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Global demand for these critical metals may quadruple by 2040

After nearly a century of geopolitical tension over access to oil, experts worry that the global transition to clean energy is creating new dependencies on the critical minerals needed for solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicle batteries.

Control over most of these essential elements is concentrated in a handful of countries, none more than China, they note.

– Which metals are key for the energy transition? –

Cobalt, nickel, manganese and lithium are critical to making electric vehicle batteries. Rare earths such as neodymium, praseodymium and dysprosium are used in computer memory and magnets in wind turbines. 

Copper and aluminium are used in electricity networks, and platinum is a catalyst for hydrogen.

These materials “will be at the centre of decarbonisation efforts and electrification of the economy, as we move from fossil fuels to wind and solar power generation, battery- and fuel-cell-based electric vehicles (EVs) and hydrogen production”, consulting firm McKinsey reported earlier this year.

– How much demand is there? –

Global demand for these critical metals may quadruple by 2040 if the world is to meet its pledges under the Paris climate pact, according to estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

French researcher Olivier Vidal has calculated that more of the metals will need to be manufactured by 2050 than humanity has produced throughout history.

While many predict shortages, some believe technology improvements and recycling will keep up with increased production needs.

But some regions are more vulnerable than others.

According to a study by Belgium’s Louvain university, Europe faces critical shortages of metals for the next 15 years, particularly lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper and rare earths. 

The European Raw Materials Alliance (ERMA) says Europe will only be able to cover between five and 55 percent of its key metals needs by 2030.

While Europe does have untapped resources of cobalt, gallium, germanium and lithium, it will need to issue mining permits to get to them, noted senior ERMA official Bernd Schaefer.

On Monday, industrial minerals manufacturer Imerys announced plans for a major lithium mine in central France.

The United States is opening its first cobalt mine in decades, in Idaho.

Automakers such as Tesla have announced their intention to enter directly into the capital of mining firms. 

– Which countries produce these metals? –

Cobalt mining is dominated by the Democratic Republic of Congo, which accounts for 70 percent of the world total. But in terms of processing, China is the leader, at 50 percent.

South Africa accounts for 37 percent of global manganese output.

China and Guinea account for more than half of the global production of bauxite, which is used to make aluminium.

Argentina, Australia and Chile are major lithium producers, while Bolivia has considerable untapped resources.

– What are the geopolitical risks? –

“The oil and gas triangle — Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United States — has governed the world for 40 years,” said Philippe Varin, who has led French steel and car firms and recently wrote a report on the supply of raw materials to French companies.

He said that is now “little by little transforming into a bipolarisation of the world between the United States and China, the major users of metals in the energy transition”.

Varin said Chinese companies had taken control of 40 percent of the value chain for the metals needed for battery production.

Emmanuel Hache, a forecaster at the French Institute of Petroleum, said that raw materials “could be the cause of a confrontation between China and the United States in the years to come”.

“Behind all conflicts you find raw materials as a top cause,” said CyclOpe, an annual French publication on raw materials, making a link between the military coup in Guinea in 2021 and bauxite.

In this file photo taken on October 7, 2022, Haitian children showing symptoms of cholera receive treatment at a clinic run by Doctors Without Borders in Cite Soleil

Cholera, which has made a comeback in Haiti three years after a devastating outbreak, is a highly contagious waterborne bacterial disease that can kill in a matter of hours.

The illness mainly affects poverty-stricken people and after years of decline, it is spreading once more.

The World Health Organization warned last month of a “worrying upsurge” in the number of cholera outbreaks and noted that they were increasingly deadly.

Here are five things to know about a killer that can be easily stopped in its tracks with proper sanitation and medicine.

– What causes it? –

Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by a comma-shaped bacterium called vibrio cholerae, transmitted through water or food that is contaminated by human faecal matter.

It mainly affects people living in extreme poverty or in conflict zones, with little or no access to clean water and sanitation.

Climate change is fuelling a resurgence, with growing numbers of floods, cyclones, droughts and other extreme weather events reducing access to clean water, creating an ideal environment for cholera to thrive.

