Recalls

https://www.stericycleexpertsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/ExpertSolutions-RecallIndex-Q42018-web.pdf

‘Soft, Purple Plastic’ Found in Beef Patties Leads to Recall of 20,000+ Pounds - EcoWatch

https://www.ecowatch.com/beef-recall-plastic-contamination-2633771452.html

'Soft, Purple Plastic' Found in Beef Patties Leads to Recall of 20,000+ Pounds

Olivia RosaneApr. 05, 2019 07:31AM EST

Pexels

A Tyson Foods subsidiary is recalling more than 20,000 pounds of beef patties that may have been contaminated with plastics, USA Today reported.

"Two consumers reported they found pieces of soft purple plastic in the product," AdvancePierre said in a statement Wednesday. "Even though these reports involved only two items, out of an abundance of caution, the company is recalling 1,449 cases of product."

The Enid, Oklahoma-based AdvancePierre, which was acquired by Tyson in 2017, said the 20,373 pounds of recalled Tenderbroil Patties CN Fully Cooked Flamebroiled Beef Patties had only been shipped to food service customers and were not available for purchase in retail stores.

In a recall notice published Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) said that some of the recalled patties had been sold to schools. However, they were not distributed by the USDA as part of the National School Lunch Program.

The plastic in the patties was first discovered April 1 after two customers complained, FSIS said, but no one has reported falling ill after eating the beef.

"FSIS is concerned that some product may be frozen and in food service freezers," the USDA said. "Food service locations who have purchased these products are urged not to serve or consume them. These products should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase."

The recalled patties were produced Nov. 30, 2018. They came in 14.06 pound cases containing three bags of 30 patties, for a total of 90 per case. Their case code was 5-525-0 and their package code was 8334. They also have the establishment code "EST. 2260E" inside the USDA mark of inspection.

This is at least the third time this year that a Tyson-affiliated product has been recalled due to foreign matter contamination. In January, Tyson recalled around 36,420 pounds of chicken nuggets after customers found "soft, blue rubber" inside. Then, in March, the company recalled nearly 70,000 pounds of chicken strips when two customers said they had found "fragments of metal."

According to Stericyle's recall index for the fourth quarter of 2018, the most recent date for which data exists, more pounds of beef were recalled by the USDA than pounds of any other food type in three out of four quarters in 2018. It led the pack at 71.8 percent in the fourth quarter. Poultry was the number one recalled overall category at 40.5 percent in the same quarter.

CO2 Levels Are Now at a 3 Million-Year High - EcoWatch

https://www.ecowatch.com/c02-levels-2633711783.html?utm_source=EcoWatch+List&utm_campaign=fa675e409a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_49c7d43dc9-fa675e409a-85946369

CO2 Levels Are Now at a 3 Million-Year High

Olivia RosaneApr. 05, 2019 07:02AM EST

There is likely more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than at any other time in the last three million years.

That is the conclusion reinforced by a study published in Science Advances Wednesday. Researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany succeeded for the first time in creating a computer simulation of the climate over the past three million years that matched data taken from sediment from the ocean floor.

The model showed that carbon-dioxide levels played a major role in shaping climate during that period — but in the reverse of their impact today. Lower levels of the greenhouse gas were a major factor in the onset of ice ages.

"We know from the analysis of sediments on the bottom of our seas about past ocean temperatures and ice volumes, but so far the role of CO2 changes in shaping the glacial cycles has not been fully understood," lead study author Matteo Willeit of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said in a press release. "It is a breakthrough that we can now show in computer simulations that changes in CO2 levels were a main driver of the ice ages."

But while this may be a scientific breakthrough, it has frightening implications. During the period modeled in the simulation, global temperatures never rose above pre-industrial levels by more than two degrees Celsius. However, if humans continue to burn fossil fuels at current rates, they will shoot past that marker within 50 years, with major consequences.

"Our results imply a strong sensitivity of the Earth system to relatively small variations in atmospheric CO2," Willeit said. "As fascinating as this is, it is also worrying."

Willeit told CNN that the models showed that carbon dioxide levels would not be more than 280 parts per million (ppm) today if human activity had not intervened in natural climate cycles. Instead, they are at around 410 ppm. If this trend is not slowed, Willeit told CNN, "our planet will change." The next 200 years could see one to two meters (approximately 3.3 to 6.6 feet) of sea level rise.

On the same day that the Science Advances study was released, scientists met at the Royal Meteorological Society in London to discuss what the earth was like the last time carbon dioxide levels were so high.

That was 5.3 to 2.6 million years ago during the Pliocene epoch, when beech trees grew in Antarctica, temperatures were three to four degrees Celsius warmer and sea levels were 20 meters (approximately 65.6 feet) higher.

Scientists said that studying this past era could help humans understand what the planet would look like if climate change continues apace, The Guardian reported. However, they noted it would take some time for current C02 levels to cause these changes. It could take millennia for the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets to completely melt, for example.

"If you put your oven on at home and set it to 200C the temperature does not get to that immediately, it takes a bit of time, and it is the same with climate," Imperial College London geophysicist Martin Siegert said, according to The Guardian.

British Antarctic Survey Director Jane Francis said the fossils of the Antarctic beech trees had been an important find.

"I call them the last forests of Antarctica. They were growing at 400ppm CO2, so this may be where we are going back to, with ice sheets melting at times, which may allow plants to colonise again," Francis said, according to The Guardian. Francis said that the polar regions were important to understanding climate change, since they are uniquely sensitive to it.

However, Siegert said the changes represented by the Pliocene were not inevitable.

"Can we restrict temperature rise to 1.5 degrees this century? Can we do that? It's possible," he said, according to BBC News. "We've got to bring CO2 levels down to 40% of what they are today by 2030, or so. And then to zero by 2050, and then negative after that. That's a massive undertaking but it's possible."