DailyDirt: Nature Recycles All The Time, So Should We...
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Plastics are everywhere. It's hard to imagine all the modern conveniences that exist because of the existence of plastic and polymers, and it would be difficult to continue living a modern lifestyle without plastics. Maybe we're starting to try not to use plastic bags to carry groceries home in some places, but the bad environmental reputation of plastic might have some solutions. Plastics could be made to be easier to recycle. Also, we could replace some of the more problematic plastics with more environmentally-friendly materials.- Biodegrading polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles might be more feasible now that Japanese researchers have discovered bacteria (Ideonella sakainesis) that can grow on this common commercial polymer. Maybe this isn't much better than melting down the plastic and recycling it into new bottles, or maybe our ecosystem will adapt to consuming all of our waste. Thanks, Mother Nature! [url]
- If fungus can be grown quickly enough, perhaps it'll make sense to replace some plastic products with fungus? We've seen a few other examples of fungus as a building material before, and the possibilities are expanding with fungus-based materials that can be stiff, rubbery or flexible like leather. [url]
- Some commercial plastics, like thermoset polymers, aren't easy to recycle. It's the reason why old tires get stacked up and burned. Making more recyclable thermoset plastics could have significant environmental benefits, allowing tons and tons of our disposable products to find new uses instead of a place in a landfill. [url]
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Filed Under: fungus, ideonella sakainesis, materials, mold, plastics, polymers, recycling, thermoset plastics
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Nature Also Runs Everything On Nuclear Power ...
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Re: Nature Also Runs Everything On Nuclear Power ...
Such appeals to "Nature" by environmentalist leftists are irrational.
Landfills for plastics-garbage are dramatically more economical & environmentally safeer than recycling.
If recycling made any economic sense, the government would not have to force people to do it-- people & businesses would eagerly recycle to make money.
For average people, the only thing worth recycling is aluminum cans. No American municipal curbside recycling program even breaks even on the $$$ cost/benefit scale -- it's a huge scam on the public.
Bury the plastics garbage.
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Re: Re: Nature Also Runs Everything On Nuclear Power ...
Yeah, let's just toss our crap in the ocean - what could possibly go wrong?
Oh ... and the market is self regulating - LOL - good one!
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Re: Re: Nature Also Runs Everything On Nuclear Power ...
Taking steps to avoid screwing the environment costs. And there's no immediate benefit in applying such measures. But in the long term? The best example that comes to mind is Minamata in Japan. They only started caring for the waste they were throwing in the environment when several people started becoming ill and dying. When it starts costing money then companies will adopt treatment systems willingly. But then it might be too late.
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Recycle Tyres - Easy to do
The problem with implementation of these methodologies is the cost of the licences to use the patents. It will cost enough to actually build the processing plants, but add the ongoing licence fees and it becomes much less financially rewarding to do the actual recycling.
When I looked at the situation in Australia, the minimum investment needed for a small plant was $10 million, it will be much more now. Not something I could lay my hands on easily enough then, let alone now.
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Just think, psilocybin water bottles...
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we've had that for a while...
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Expansion Joint
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Batıkent Özel Eğitim
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Thanks. https://hayatadokunanlar.com
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