Plastic Rubbish
Discussion
CardinalFang said:
gothatway said:
Seems like half a lifetime ago I was involved on the fringes of a project to build a pyrolysis plant to generate and burn syngas from plastic waste. We were beaten by a combination of strident nimbyism and immature/unproven technology - have things progressed significantly in the last dozen years ? I think the proposal for the toxic ash was to form it into some form of vitreous brick or road building product.
Progress is being made, but in a potentially disruptive way: see the myheru.com system I've mentioned a couple of times on here. The idea is to have a domestic appliance sized unit in your house into which you dump everything apart from metals (I'm not sure what the score is on things like batteries, or mobile phones, for example). It will turn your waste into household energy for central & water heating. Gases are vented through a catalyst & the residue left is effectively a usable charcoal briquette-type product.Early days - I think due to be trialled by one local authority this year. Pitched to be priced per a high end washing machine, so a first-world, rather than global solution. However, if the company behind it chooses to licence the technology, rather than be a manufacturer, the uptake could spread quickly, which should drive down prices..
Swervin_Mervin said:
Oooohhh, now that is interesting. Chances of it making it to market, given the impact that it could have on the waste management industry?
Good point - So far, so good - it's been taken up initially by a household name (in consumer electronics, can't say who) & will shortly trial in some local authority housing. But yes: if it does take off it's a bit like black cabs & uber: the impact could be very "political". There would be no need for people like me, for a start, not to mention the impact on collectors, transporters, logistics firms, agents, customs, inspectors, etc, etc....The inventor ran several waste firms, so is an insider & just wondered if there was a better way etc...(Disclaimer - I'm not involved, beyond the fact that I've bought materials from the guy for several years & have no stake/investment in the project)
I wonder if it would be viable for all food packaging to be made from only paper/card and cellophane. As far as I know cellophane is wood fibres so I'm guessing it could be composted or burned without problem.
Liquids to be in clear, not coloured, PET including milk and returnable/reusable. Those bottle wraps would have to be paper or cellophane. Personally I'd ban the sale of bottled water in supermarkets.
Liquids to be in clear, not coloured, PET including milk and returnable/reusable. Those bottle wraps would have to be paper or cellophane. Personally I'd ban the sale of bottled water in supermarkets.
A topic quite close to my heart. We live in the Caribbean and are blessed with some completely unspoiled beaches. Unfortunately one beach is square to the current from Haiti and plagued with plastic rubbish. Like many others we spend an hour most Sunday mornings walking the beach with the kids picking up that s
tholes garbage that they just throw in the sea. The UK can do whatever it wants but the real damage is being done by the 3rd world, not you. I guess if single use plastic can be eliminated in the first world eventually everywhere else will follow but the problem needs action now in the 3rd world. Which means us paying for it...
tholes garbage that they just throw in the sea. The UK can do whatever it wants but the real damage is being done by the 3rd world, not you. I guess if single use plastic can be eliminated in the first world eventually everywhere else will follow but the problem needs action now in the 3rd world. Which means us paying for it...The UK contributes 0.03% of the marine plastic waste. You’re right it’s the developing nations and their poor waste management that is causing the problems.
I certainly hope none of the #plasticfree people need to visit a hospital or take any medicine any time soon.
herewego said:
I wonder if it would be viable for all food packaging to be made from only paper/card and cellophane. As far as I know cellophane is wood fibres so I'm guessing it could be composted or burned without problem.
We've moved on from cellophane as a material. Technology is miles ahead now. One of the recent complaints was that cucumbers were wrapped. A wrapped cucumber wrapped in the current multilayer technology means it lasts 2wks longer than an unwrapped one. The problem of food waste is being ignored because plastic is this year's pantomime villain.I certainly hope none of the #plasticfree people need to visit a hospital or take any medicine any time soon.
StevieBee said:
Interesting read, SB - good info. Very little mention (on this thread & elsewhere in the press) on the potential impact of starting the education process at a young age. I don't have kids so don't know how environmental/green issues sit in our curriculum, but talking to godchildren & nieces/nephews, they are clued up on what goes in what bin, but very little beyond that. Look forward to more articles. Chs, CF.
CardinalFang said:
Very little mention (on this thread & elsewhere in the press) on the potential impact of starting the education process at a young age. I don't have kids so don't know how environmental/green issues sit in our curriculum, but talking to godchildren & nieces/nephews, they are clued up on what goes in what bin, but very little beyond that.
There is a lot of anti-plastic propaganda in schools. Story books will talk about the evils of plastic (not litter) and several are adopting “plastic free” days whilst conveniently ignoring that the kids are sitting on plastic chairs, eating off plastic trays, writing with plastic pens, typing on plastic keyboards etc. etc.herewego said:
When containers of waste are rejected in China for excess contamination where do they go? I'm sure they don't come back.
Very good point.Most often, you'll try India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia etc. Not because they are dumping grounds, but they just have higher contamination allowances & for a marginal "fail" it can work. You'd expect these thresholds to change in future as they mature their own collections systems & possibly change their environmental policies.
Sometimes there's no alternative. A UK recycling firm (allegedly) got hit with a $2mill bill last year, for 100+ containers sent aaaalll the way back. It's going to court (seller vs UK agent who inspected & ok'd) so details are sketchy. The longer you keep the containers sitting on the dockside waiting for a new home, the fees mount up - the daily charge per container doubles every 10 days I think, so you want action, pronto.
Either costs a ruddy fortune though (for low value, low margin, high volume material) & if the stuff is really contaminated, it's gently cooking the whole time in a badly ventilated steel box. Not nice. It 's this, obviously cr*ppy rubbish that was never in a million years going to be passed as a "raw material" that comes all the way back. So it is rare, but it does happen, especially when these rules changes come in suddenly.
Here's one from a couple of years ago: the bill was rumoured to be £300k. https://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/faila...
(Normally when you book a container you're allowed 14 days at the other end, to have your agent/buyer collect it from the dock, truck/rail it to the end consumer mill/factory, empty it & get it back to the dock for re-use. After that you start to pay per day & all that time, in the case of a rejection, the end destination Environment Agency, Customs, Shipper, Buyer are all screaming at each other. And you. At this point you'll be thinking about jumping into an open grave & covering yourself with cement.)
Chs, CF
Edited by CardinalFang on Friday 19th January 16:11
Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff