Un Environment Program News

An innovative ship is being designed to collect plastic waste from the world’s oceans and then convert it into clean hydrogen, allowing surplus hydrogen to be shipped back to shore.At least 14 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). This type of debris—which is currently the most abundant type of litter in the ocean, making up 80% of all marine debris found from surface waters to deep-sea sediments—could more than double in oceans and other bodies of water by 2030…

The Container Owners Association (COA) has had to develop a new global online database of refrigeration machinery repair companies, following 5 separate explosions that caused 3 deaths in 2011. Investigations into the incidents, which resulted in three deaths, concluded that the refrigeration machines had contained a gas other than the refrigerant R134a for which they were designed to operate on, which had created explosive gases inside the system. After testing samples from over 10…

The United Nations and maritime agencies promised help to Lebanon to clean up an oil slick caused by Israeli bombing during the monthlong fighting. The spill has been described as Lebanon's worst-ever environmental disaster, and experts say it could take up to a year to clean it up at a cost of more than $65m. The slick, according to UN estimates, was caused by the bombing of a power station near Beirut July 13-15, spilling about 15,000 tons of oil into the sea - threatening marine life and the local fishing and tourism industries. Officials from IMO, the UN Environment Program, or UNEP, and the European Union said they would appeal for international financial assistance to contain the spill. Source: CNews