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New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency

academictimes.com

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Re: New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency

#31

Post by gary_0 »

mrfusion wrote: post #17
dheera wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PLA is pretty useless as a material though for anything but art. Almost everything I print has a functional purpose and either (a) needs mechanical strength (b) will be placed outdoors in the California sun or (c) will be used to house electronics that may reach temperatures as high as 70-80 C. PLA is basically useless to me and pretty much all roboticists. I use PETG for almost everything because it works perfectly…

I’ve just been living with the downsides of pla. Should I just switch to petg? I have my printer in my bedroom though. Is petg toxi to breathe?

Not sure how toxic PETG is but the fumes are quite unpleasant. When I was around where large amounts of PETG were being worked with, ventilation was a must.

Re: New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency

#32

Post by joshspankit »

jvanderbot wrote: post #26
ArkanExplorer wrote: post #7

Plastic recycling seems heavily motivated by emotion and virtue signaling. In reality, only about 5% of our crude oil use goes towards plastic. If we rolled out EVs, and then just burned all the plastic trash (using waste-to-energy plants), we would still be far ahead. The biggest challenges with plastics are hormone disruption, and microplastics (particularly in the 3rd world without sufficient landfill or W2E infra…

I believe plastic recycling is not motivated by oil use primarily. I believe it is motivated by trash accumulation in oceans and the food chain (microplastics). There are a ton of areas of the world where plastic just piles up.

Off-topic, but sometimes I feel like we could harvest the plastic from the ocean, make plastic bricks, and build millions of houses.

Edit: Just to be clear, I’m not trying to say that this is a viable solution to anything, or that it’s a good use of resources based on our current methodologies. I’m more just trying to say that there’s so much raw material out there and that it’s better if it comes out of the ocean. Like, if suddenly we found a non-polluting method to perfectly separate out all the components, then a health-safe chemical mixture with those components that was solid and fireproof (and UV proof), there’s probably enough out there to do something significant with.

Re: New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency

#33

Post by TeamXe »

orev wrote: post #18
mrfusion wrote: post #15

Isn’t plastic in landfills actually a great way to sequester carbon?

It’s not really a benefit if the original carbon came from oil, because the carbon that was originally deep underground is now at the surface. If anything it’s only neutral, however the carbon emitted during oil extraction and the manufacturing process still results in a net negative. Landfill isn’t the worst option, but it’s still better to try to avoid the manufacturing of it to begin with.

REDUCE, Reuse, Recycle. People forget (or never realized) the order was intentional.

Re: New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency

#34

Post by ArkanExplorer »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #14
ArkanExplorer wrote: post #7

Plastic recycling seems heavily motivated by emotion and virtue signaling. In reality, only about 5% of our crude oil use goes towards plastic. If we rolled out EVs, and then just burned all the plastic trash (using waste-to-energy plants), we would still be far ahead. The biggest challenges with plastics are hormone disruption, and microplastics (particularly in the 3rd world without sufficient landfill or W2E infra…

Plastic disposal is a clear example of the failure of current economics. It's clearly bad for the environment and has long term costs, but there basically isn't any way economics to calculate that or incent it to not be done. So IMO, recycling is an exploratory exercise in seeing if we can socially engineer behavior that is "better". The cynic would say "it doesn't", but I could argue civilization is built on short t…

90% of ocean plastic comes from Asia and Africa:

http://odinafrica.org/about-us/news/217-90-percent-of-ocean-....

We need to prohibit Western companies from packaging food and FMCG for the developing world in plastic - until both the disposal infrastructure and societal attitudes around pollution and environmental management change. Or, charge those polluters to build that infrastructure or change those attitudes.

Here are the biggest polluters:

CocaCola (USA)

PepsiCo (USA)

Nestle (Switzerland)

Unilever (UK)

Mondelez (USA)

Mars (USA)

P&G (USA)

Phillip Morris (USA)

Colgate-Palmolive (USA)

Perfetti van Melle (Italy)

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/coca-cola-pepsico-and-nest....

I would suggest that a targeted protest and political lobbying campaign against the headquarters of those companies would be more effective than any individual effort to clean up plastic pollution.

Re: New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency

#35

Post by tachyonbeam »

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #7

Plastic recycling seems heavily motivated by emotion and virtue signaling. In reality, only about 5% of our crude oil use goes towards plastic. If we rolled out EVs, and then just burned all the plastic trash (using waste-to-energy plants), we would still be far ahead. The biggest challenges with plastics are hormone disruption, and microplastics (particularly in the 3rd world without sufficient landfill or W2E infra…

I think we should recycle plastic if we can, or better yet, switch to other materials that are easier to recycle. For example, glass bottles can just be sent back to the factory, washed and reused. This is already done for beer and wine AFAIK. It could be done for milk and every other kind of drinks as well.

