Meeting of the Parliament 07 February 2018
Last Friday, a primary 7 delegation from Glencairn primary school visited my constituency office. Katie, Kara, Thomas, Regan and their classmates told me of their concerns about potential budget cuts in North Lanarkshire. I was very impressed by their passion for their education.
The pupils went on to tell me about their school’s efforts to ban single-use plastic. The whole school is working to replace disposable drinking cups and plates with reusable ones. Each day, one class provides volunteers for washing-up duties. The school has banned plastic straws and is in negotiation with its supplier to replace milk cartons with attached straws with a bulk supply of straws that can be used with reusable drinking cups. I hope to visit the school to find out a bit more about the project—perhaps the cabinet secretary will consider doing the same.
I was struck by the pupils’ enterprise, endeavour, empathy and concern for our world. They are a credit to their teachers, their parents and to Motherwell town. They were inspired by the focus that has been brought to the issue by other young people across Scotland, which Kate Forbes and Iain Gray have spoken about, and by the powerful images in “Blue Planet II”.
What might be surprising is that work has been done to show that, shocking though the images from “Blue Planet II” are, there may be fewer bits of plastic in the world than might be expected. Modelling work on that was published in the New Scientist in May 2017. The research has led scientists to believe that—perhaps—there are as yet undetected micro-organisms in the ocean that are degrading plastics. It might also be the case that the plastic sinks to the bottom of the ocean where we cannot detect it or see it, which could cause problems that we are unaware of down the line.
It is interesting to consider that mother nature herself might be helping us with the plastics problem. We should be thankful, once again, for the observation and curiosity of the scientific mind. In April 2017, the New Scientist published the experience of Federica Bertocchini, from the institute of biomedicine and biotechnology in Cantabria. After she had picked honeycomb moth caterpillars from a beehive and placed them in a plastic bag for disposal, she noticed that her efforts were somewhat in vain, as the caterpillars were escaping from the plastic bag. She decided that, rather than getting on with her own research, she would investigate what was going on. The article states:
“To make sure that the caterpillars were actually digesting the plastic, the team ground some of them up and spread a thin layer of the paste on a polythene film.”
Within 14 hours, the caterpillars’ enzymes
“had broken down 13 per cent of the plastic. The team also found traces of ethylene glycol, a sign of polyethylene breakdown.”
At the time, Bertocchini said:
“If this is the case, I can picture a scenario in the future where we can isolate it, produce it on a large scale and use that to biodegrade plastics.”
Although the research is really exciting, Bertocchini was, at the time of publication last year, yet to secure funding to continue her work. We are all doing our bit, mother nature is doing her bit and the young people from Glencairn primary school are doing their bit, but on this issue we all must do our bit in order to reduce plastics usage.
In the short time that I have left, I would like to commend the work that Dell has done in sourcing material for its packaging from beach collections in Haiti instead of using virgin plastics. It is such efforts throughout the world that will make a difference.