The World Health Organisation estimates that there are between 1.3 and 4.0 million cases of cholera worldwide each year, causing up to 143,000 deaths.

Three-quarters of people infected show no symptoms but in 10-20 percent of cases it causes severe diarrhoea and dehydration which can kill within hours if left untreated.

It is usually treatable with oral rehydration solutions (sachets dissolved in water) but in more severe cases patients require intravenous fluids and antibiotics.

– Where does it come from? –

Up until the 19th century, cholera only existed in the Ganges delta in India. 

Then in 1817, it spread to other parts of Asia, as well as the Middle East and east Africa, marking the start of the first cholera pandemic.

Millions of people have been killed in six subsequent pandemics, all of which began in Asia and then spread to the four corners of the globe.

So far this year, 29 countries have reported outbreaks, up from under 20 for the previous five years combined, according to the WHO.

Apart from Haiti, where 33 cholera deaths have been recorded since the start of October, the disease is also spreading quickly in war-scarred Syria and neighbouring crisis-hit Lebanon. 

The war in Yemen produced one of the biggest cholera outbreaks in modern history, with aid agencies in December 2017 estimating the caseload at one million. 

– Who is at risk? –

The people most likely to contract cholera live in urban slums or refugee camps.

In Haiti, the outbreak has been linked to fuel shortages caused by a gang blockade of the country’s main oil terminal that has made it difficult for the sick to reach hospitals.

At least 33 people have died and 960 suspected cases have been logged by the health ministry.  

The return of cholera has revived memories of the epidemic introduced by UN peacekeepers in 2010, after a major earthquake ravaged the country. The disease claimed more than 10,000 lives from then until 2019.

– Is there a vaccine? – 

The WHO has approved two oral vaccines, which provide protection against cholera for 2-3 years and are destined for use in humanitarian emergencies.

Full protection requires two doses of a vaccine but with demand currently outstripping supply, the WHO has recommended a temporary shift to a one-dose strategy to make stocks go further.

Demonstrators protest against a controversial border demarcation deal with Uzbekistan in Bishkek on October 24, 2022

Authorities in Kyrgyzstan have detained more than 20 politicians and civil servants accused of organising riots over a border demarcation deal with the neighbouring Central Asian country Uzbekistan, a rights group said Monday.

The Kylym Chamy rights group said that 22 people had been detained across the politically volatile ex-Soviet country and were accused of planning a coup attempt and violent protests.

The people detained are part of a group that is critical of a draft government deal with Uzbekistan that critics say could see Bishkek hand over control of a key dam to Uzbekistan.

Water is an increasingly scarce resource in Central Asia and the Kempir-Abad dam was constructed when both countries were part of the Soviet Union.

Disputes over borders and resources still routinely flare three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union and violence regularly erupts on Kyrgyzstan’s border with neighbouring Tajikistan.

The Kylym Chamy rights group said that the people detained across several towns and cities include a military general, a former member of the constitutional court, a former public prosecutor, journalists and activists.

According to the group, the arrested individuals could face from five to 50 years in prison.

Protests broke out earlier Monday in the capital of Bishkek, where some 300 people marched chanting “The reservoir is ours” and “Freedom for the opposition”, according to an AFP journalist on the scene.

Meanwhile, a counter rally was held in the town of Jalalabad near the reservoir.

The interior ministry confirmed to AFP that the former speaker of the parliament was detained and would be held for one month “in a temporary detention centre”.

Some of those detained shared video footage as police carried them away.

The detained people belong to a group seeking the “protection” of Kempir-Abad, a water reservoir on the border with Uzbekistan.

The group was created after Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan signed an agreement for delimitation and demarcation of their borders in September. 

The agreement will see Kyrgyzstan expand by 150 square kilometres but leaves the Kempir-Abad water reservoir under the control of Uzbekistan, the head of the National Security Committee, Kamtchybek Tachiev, has said.

Uzbekistan would gain control of the dam but, according to President Sadyr Japarov, Kyrgyzstan would still have equal access to its water resources.