However, if we fail to recycle plastic, isn't burying plastic in a landfill, in a way, a form of carbon capture? This is that. much less carbon going into the atmosphere. Again, I think we should avoid that if we can, but IMO, not all pollution is an equally serious problem. Reducing CO2 emissions is clearly the number one priority.

Re: New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency

#36

Post by tachyonbeam »

joshspankit wrote: post #32
jvanderbot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe plastic recycling is not motivated by oil use primarily. I believe it is motivated by trash accumulation in oceans and the food chain (microplastics). There are a ton of areas of the world where plastic just piles up.

Off-topic, but sometimes I feel like we could harvest the plastic from the ocean, make plastic bricks, and build millions of houses. Edit: Just to be clear, I’m not trying to say that this is a viable solution to anything, or that it’s a good use of resources based on our current methodologies. I’m more just trying to say that there’s so much raw material out there and that it’s better if it comes out of the ocean. L…

You certainly could, but you could also build houses out of stone and cement, like they used to do in the old days. Makes for very durable construction.

Re: New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency

#37

Post by toomuchtodo »

joshspankit wrote: post #32
jvanderbot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe plastic recycling is not motivated by oil use primarily. I believe it is motivated by trash accumulation in oceans and the food chain (microplastics). There are a ton of areas of the world where plastic just piles up.

Off-topic, but sometimes I feel like we could harvest the plastic from the ocean, make plastic bricks, and build millions of houses. Edit: Just to be clear, I’m not trying to say that this is a viable solution to anything, or that it’s a good use of resources based on our current methodologies. I’m more just trying to say that there’s so much raw material out there and that it’s better if it comes out of the ocean. L…

Better to harvest the plastic from the ocean, and power the collection system with the plastic in a plasma gasifier. The slag can be disposed of in the ocean, as its chemically inert.

Re: New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency

#38

Post by dawnerd »

tachyonbeam wrote: post #35
ArkanExplorer wrote: post #7

Plastic recycling seems heavily motivated by emotion and virtue signaling. In reality, only about 5% of our crude oil use goes towards plastic. If we rolled out EVs, and then just burned all the plastic trash (using waste-to-energy plants), we would still be far ahead. The biggest challenges with plastics are hormone disruption, and microplastics (particularly in the 3rd world without sufficient landfill or W2E infra…

I think we should recycle plastic if we can, or better yet, switch to other materials that are easier to recycle. For example, glass bottles can just be sent back to the factory, washed and reused. This is already done for beer and wine AFAIK. It could be done for milk and every other kind of drinks as well. However, if we fail to recycle plastic, isn't burying plastic in a landfill, in a way, a form of carbon captur…

If by sent back you mean crushed then yeah sure bottles are reused. Oregon for example breaks the bottles when you return them to prevent fraud.

Re: New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency

#39

Post by snarf21 »

TeamXe wrote: post #33
orev wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not really a benefit if the original carbon came from oil, because the carbon that was originally deep underground is now at the surface. If anything it’s only neutral, however the carbon emitted during oil extraction and the manufacturing process still results in a net negative. Landfill isn’t the worst option, but it’s still better to try to avoid the manufacturing of it to begin with.

REDUCE, Reuse, Recycle. People forget (or never realized) the order was intentional.

Although you are right, I don't think it is that people don't know this. Recycle is easy, through it in the blue bucket. Reduce requires a complete re-imaging of our society. This won't happen without substantial taxation on plastics and single use packaging. But that is a bad way to get re-elected and how will we get next day shippping?

Re: New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency

#40

Post by mnouquet »

joshspankit wrote: post #32
jvanderbot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe plastic recycling is not motivated by oil use primarily. I believe it is motivated by trash accumulation in oceans and the food chain (microplastics). There are a ton of areas of the world where plastic just piles up.

Off-topic, but sometimes I feel like we could harvest the plastic from the ocean, make plastic bricks, and build millions of houses. Edit: Just to be clear, I’m not trying to say that this is a viable solution to anything, or that it’s a good use of resources based on our current methodologies. I’m more just trying to say that there’s so much raw material out there and that it’s better if it comes out of the ocean. L…

> [...] build millions of houses

... slowly leaching endocrine disruptors in the environment for generations to come.

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