The sheer quantity of pollutant matter in London is intimidating. In 2014, the most recent year for which figures are available, London released a fairly terrifying 37.8m metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent into the atmosphere. That’s to say nothing of the particulates and other gases belching out into our streets.
But while coughing Londoners are busy converting dirty air to dirty tissues, designers and scientists have been finding better things to make from that pollution. They’re part of a revolution in thinking which extends the concept of recycling to the air we breathe – and could turn pollution from a dangerous problem to a desirable commodity.
I particularly like this one :
Californian plastic designers Newlight Technologies decided to reverse the process, pulling in those greenhouse gases to create plastic without the need for fossil fuels. CEO Mark Herrema explains: “On a continuous, large-scale basis, we’re converting greenhouse gases such as carbon and methane dioxide into biodegradable plastic, plastics that require no oil and no food crops”.
Perhaps most extraordinary is that it’s actually cheaper to produce than conventional plastic, thanks to a catalyst the firm has developed that works at nine times the power of previous technologies. The firm has already started making carbon-negative, biodegradable plastic packaging, and last year signed a contract to supply plastics to Ikea. So the cheap furniture your landlord gets you may soon originate from the air outside your window.
Sounds awesome but, silly question, wouldn't it be better if the plastic wasn't biodegradable ? Otherwise this is just carbon neutral rather than negative...
https://modrenscienc.blogspot.com/2017/09/here-are-five-other-things-we-could-do.html
There you go, being all logical again.
ReplyDeleteProbably not, non-biodegraded plastic is one of the worst ecological nightmares there is.
ReplyDeleteAlso even if this is biodegradable, not-yet-biodegraded plastics are a CO2 trap for as long as they exist, so this would reduce the quantity in atmosphere at a given time. Growing forests, for example, do the same even through a mature forest is nearly CO2-neutral.
This in addition to preventing an increase of circulating CO2, both by making plastic from outside (fossil) sources (which will end up in the atmosphere at some point) and through inefficiencies of said processes.
More importantly, anything that can help us decrease oil dependency (and both some awful regimes that sell it and the rather polluting industry) and, to a slightly lesser extent, intensive farming, is good to explore.
In addition, non-biodegradable doesn't mean non-degradable: UV makes plastic brittle, and physical forces break it into small pieces...which then collect in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, etc. I suspect that spending enough time in the sun does ultimately release the CO2 back into the atmosphere...though I might be wrong about that.
ReplyDelete