“We are recovering the dam,” Japarov was quoted as saying by the state-run Kabar news agency on Saturday, specifying that it would now be possible to “pump water for the inhabitants of neighbouring villages”.

He said that the land to be handed over to Uzbekistan under the deal was given to Kyrgyzstan when the dam was built during the Soviet period.

Attempts to oppose the agreement were “sabotage” and “provocations,” he added. 

Kyrgyzstan, a landlocked republic of 6.5 million people, has been dogged by political volatility for much of the three decades since it became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991.

'You still have the beauty of the bees,' enthuses US entomologist Jeffery Pettis

Bees pollinate 71 of the 100 crop species that provide 90 percent of food worldwide. They also pollinate wild plants, helping sustain biodiversity and the beauty of the natural world.

But climate change, pesticides and parasites are taking a terrible toll on bees and they need protecting, according to European beekeepers, who held their annual congress in Quimper, western France, this week.

The congress, which said some European beekeepers were suffering “significant mortalities and catastrophic harvests due to difficult climatic conditions”, was an opportunity for beekeepers and scientists to try to respond to the major concerns.

The European Union, the world’s second largest importer of honey, currently produces just 60 percent of what it consumes.

French beekeepers, for example, expect to harvest between 12,000 and 14,000 tonnes of honey this year, far lower than the 30,000 tonnes they harvested in the 1990s, according to the National Union of French Beekeepers (UNAF).

“I’ve been fighting for bees for 30 years but if I had to choose now, I don’t know if I’d become a beekeeper,” said UNAF spokesman Henri Clement, who has 200 hives in the unspoilt mountainous Cevennes region in southeastern France.

Clement is 62 and not far off retiring.

“But it’s not much fun for young people who want to take up the profession,” he said.

Many of the subjects buzzing around the congress were evidence of this — Asian hornets, parasitic varroa mites and hive beetles (all invasive alien species in Europe), pesticides and climate change.

With climate change, “the bigger issue is just the erratic weather and rain patterns, drought and things like that”, explained US entomologist Jeffery Pettis, president of Apimondia, an international federation of beekeeping associations in 110 countries.

“In certain places, the plants had been used to a certain temperature. And now it goes up, and you have a hot dry summer, and there are no flowers,” Pettis told AFP.

No flowers means no pollen, which means bees dying of hunger.

Climate scientists say human-induced global heating is intensifying extreme weather events like flooding, and heatwaves that exacerbate wildfires.  

“The fires seem to be a big issue,” Pettis said. “They come sporadically and we lose hives directly from flooding and fires.”

– Pollen quality –

Pettis, a former scientist at the US Department of Agriculture, published a study in 2016 on the quality of pollen produced by goldenrod — a hardy perennial also known as solidago that produces a myriad of small, yellow, daisy-like flowers.

The study showed that the more carbon dioxide — a greenhouse gas — accumulates in the atmosphere, the lower the amount of protein in goldenrod pollen. 

North America bees are dependent on nourishment from goldenrod pollen to get through the winter, Pettis explained.

“Getting inferior food … should affect wintering. It could happen with other pollen sources. We don’t know.”

As in France, 30 to 40 percent of hives in the United States are dying every winter, Pettis said, decimated by varroa mites, pesticides and the destruction of wild spaces where wild plants grow.

“Today, there are even American startups that are developing drones to pollinise plants in the place of bees. It’s utterly appalling,” said Clement.

Toxic pesticides are another factor decimating bee colonies and other pollinating insects.

French molecular biophysics scientist Jean-Marc Bonmatin said parasites like varroa, were “boosted by the presence of neonicotinide pesticides, which directly poison pollinators”.   

Neonicotinides, chemically similar to nicotine, are systemic pesticides. 

Unlike contact pesticides, which remain on the surface of the treated leaves, systemic pesticides are taken up by the plant and transported throughout the plant, to their leaves, flowers, roots and stems, as well as to their pollen and nectar.

