In the climate battle, it is important to celebrate every win, because they don't come often enough. This time, it is the micro beads - more particularly; the rubber granules that is used on artificial turf (synthetic football fields), that will now be regulated.
The rubber granulates are made of finely chopped car tires. This has become a massive environmental problem.
Within the end of this year, The Norwegian government has announced, that artificial turf on football pitches will need to have a plan for how to make the micro beads not fall outside of the turf. There will be stricter rules on storage, usage and how to collect the micro beads.
To give you some numbers;
- There are ca 1600 artificial turf football fields in Norway
- Micro beads coming from these artificial turfs is one of the highest plastic polluters in Norway
- Globally, over 8 million tonns of plastic ends up in the ocean, this equals five lorry truck worth of plastic per minute being dumped in the ocean.
In other words; this is great news! Marine littering is however a global problem, and plastic that ends up in the ocean knows no limits to where it might end up. But seeing Norway stepping up and making changes like this makes a real difference, because we are such a high consuming nation. I hope more countries will make similar priorities in the near future, so we can have more environmental wins, and protect more of what we love.