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A PANDEMIC IS A BLOW TO A PERSON, A BLOW TO THE ENVIRONMENT.... DOES THE PLANET HAVE A CHANCE?

In the light of recent events, this topic is quite relevant. Diseases that envelop our planet as an explosive wave lead directly to pandemics. Let's say about the COVID-19 virus, which has been taking thousands of lives for the second year, dealing blow after blow, wave to wave to humanity.
In the context of the pandemic, the mask regime has become mandatory in all countries of the world. But, not many people think that masks, gloves, and bottles for antiseptics are all plastic. Because of the fear of catching a virus, disposable dishes, usually made of plastic, are used everywhere. This all is leading to worsening the environment.
To understand the scale of this problem, it is enough to recall a case that occurred on the ocean coast near Hong Kong, when the beach, about 110 meters long, was covered with a thick layer of masks. Another example is in the city of Wuhan, where the first outbreak of the virus occurred, about 200 tons of medical garbage accumulated in just 1 day. This is too large a volume, which the garbage processing plant simply could not cope with.
In the UK, the annual cleaning of the beach area, conducted by the Marine Environment Protection Society, revealed a shocking increase in the number of discarded personal protective equipment. Medical masks have been called a "ticking plastic bomb".
Masks and gloves, disposable tableware – this is all extremely practically non-degradable plastic. The hope was for the beginning of 2021 when laws banning the use of plastic were to be adopted in many countries of the world. But the pandemic has made its own adjustments again. The UN Climate Change Conference, scheduled for November 2020, has also been postponed for an unknown period. All this can lead to the fact that the fight against anthropogenic climate change will greatly slow down.
It is unknown what will happen to nature after the coronavirus pandemic subsides, or completely disappears. Many people do not want to take responsibility and are not ready to predict the future. People - everyone personally - generally thinks little about the damage they cause to nature by their thoughtless attitude to it.

Maria Ovchinnikova

MICROPLASTIC – NEW FACE OF OLD ENEMY

It's no secret that our planet is increasingly drowning in plastic waste. Scraps of nylon nets, bottles, and plastic bags, packaging from food and industrial goods filled not only the Earth's surface but also the Ocean. However, this old and well-known enemy has a new face and the name for it - microplastic.
What is microplastic? These are the smallest particles that are formed when old tires, plastic packaging, peeling paint are destroyed. In addition, microplastic is a mandatory component of shampoos, shower gels, toothpaste, washing powder, and toothpaste. A huge number of these microparticles are also included in the composition of decorative cosmetics, creams, and scrubs.
The main problem of microplastics is that it does not decompose but only disintegrates into smaller and smaller particles, the size of which ranges from 5 mm to 1 micrometer (this is 40-120 times less than the thickness of a human hair). These particles are able to break up into even smaller ones - sub microplastic and nano plastics, the danger of which lies in their ability to penetrate the cell membrane and affect intracellular processes. The mechanism and features of such an impact have not yet been thoroughly studied, but there is no doubt that such an impact is negative.
Therefore, microplastic pollution is another global environmental problem, the solution of which requires innovative approaches, since only limiting the use of disposable plastic can not solve it.

Alexander Zavgorodny

CONSTRUCTION WASTE RECYCLING

In modern construction realities, almost no large company does not attach importance to such a topic as the processing of construction waste. This problem is most acute for firms that carry out new construction on the site of previously demolished buildings and structures since a huge amount of new construction debris is formed during the demolition process. Although the share of materials that can get a second life is essential since this huge mountain is easily divided into simple and familiar materials: brick, concrete, metal, glass, and so on. For the primary sorting of garbage, even mobile equipment has been developed that can carry it out, there are technological developments of the entire process from sorting to manufacturing new building materials from recycled materials, but all this is broken down on an iceberg called "No need" since construction companies often have no benefit from carrying out this process and there will also be no sanctions for their non-fulfillment, so the requirements for recycling construction waste are not spelled out anywhere. The most amazing thing is that in addition to environmental benefits, this procedure also brings economic benefits for all participants in the process, a construction company does not need to spend money on garbage removal, and this is sometimes a lot of money, and firms that process it looks for construction waste in landfills. I hope that this problem will soon be addressed, if not because of environmental, then at least because of economic considerations.

Artem Leontiev

WHY ARE ELECTRIC CARS THE ENEMIES OF THE ENVIRONMENT?