These toxic substances can remain in the soil for between five and 30 years, Bonmatin said.

The EU restricted the use of three neonicotinides — but not all — in 2013 and banned them outright in 2018.

But since 2013, several EU states have repeatedly granted “emergency authorisations” to use the noxious insecticides on major crops.

– Limiting toxic chemicals –

He said open source software called Toxibee was being launched soon to help farmers protect bees by identifying the least toxic molecules to use on their crops. 

“Before they spray the crops with pesticides, they can try to limit their noxious effect,” he said.

“Because what kills bees will one day damage people’s health too.”

Pettis strove, however, to remain upbeat, pointing to some of the ways people can help bees.

“(We should) diversify agriculture and try not be driven by chemically-dependant agriculture, support organic and more sustainable farming.”

He also stressed the incredible resistance of some bee species, helped by factors in the natural world.

He cited the example of a black bee found on the Ile de Groix island in Brittany, which has survived varroa attacks without beekeepers treating them for mites or giving them supplementary feeding.

“We think the bees are dependent on us but in reality they survive pretty well even without us,” he said.

“And you still have the beauty of the bees. It’s such a good thing to work with bees.”

Bangladesh is already rated by the UN as one of the countries most affected by extreme weather events since the turn of the century

At least one person was killed and hundreds of thousands were evacuated Monday from the path of a cyclone careening towards densely populated, low-lying Bangladesh, according to officials.

About 33,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, controversially relocated to a storm-prone island in the Bay of Bengal, were advised to remain indoors.

Cyclones — the equivalent of hurricanes in the North Atlantic or typhoons in the Northwest Pacific — are a regular and deadly menace on the coast of the northern Indian Ocean where tens of millions of people live.

But scientists say climate change is likely making them more intense and frequent, and Bangladesh is already rated by the UN as one of the countries most affected by extreme weather events since the turn of the century.

Cyclone Sitrang, packing gusts of 88 kilometres (55 miles) per hour, was forecast to make landfall near the southern Bangladeshi town of Khepupara by Tuesday morning, the country’s weather office said.

Most worrying for authorities was the predicted storm surge of up to three metres (10 feet) above normal tide levels, which could inundate areas home to millions of people.

The government plans to evacuate about 2.5 million people from the most vulnerable areas in the path of the storm before the cyclone hits, the country’s disaster management minister Enamur Rahman told reporters.

“The evacuation has already begun from the morning,” the minister said, adding that more than 7,000 shelters have been readied in an effort to keep casualties to a minimum.

At least 250,000 people had already been evacuated from coastal districts to cyclone shelters by the afternoon, two regional administrators told AFP. 

Tens of thousands of volunteers have been mobilised for the effort, said a spokesman for the local chapter of the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society.

“We have already evacuated the most vulnerable people, especially those who live in remote islands and river banks and those who live in flimsy houses,” Aminul Ahsan, regional administrator of Barisal, told AFP.

“In some places we have used force to bring people to cyclone shelters. It is for their own safety,” another regional administrator said.

A 40-year-old woman was killed in the rural town of Lohagara after she was hit by a branch of a tree, which fell in gusty winds, Habibur Rahman, a district administrator, told AFP.

The Red Crescent Society has mobilised tens of thousands of volunteers to alert people using loudhailers and help villagers evacuate, spokesman Shahinur Rahman said.

The newly formed silt island of Bhashan Char, where Bangladesh has been relocating Rohingya refugees to alleviate overcrowding in their refugee camps, was also expected to be hit by heavy rains and strong winds.

“The Bhashan Char shelters are protected by a 19-feet-high embankment. Still, we asked people to stay at home,” a senior security officer told AFP from the island.

– India –

In the neighbouring eastern Indian state of West Bengal, several thousand people were also being evacuated as a precaution, with more than 100 relief centres opened, officials said.

“A special squad is making a round-the-clock vigil along the coastline of the state,” West Bengal government minister Arup Biswas said.

“Fishermen have been asked not to venture into the sea. Ferry services have also been suspended,” he said.

