Eco Minute 13:30

BULLETIN 17 September 1:30 pm

Good afternoon, here is your Eco Minute:

# Deputy minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Bernice Swarts, says South Africa is increasing its recycling capacity for the management of plastic waste and eliminating plastic pollution. In 2023, the government put a restriction on a minimum of 50-percent recycled content as part of the product design measures for plastic carrier bags. Swarts says the intention is that by 2027, plastic carrier bags and black refuse bags should be made from 100-percent recycled material.

# Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates says malnutrition is the world’s worst child health crisis, and climate change will only make things more severe. According to a report by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, between now and 2050, 40-million more children will have stunted growth. Twenty-eight million more will suffer from wasting, the most extreme and irreversible form of malnutrition, as a result of climate change. Gates says around 90-percent of the negative effect of climate change works through the food system.

# And finally: Producing a high-definition image using artificial intelligence consumes as much energy as fully recharging the battery of a cell phone. This is according to a leading researcher on the impact of artificial intelligence on climate, Sasha Luccioni. The US tech giants saw their greenhouse gas emissions soar in 2023 because of AI, up 48-percent for Google compared to 2019 and 29-percent for Microsoft compared to 2020. Luccioni is calling for energy-efficiency certifications for AI algorithms and greater transparency from tech companies.

Stay tuned for more news………….