www.terracycle.com

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