In 2020, Cyclone Amphan, only the second “super cyclone” ever recorded over the Bay of Bengal, killed more than 100 people in Bangladesh and India, and affected millions.

Last year, more than a million people were evacuated along India’s east coast before Cyclone Yaas battered the area with winds gusting up to 155 kilometres an hour — equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane.

The 1970 Bhola cyclone, one of the world’s worst natural disasters, killed several hundred thousand people in Bangladesh — then known as East Pakistan — and India.

In recent years, better forecasting and more effective evacuation planning have dramatically reduced the death toll from such storms.

Bangladesh is already rated by the UN as one of the countries most affected by extreme weather events since the turn of the century

Hundreds of thousands of people were being evacuated Monday from the path of a cyclone careening towards densely populated, low-lying Bangladesh, according to officials.

About 33,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, controversially relocated to a storm-prone island in the Bay of Bengal, were also advised to remain indoors.

Cyclones — the equivalent of hurricanes in the North Atlantic or typhoons in the Northwest Pacific — are a regular and deadly menace on the coast of the northern Indian Ocean where tens of millions of people live.

But scientists say climate change is likely making them more intense and frequent, and Bangladesh is already rated by the UN as one of the countries most affected by extreme weather events since the turn of the century.

Cyclone Sitrang, packing gusts of 88 kilometres (55 miles) per hour, was forecast to make landfall near the southern Bangladeshi town of Khepupara by Tuesday morning, the weather office said.

Most worrying for authorities was the predicted storm surge of up to three metres (10 feet) above normal tide levels, which could inundate areas home to millions of people.

Officials in the coastal districts of Patuakhali, Bhola, Barguna and Jhalakathi told AFP that up to 400,000 people would be evacuated from vulnerable villages and islands into shelters.

“We have a plan to evacuate some 250,000 people. There are 703 cyclone shelters in the district and many multi-storied buildings. We will complete the evacuation by tonight,” Patuakhali district administrator Kamal Hossain told AFP.

The Red Crescent Society has mobilised tens of thousands of volunteers to use loudhailers to alert people and help villagers evacuate, spokesman Shahinur Rahman told AFP.

The newly formed silt island of Bhashan Char, where Bangladesh has been relocating Rohingya refugees to alleviate camp overcrowding, was also expected to be hit by heavy rains and strong winds.

“The Bhashan Char shelters are protected by a 19-feet high embankment. Still, we asked people to stay at home,” a senior security officer told AFP from the island.

– India –

In the neighbouring eastern Indian state of West Bengal, several thousand people were also being evacuated as a precaution, with more than 100 relief centres opened, officials said.

“A special squad is making round-the-clock vigil along the coastline of the state,” West Bengal government minister Arup Biswas said.

“Fishermen have been asked not to venture into sea. Ferry services have also been suspended,” he said.

In 2020, Cyclone Amphan, the second “super cyclone” ever recorded over the Bay of Bengal, killed more than 100 people in Bangladesh and India, and affected millions.

Last year, more than a million people were evacuated along India’s east coast before Cyclone Yaas battered the area with winds gusting up to 155 kilometres (96 miles) an hour — equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane.

The 1970 Bhola cyclone, one of the world’s worst natural disasters, killed several hundred thousand people in Bangladesh — then known as East Pakistan — and India.

In recent years, better forecasting and more effective evacuation planning have dramatically reduced the death toll from such storms.

The floods have left farm workers doubting the future of their sector

Generations of Rahim Buksh’s ancestors have laboured in the rice paddies and wheat fields surrounding Pakistan’s hottest city, no strangers to intense summers or monsoon rains.

But this year Jacobabad lurched from record heatwaves in May to an unprecedented deluge of rain in August that drowned crops.

The floods forced tens of thousands of people to flee for makeshift camps and relatives’ homes, leaving them doubting the future of farm work despite their deep connection to the land.

“We would move to the cities and take up manual labour work if somebody helped us to get out of here,” said Buksh, whose mud-brick home was flooded, like much of the surrounding farmland.

