Friday, April 26, 2019
New type of plastic is a recycling dream
Ars Technica: Recycling sounds great in principle (because it is), but a frustrating number of devils lurk in the details. For example, while some materials like aluminum can readily be melted down and turned right back into new aluminum cans, recovered plastics tend to be lower quality than “virgin” material. That’s because recycled plastic retains some of its previous properties—like Lego bricks that can’t be separated. The next plastic you make won’t be exactly the same type, and the recycled material won’t fit perfectly into its new spot.
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8 comments:
My freshman year of highschool I took an environmental class that teaches you how to be more aware and properly recycle. The main topic of discussion within this class was always about how destructive plastic is and how many people lack awareness of this subject. Plastic, being virtually indestructible, is a material that is used in almost everything and for a really long time. Although plastic is very convenient, it is extremely detrimental to the environment because there is no way to get rid of it. I think having people completely stop using plastic is going to be a very long and hard process considering that it is everywhere. There are so many different materials that makeup plastic that makes it impossible to break down. These scientists are trying to come up with a new version of plastic without those said elements which will make it easy to breakdown. They said it takes a lot of energy for these properties to be eliminated from the overall material.
I totally support the development of a better recycled plastic process. While recycling is great in theory, but the process is kind of useless if the material created is unusable. Having a material that keeps its strength and properties after it has been melted down and reformed is kind of important. I hope that groups like this are also considering how or if they can melt different kinds of plastics together. I think part of the trouble with recycling, especially with collecting recycling in a public place, is that there are often so much separating a person has t do in order for the recycling to be accepted. I know there are plenty of recycling centers that will throw out whole bags of recycling if it is contaminated with a plastic or material of the wrong type. Single stream processing needs to become the forefront of recycling, and I think being able to have a mixed-type plastic may help with that problem. Additionally, rather than making more single use plastics, there needs to be more manufacturing of plastics that are made out of sustainable, renewable, or organic materials.
I think the biggest problem with recycling is that it makes people feel like their use of plastic is more okay. We actually use way more plastic than we have the capacity to recycle, but people still use plastic thinking it is being recycled. Even if we switch to this new plastic, there is still the energy required to produce it in the first place, and the energy required to recycle it. I do think the world would be better off if we had used a hyper recyclable plastic from the time we first started using plastic, but I feel like we need more drastic solutions than different plastics to fix the point we are at now. That being said, any progress is helpful, and I do think this plastic sounds like it will be a better option than the current plastic we have. The really cool thing would be if we could recycle our existing plastic into this type of plastic (I realize that would be a more complicated process, and likely impossible) so we could phase out the current plastic entirely.
This is one of the most informative and resourceful articles I’ve seen on the topic of recycling in a long time. It breaks down the process of plastic recycling and the issues that arise when recycling different kinds of materials. I knew that when plastics were recycled that their strength lessened as they got more and more impure. But I never realized how wide a range of impurities remained depending on the type of plastic. I think there’s a lot to be gained from more research into higher yield on recycle plastics. But every coin has two sides, so analyzing the potential downfalls of these kinds of plastics is important too. Like we discovered in the Greening Scenery project, there’s no real simple solution to becoming more eco-friendly. All we can do is our best, and keep our minds open to the newest data and research. This plastic seems like a good first step.
This article provided me with a lot more useful information about plastic recycling. My knowledge up to this point had been pretty general about recycling plastics but I did know it was more complex than it initially appeared. This article really laid out the science behind it in an easily consumable way that bettered my understanding of why recycling plastic is a complex cycle. With that being said this is a very cool product that shows a lot of promise in simplifying and improving the way we are able to recycle plastic. I think it’s pretty easy to get discouraged about the ideas of recycling and being green because it’s such a complex system that your efforts to be better about something can seem fruitless but with this innovation that doesn’t seem to be the case. Changing the material itself seems to be one of the better practices in the fight and this product in particular seems to have a lot of qualities that make it a practical solution.
This is easily one of the most informative articles that I have read in awhile and I feel like I learned a great deal about plastics and recycling from it. Before this article I don't think i really quite understood what most plastics consisted of and how they were created. I think shifting the complicated ideas fo monomers and polymers to things as simple as building blocks really helped dumb down the process and better helped my understanding of the construction process. It's a simple principle when simplified the more energy it take to bond something together the more it takes to take it apart so it makes sense why one cannot simply breakdown the plastic properties after they have been created. I think endeavors like the one these scientists are headed on are invaluable to us as builders and as people of the world. Creating and finding new ways to preserve our environment, cut down on our negative impact and reuse our limited resources are key steps to creating a stronger future.
Recycling has hoops to jump through when recycled correctly which this article goes into detail about. But there are also a myriad of hoops to jump through before recycling gets there. What do we have to wash? Are the paper plates recyclable, or do they get composted? What about construction paper? By making mistakes many people don’t realise they could be hurting the whole process by recycling that. I think the main issue this comes down to is education. I don’t know all the rules or how to best follow them. Additionally plastics mostly have to be washed so why are there no places to do that near a recycling bin, what if there was a station- you dumped anything left (And left a spatula nearby to help), rinsed if needed then recycled. By having this process we would be able to help streamline the recycling process and help minimise the effect we have on the environment.
Plastic recycling has always been a hot topic. Many people in the recycling community believe that recycling plastics simply isn’t worth it because of the process and the end product that is created. I think a new makeup that would allow 100% of waste to be reused would be a massive step in the right direction.
The article focuses mainly on the plastic bottle industry because that is where the majority of the volume is. That being said if there is a new viable option that replaces the existing plastic makeup many other plastic using industries would be able to take advantage of the recyclable material. The one that comes to mind in theatre is the use of vacuum forming. CMU, in particular, does a lot with custom vacuum forming and with a new recyclable plastic I can imagine people would be more inclined to use the machine if it was seen as a greener option.
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