Currently, the popularity of electric cars is growing year by year. Let's figure it out. Where does the energy feeding them come from? According to the structure of primary energy consumption for 2020, almost a third is obtained from petroleum products, another third from natural coal processing, a fifth is accounted for by natural gas, and also small shares – for nuclear power plants, bio - and hydropower. By burning these natural resources, the three main types of electricity production plants emit tons of harmful substances into the air in combination with carbon dioxide, while consuming such an amount of water that could meet the needs of almost 5 billion people annually. human.
It turns out that instead of" feeding " ordinary cars with gasoline produced from petroleum products, the adherents of electric vehicles call for using the energy of electricity, which was obtained by burning the same raw materials!
Specialists of the Scientific and Technical University of Norway conducted a study according to which – the introduction of electric vehicle transport in those regions, the energy supply of which is carried out at stations by burning coal, oil, and gas, is simply meaningless from an environmental point of view. For every kilowatt-hour produced for electric vehicles, up to 274 grams of carbon dioxide is emitted into the air. For comparison, per kilowatt-hour of energy generated by burning gasoline in internal combustion engines, carbon dioxide emissions are 180 grams. Up to 35% more efficient!
But there is another problem: natural resources for the production of batteries. They use rare non-ferrous metals: nickel, cobalt, lithium, neodymium. The reserves of these elements in the Earth are very limited. For example, the UK government has publicly promised to abandon cars with an internal combustion engine by 2050. Professor Herrington and his colleagues calculated that this would require doubling the world's production of cobalt, as well as spending all the neodymium and three-quarters of lithium mined on the planet on the production of batteries for only one country. In addition, the full transition to electric vehicles in the UK will require half of all the copper mined on Earth in a year. And all this is for the needs of one, not the largest country, on the roads of which only 31.5 million cars drive.
Hence the conclusion: electric cars are not a panacea for the impending environmental threat and are not even a supposed way out. The existing set of technologies does not allow you to get rid of this problem, but only shifts the responsibility. I hope that in the near future, scientists will be able to achieve less harmful energy production.

Yulia Sidyakina

Change yourself

Of all the sustainable development goals up to 2030 the most sensible to understand and solve for us, individuals and citizens of our country and the planet Earth, I consider SDG 12: "Responsible consumption and production".
Everything is clear from the point of view of consumption – by refusing certain products, limiting our requests and consumption we produce a smaller garbage trail, save both money and our precious time (to buy something you need to spend time searching for it), and also save natural resources. This is where the connection is made with our influence on how goods and services are produced, even if at first glance it seems indirect. With our ruble ($, Euro, Ruble, etc.) we demonstrate to manufacturers what we are willing to spend money on and which companies and their strategies we do not approve or support. Now ethical and eco-friendly brands are becoming more and more popular. Unlike large corporations they do not engage in "green washing" but actually relieve us, consumers, of responsibility for the garbage created during production and consumption, and take care of natural resources. In the 60s of the XX century, one of the most unremarkable and at the same time the most important and terrible revolutions in the history of mankind took place - the revolution of CONSUMPTION. Humanity has reached the point of saturation when the middle class has become available to all imaginable goods and services at affordable prices. Authorities and companies began to encourage over-consumption, ostensibly for the purpose of "saving and creating jobs", advertising costs began to grow 1.33 times faster than production itself, and all this in people's minds began to cultivate "brandomania" and "equality with the Johnsons".
We need to improve our knowledge of the consumption and production of products that we are familiar with and use every day, so that we know which companies to encourage and which to avoid. Ideally we need to review our consumption habits and more often turn to the 5R-5 whales of conscious consumption: rethink, refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle.

Anastasia Solod

Technical waste disposal

Electronics, household appliances, office equipment, batteries, light bulbs, extension cords and surge protectors, etc. have parts with toxic chemicals. They are not biodegradable and are stored for centuries, poisoning the environment:

- As a result of decomposition and metals oxidation the soil quality deteriorates;
- When decomposing low-quality materials often used to make electrical circuits, a huge amount of toxic substances gets into soil and environment;
- Depending on the size of plastic parts, their complete decay time exceeds the half-century mark;
- Rubber parts of the goods are practically non-degradable, and very often rubber is produced from secondary toxic raw materials.

For safe storage, processing and destruction, there are specific solutions and actions that prevent toxic and hazardous waste from entering the environment: proper transportation of technical waste, safe storage of electrical appliances, sorting, neutralization, processing or disposal. Recycling of equipment involves the return to production of parts that will be reused, and the extraction of precious metals from it for their re-inclusion in production.
What are the options?
Hardware and electronics stores that give recycling discounts but the removal of equipment is paid for by the buyer and it may be more expensive than delivering new equipment. If the equipment is oversized and the person has the opportunity to take it on their own, it can be handed over to specialized reception points. If the equipment is in working order it can be redeemed. Popular brand gadgets are readily bought up even when they are not working (broken), for example, to assemble a new "restored" one from the working parts of several mobile devices and sell it at a good discount.
Due to the unprofitable stores offer and the lack of their own transport people have to resort to mobile recycling services who can also sometimes promiss to buy equipment. "Buying" old equipment may be a "bait" but anyway they still take out equipment for free. There is another significant "but" - precious metals do not reach the equipment manufacturer. In this regard, the cost of goods decreases slowly, because manufacturers have to buy precious metals again and again.