Even before the destruction, Jacobabad and dozens of nearby villages were crippled by poor infrastructure.

Most of the district’s million-plus population are itinerant farm workers, earning a daily wage tending crops for major landowners.

Poverty, debt and the unequal distribution of land have made their livelihoods precarious, but the rise of extreme weather events linked to climate change has deepened the insecurity.

This year’s crops were first scorched by temperatures that reached 51 degrees Celsius (124 Fahrenheit) in May, only to be drenched by monsoon rains that affected a third of the country –- a scale never seen in Pakistan.

“We have to live with it all,” said 25-year-old Zamira, who fled with her husband and children to a makeshift camp. “It will be months before we can work again. We’re abandoned.”

The agriculture sector is by far the biggest employer in Pakistan, accounting for more than 40 percent of the labour force, the majority being women.

Community NGO worker Jan Odhano, who has provided emergency relief to victims of both the heatwave and floods, said the “double disasters” left farm workers desperate for a way out.

“They think can get work in the big cities more easily. Men can work in the factories,” he told AFP, adding that a wider range of work opportunities are also available to women.

– ‘No work left’ –

Many of the flood-displaced in southern Sindh province have sought shelter in urban centres, including tens of thousands recorded at relief camps and many more in the homes of relatives or rental properties.

With homes and livelihoods washed away, some are expected to abandon their rural lives, heaping pressure on already-swelling cities grappling with a long-term “major crisis of urban governance”, according to Nausheen H. Anwar, a professor of urban planning in Karachi.

“We are not prepared for what’s going to happen,” she said of migration due to climate change. “These flows are going to be inevitable.”

Muhammad Hanif, 20, has had enough after seeing his livestock perish and crops wrecked.

“It is unliveable here. There is no work left. We will have to go to Karachi.”

The standard of living in the southern megacity of more than 25 million is little better for impoverished arrivals.

Pakistan’s economic capital suffers from poorly maintained roads, crippled drainage and sewerage systems, water distribution in the grip of mafias, electricity shortages, and inadequate housing.

Migrants often live in shanty towns working as street vendors or daily wage labourers.

“We really need to put more focus on cities and their governance systems,” Anwar said. “Rural is important, but so is the urban, and they’re both interlinked.” 

Between six and nine million Pakistanis are set to be dragged into poverty as a result of this year’s cataclysmic monsoon flooding that has sent food prices soaring and is estimated to cost at least $30 billion in loss and damage, according to government estimates. 

Even before the deluge, Pakistan’s economy was struggling, with soaring inflation, a plunging rupee, and dwindling foreign exchange reserves.

Calls are growing from the government and activists for richer and more industrialised nations with larger carbon footprints to offer debt relief to Pakistan as a form of climate justice.

Demands for the largest emitters to take financial responsibility for the climate chaos impacting poorer nations is expected to dominate a UN summit next month. 

– Where to start? –

Pakistan, the world’s fifth most populous country, is on the frontline of climate change, despite being responsible for just 0.8 percent of global emissions.

Studies have found climate change has intensified the heatwaves –- making them hotter, earlier, and more frequent.

This year intense temperatures wiped out three million tons of wheat crops, led to livestock deaths, caused forest fires and impacted human productivity.

The monsoon was also far heavier than usual, destroying 9.4 million acres of crops and orchards.

“The climate change ministry should be as important as the foreign ministry or finance ministry,” climate scientist Fahad Saeed said.

As well as emergency relief, the country needs technical support, investment in green energy and early warning systems to prepare for the next cycle of extreme weather events.

In places like Jacobabad, faced with a multitude of climate disasters, it’s “very difficult to decide where to start from,” he said.

Addressing climate inequality and boosting resilience means a bottom-up approach that involves farmers and the poor in policymaking, Saeed added.

During the heatwaves in Jacobabad, 10-year-old Noor Muhammad endured searing temperatures to attend school, watching as friends fainted in classrooms with no electricity or cold water.

Just months later, he and his family sought shelter in the same building –- repurposed to help flood victims.

“We’re helpless,” he told AFP.

“I only want to complete my exams so I can become a police officer.”

A Greenpeace USA study found that of 51 million tons of plastic waste generated by US households in 2021, only 2.4 million tons was recycled, around five percent

Plastic recycling rates are declining even as production shoots up, according to a Greenpeace USA report out Monday that blasted industry claims of creating an efficient, circular economy as “fiction.”

Titled “Circular Claims Fall Flat Again,” the study found that of 51 million tons of plastic waste generated by US households in 2021, only 2.4 million tons were recycled, or around five percent.

After peaking in 2014 at 10 percent, the trend has been decreasing, especially since China stopped accepting the West’s plastic waste in 2018. 

Virgin production — of non-recycled plastic, that is — meanwhile is rapidly rising as the petrochemical industry expands, lowering costs.

“Industry groups and big corporations have been pushing for recycling as a solution,” Greenpeace USA campaigner Lisa Ramsden told AFP. 

“By doing that, they have shirked all responsibility” for ensuring that recycling actually works, she added. She named Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever and Nestle as prime offenders.

According to Greenpeace USA’s survey, only two types of plastic are widely accepted at the nation’s 375 material recovery facilities.

The first is polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is commonly used in water and soda bottles; and the second is high density polyethylene (HDPE), seen in milk jugs, shampoo bottles and cleaning product containers.

These are numbered “1” and “2” according to a standardized system in which there are seven plastic types.

But being recyclable in theory doesn’t mean products are being recycled in practice.

The report found that PET and HDPE products had actual reprocessing rates of 20.9 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively — both down slightly from Greenpeace USA’s last survey in 2020.

Plastic types “3” through “7” — including children’s toys, plastic bags, produce wrappings, yogurt and margarine tubs, coffee cups and to-go food containers — were reprocessed at rates of less than five percent.

Despite often carrying the recycling symbol on their labels, products that use plastic types “3” through “7” fail to meet the Federal Trade Commission classification of recyclable.

This is because recycling facilities for these types aren’t available to a “substantial majority” of the population, defined as 60 percent, and because the collected products are not being used in the manufacturing or assembly of new items.

According to the report, there were five main reasons why plastic recycling is a “failed concept.”

– Economically unfeasible –

First, plastic waste is generated in vast quantities and is extremely difficult to collect —  as becomes clear during what the report called ineffective “volunteer cleanup stunts” funded by nonprofits such as “Keep America Beautiful.”  

Second, even if it were all collected, mixed plastic waste cannot be recycled together, and it would be “functionally impossible to sort the trillions of pieces of consumer plastic waste produced each year,” the report said.

Third, the recycling process itself is environmentally harmful, exposing workers to toxic chemicals and itself generating microplastics. 

Fourth, recycled plastic carries toxicity risks through contamination with other plastic types in collection bins, preventing it from becoming food-grade material again.

Fifth and finally, the process of recycling is prohibitively expensive.

“New plastic directly competes with recycled plastic, and it’s far cheaper to produce and of higher quality,” said the report.

Ramsden called on corporations to support a Global Plastics Treaty, which United Nations members agreed to create in February, and move toward refill and reuse strategies.

“This isn’t actually a new concept — it’s how the milkman used to be, it’s how Coca-Cola used to get its beverages to people. They would drink their beverage, give the glass bottle back, and it would be sanitized and reused,” she said.

Some countries are leading the way, including India, which recently banned 19 single-use plastic items. Austria has set reuse targets of 25 percent by 2025 and at least 30 percent by 2030 for beverage packaging, while Portugal has also set the 30 percent by 2030 goal.

Chile is moving to phase out single-use cutlery and mandating refillable bottles.

Residents and National Guard members clean the streets after the arrival of Hurricane Roslyn in Nayarit State, Mexico, on October 23, 2022

Hurricane Roslyn weakened rapidly Sunday after making landfall on Mexico’s Pacific coast, nonetheless leaving two people dead, as well as damage from high winds, landslides and flooding.