Kira Voynova

The water supply is not infinite

The world's fresh water reserves are not increasing. In the XX century the world's population increased 3 times while the fresh water consumption increased 7 times.
At the moment about 844 million people in the world (that is, one in nine) can't just turn on the tap and drink. 2.3 billion people (almost every third inhabitant of the planet) have problems with access to sewers and toilets. People in Africa have to travel many kilometers from home every day to get some drinking water and bring it to their family in a canister after waiting for several hours in a queue of thousands of the same unfortunate people. At the same time the water is not only difficult to access but also extremely polluted.
"We can't understand that the water in our toilet is cleaner than the water available to more then 800 million people".
Water is subject to variety of polluting factors: discharge of harmful waste into reservoirs; industrial, agricultural and domestic waste water and its insufficient treatment; pollution of underground water, etc. This is a global problem. Across the globe more than 80% of the wastewater containing our waste ends up in the ecosystem without proper treatment or reuse. Over the past year we have already been able to observe several terrible events, for example, the destruction of a reservoir with oil products in Norilsk and the subsequent catastrophic pollution of the Ambarnaya river-up to the complete destruction of ecosystems.
If we do not change the current situation now, in a few decades we will face a catastrophe: there will simply be no clean drinking water.

Daria Dergacheva

New goals - new models

ReGen Villages is a model for developing autonomous integrated and sustainable eco-settlements that can power and feed families around the world.
The project meets almost all of the 17 SDGs set out in the UN Agenda 2030.
ReGen - means "regenerative". According to this model waste from one system is the raw material for anothers.
This holistic approach combines a variety of innovative technologies such as energy-efficient homes, renewable energy sources,energy storage, organic food production, vertical farming, such as aquaponics, aeroponics, water management, and waste management systems. By applying such technologies ReGen Villages has the potential to address some of the challenges of growing populations, increasing urbanization, resource scarcity, the growing global food crisis, as well as reducing CO2 emissions and reducing the burden on municipal and national governments.
ReGen Villages also have social significance through creating framework for empowering families and developing a sense of community. People living in such eco-settlements become part of common local ecosystems reuniting people with nature and consumption with production.
According to project Creator James Ehrlich ReGen Villages is the best way to live in nature, harmonizing production and consumption, rather than separately from it, creating excessive pressure and increasing the anthropogenic footprint.

Maria Tsydypova

Oceanic apocalypse

The oceans cover 3/4 of the Earth's surface and contain 97% of the Earth's water reserves and almost 200,000 identified species but the real numbers could be in the millions. The World Ocean is a regulator of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere absorbing about 30% of CO2 produced by humans thus helping to neutralize one of the global warming causes. Ocean systems are the world's largest source of protein with more than 3 billion people dependent on the ocean as the main protein source.
Marine fish stocks, directly or indirectly, provide employment for more than 200 million people. Fisheries subsidies contribute to the rapid depletion of many fish species and hinder efforts to conserve and restore the world's fish stocks as well as the creation of related jobs.
Current levels of ocean acidification have increased by 26% compared to those since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
The observed global trends indicate that coastal waters continue to deteriorate as a result of pollution and eutrophication (excessive nutrient content in the water, usually due to land-based wastewater entering the marine environment, which leads to active plant growth and animal death due to lack of oxygen). If no action is taken, the level of eutrophication will increase by 20% by 2050.
The ratio of platikmicroparticles to nutrient plankton particles in 2010 was 60: 1.
Is there any info to think about?

Adeline Kikteva

One and each

How much does a person need to meet the needs? We are talking about natural needs and necessary things. The modern world push us - "eat more", "buy more". More, more, more.... But few people think about the consequences of such excessive consumption, such unreasonable spending. And it's not just the hard-earned money thrown away. And not only about the most valuable and often irreplaceable resources of Earth that were wasted. It will focus on the mental state of individuals and society as whole.
Having bought extra things a person expects to get more pleasant emotions, to become more fashionable and, of course, more successful. So he believes. And so we are zombified by advertising and society. But what do we get in the end?
Almost always we get unnecessary things that lie and gather dust in our apartments. Overeating which leads to overweighting and down-in self-esteem or to new spending on a coach and gym.
Trusting advertising (like you deserve these or those goods) people seeking to experience more positive emotions, but in fact directing themselves along the path of disappointment and devastation. And mental illness is not far away. How many cases of fights for new fashionable advertised products.
So, step by step, the consumer society turns into a crowd of zombified, unbalanced and angry people. All this is beneficial for companies that earn on sales and increased consumption. They consume natural resources and our health. It's killing our planet. And the least we can do in this situation is to start cultivating responsible consumption. This is the only sure way to help the planet and preserve valuable natural resources, help ourselves and preserve our mental and physical health.