Jorge Benito Rodriguez, security secretary in the northwestern state of Nayarit, said one person died in the Rosamorada municipality.

And fire officials confirmed that an 80-year-old man died on the island of Mexcaltitan when his house collapsed.

There were widespread reports of damage amid fears that still-rising rivers could lead to more flooding.

Hurricane Roslyn, classified at the time as a Category 3 storm, made landfall on the west coast of Mexico on Sunday, the US National Hurricane Center said. 

At 0000 GMT, Roslyn, downgraded to a tropical storm, was some 60 miles (95 km) outside the city of Torreon and moving northeast with maximum sustained winds of some 35 miles (55 kilometers) per hour.

“Weakening is expected to continue, and Roslyn is forecast to dissipate tonight,” the hurricane center said in its latest report.

Civil protection authorities in the hardest-hit states of Nayarit and Jalisco reported material damage, flooding, falling trees and landslides that blocked highways.

“We have floods but they do not represent a risk as such, and we have not reported any loss of human life,” Pedro Nunez, the head of Nayarit Civil Protection, told Televisa earlier in the day.

But with rain continuing, he said river levels were being closely monitored.

“It was a bit scary,” Erik Newcomer, an American who settled in the resort city of Puerto Vallarta three months ago, told AFP. He said he had to evacuate his children as water entered their home, adding, “My house was destroyed.”

In the village of Sayulita in Nayarit state, landslides buried some houses. Residents waded through mud to try to salvage their possessions.

On a journey from Puerto Vallarta to the hardest hit part of Nayarit, AFP observed a mudslide that forced the closure of a highway and nearly buried a trailer.

But as the storm began to pass, the Mexican government discontinued all warnings south of the coastal city of San Blas, including Puerto Vallarta.

A tropical storm warning remained in effect from San Blas north to Mazatlan.

On Saturday, Roslyn had strengthened to a major Category 4 storm as it approached Mexico’s Pacific coast.

Authorities had declared an alert in the Pacific coast states of Jalisco, Colima, Nayarit and Sinaloa.

Tropical cyclones hit Mexico every year on both its Pacific and Atlantic coasts, usually between May and November.

At the end of May, Agatha, the first Pacific storm of the season, hit the coast of the southern state of Oaxaca, where heavy rain in mountainous towns killed 11 people.

Back in October 1997, Hurricane Pauline struck Mexico’s Pacific coast as a Category 4 storm, leaving more than 200 dead.

photo d'archives du Kilimandjaro, le 25 septembre 2022. L'incendie qui ravageait ses pentes depuis vendredi a été "maîtrisé", ont indiqué dimanche 23 octobre les tanzaniennes.

Tanzanian authorities said Sunday a fire on Mount Kilimanjaro was under control after flames burned Africa’s tallest mountain for more than 24 hours.

The blaze began on Friday evening near the Karanga site used by climbers ascending the famous peak, at about 4,000 metres (13,000 feet) altitude on its south side.

“The situation is generally under control and we believe it will completely tackled as time goes,” said a statement from the Natural Resources and Tourism Minister, Pindi Chana.

Earlier Sunday evening, a ministry statement had said that the situation had “to a large extent” been extinguished.

Local official Nurdin Babu told reporters “everything is under control… we have managed to control the fire to a great extent”.

The blaze left no victims in the tourist hotspot and UNESCO World Heritage site in northeastern Tanzania, where tens of thousands of climbers flock each year to conquer its snow-capped peak.

Hundreds of people including firefighters, national park staff and civilians were mobilised to fight the flames that were fanned by a strong wind.

Social media footage on Saturday showed huge flames consuming vegetation and bushes and giving off grey smoke.

The cause remains unknown but Sedoyeka on Saturday said a climber or honey hunters may have started it “carelessly”.

Herman Batiho, an official at Tanzania’s national parks authority, said he was “sure” human activity was to blame through illegal poaching or locals extracting honey.

The latest blaze comes two years after another fire raged for a week in October 2020 across 95 square kilometres (37 square miles).