Alena Chernysheva

Conscious consumption

Consumption and production all around the World are the driving forces of the global economy but all these processes are based on the exploitation of the natural environment and resources and continue to have a devastating impact on the planet.
The socio-economic progress made over the XX century has been accompanied by environmental degradation that threatens the very systems on which our future development and, indeed, our very survival depend.
The COVID-19 pandemic offers countries the opportunity to develop recovery plans that will reverse current trends and change our consumption and production patterns towards a more sustainable future. Sustainable consumption and production are aimed at "doing more and better with less." They also aim to overcome the direct correlation between economic growth and environmental degradation, improve resource efficiency, and promote more sustainable lifestyles.
Sustainable production and consumption are the most important parts of the overall system of sustainable development. Without this it is impossible to talk about the efforts against climate change, resource depletion and pollution, poverty and hunger.

Marina Shevchenko

The environment or cigarette

Cigarette butts are the most frequently thrown out type of garbage in the world and the main polluter of coasts. According to the results of public inspections of coastlines on plastic pollution cigarette butts accounted for almost 30 % of all collected single-use plastic.
Every year the world produces about 6 trillion cigarettes while up to 680 million tons of cigarette butts end up in the environment. Almost 10 billion cigarettes end up in the environment every day.
Most often cigarette filters are made from cellulose acetate — a type of plastic. They need about 20 years to decompose and become microplastics, the harmfulness of which is no less and even more than large plastic.
The composition of tobacco resins that settle on the acetate-cellulose cigarette filter includes more than 3,500 different chemicals. Cigarette filters contain aluminum, bromine, chromium, copper, iron, lead, manganese, Nickel, strontium, titanium, zinc, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, which are easily washed out by water and pollute the soil and water. Many of them are toxic to fish and carcinogenic to humans.
The best option for both human health and the health of the planet is to quit Smoking and not harm yourself or nature. By buying cigarettes we create demand for new production which means we support the cigarette industry. Since this option is not possible , it is necessary to encourage manufacturers to use recyclable materials and recycling.

Adriana Ivannikova

Deep poverty

783 million people still live in extreme poverty struggling to meet the most basic needs, such as health, education, and access to water and sanitation, among others. In 2016 almost 10% of the world's workers and their families lived on less than us $ 1.90 per person per day, the majority in two regions — South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Generally high levels of poverty are often found in small unstable countries that suffer from conflict. In 2016 only 45% of the world's population had at least one social security benefit. Worldwide the rural poverty rate is 17.2%, which is more than three times higher than in urban areas.
Extreme poverty, or absolute poverty, can be defined as "severe deprivation of the ability to meet basic human needs". Worldwide, the number of people living in extreme poverty fell from 36% in 1990 to 10% in 2015. But the pace of change is slowing and the economic crisis caused by the spread of COVID-19 risks undoing decades of progress in the fight against poverty.
The study published by the United Nations World Research Institute for Development Economics warns that the economic impact of a global pandemic could increase global poverty by another half a billion people or 8% of the world's total population. This increase in global poverty would be the first time in 30 years since 1990.

Maria Blazhko

Green Terra Development

Open Learning Resourse for Education for Sustainable Development (OLR4ESD)

Global problems

System approach

Green education

Welcome to OLR4ESD

Briefly about importance

A PANDEMIC IS A BLOW TO A PERSON, A BLOW TO THE ENVIRONMENT.... DOES THE PLANET HAVE A CHANCE?

MICROPLASTIC – NEW FACE OF OLD ENEMY

CONSTRUCTION WASTE RECYCLING

WHY ARE ELECTRIC CARS THE ENEMIES OF THE ENVIRONMENT?

Change yourself

Technical waste disposal

The water supply is not infinite

New goals - new models

Oceanic apocalypse

One and each

Conscious consumption

The environment or cigarette

Deep poverty

EU policy SD

Other projects MIIGAiK

News and announcements

Book of student research papers and projects

GREEN TERRA DEVELOPMENT. GRETERE PROJECT FINAL CONFERENCE

BIM&GIS: FUTURE IS COMING

The main trends and practices in the application of BIM & GIS technologies

European context of modern spatial planning: Berlin and London in focus