Re: Recycling and Waste news and discussions
Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2022 9:21 am
A community of futurology enthusiasts
https://futuretimeline.net/forum/
Read more here: https://thelogicalindian.com/good-gove ... i-36445(The Logical Indian) India's first e-waste eco-park is set to be built in Holambi Kalan in Delhi in the next two years, the AAP government said. Regarding the initiative, Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai, on July 8, held a joint review meeting with the officials of the Environment Department and the Delhi Pollution Control Committee.
As per the environment department of the national capital, every year, the city produces over two lakh tonnes of e-waste or nearly 9.5 per cent of the total amount produced in India.
5th Largest Producer Of E-Waste
With this, Delhi is now the fifth-largest producer of e-waste in India, after Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. In addition, only 5 per cent of the generated e-waste is properly recycled.
"We are bringing the country's first e-waste eco-park to Delhi for this reason. By "e-waste eco-park," we refer to the establishment of an area where this e-waste is dismantled, refurbished, recycled, and manufactured in such a manner that is scientifically and environmentally sound," an official said, according to India Today. The park will be developed in an area of about 21 acres.
Rai said an 11-member steering committee has been formed and Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (DSIIDC) has been made its implementing agency, The Times of India reported.
Conclusion:(EurekAlert) A study of 29 European lakes has found that some naturally-occurring lake bacteria grow faster and more efficiently on the remains of plastic bags than on natural matter like leaves and twigs.
The bacteria break down the carbon compounds in plastic to use as food for their growth.
The scientists say that enriching waters with particular species of bacteria could be a natural way to remove plastic pollution from the environment.
The effect is pronounced: the rate of bacterial growth more than doubled when plastic pollution raised the overall carbon level in lake water by just 4%.
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/959587"Our study shows that when carrier bags enter lakes and rivers they can have dramatic and unexpected impacts on the entire ecosystem. Hopefully our results will encourage people to be even more careful about how they dispose of plastic waste," said Eleanor Sheridan in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences, first author of the study who undertook the work as part of a final-year undergraduate project.
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/962376(EurekAlert) What do corncobs and tomato peels have to do with electronics? They both can be used to salvage valuable rare earth elements, like neodymium, from electronic waste. Penn State researchers used micro- and nanoparticles created from the organic materials to capture rare earth elements from aqueous solutions.
Their findings, available online now, will also be published in the November issue of Chemical Engineering Journal.
“Waste products like corncobs, wood pulp, cotton and tomato peels often end up in landfills or in compost,” said corresponding author Amir Sheikhi, assistant professor of chemical engineering. “We wanted to transform these waste products into micro- or nanoscale particles capable of extracting rare earth elements from electronic waste.”
Rare earth metals are used to manufacture strong magnets used in motors for electric and hybrid cars, loudspeakers, headphones, computers, wind turbines, TV screens and more. However, mining these metals proves challenging and environmentally costly, according to Sheikhi, as large land areas are required to mine even small amounts of the metals. Instead, efforts have turned to recycling the metals from electronic waste items like old computers or circuit boards.
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/962286(EurekAlert) RICHLAND, Wash.— A plastics recycling innovation that does more with less, presented today at the American Chemical Society fall meeting in Chicago, simultaneously increases conversion to useful products while using less of the precious metal ruthenium.
“The key discovery we report is the very low metal load,” said Pacific Northwest National Laboratory chemist Janos Szanyi, who led the research team. “This makes the catalyst much cheaper.”
The new method more efficiently converts plastics to valuable commodity chemicals—a process termed “upcycling.” In addition, it produces much less methane, an undesirable greenhouse gas, as a byproduct, compared with other reported methods.
“It was very interesting to us that there had been nothing previously published showing this result,” said postdoctoral research scientist Linxiao Chen, who presented the research at ACS. “This research shows the opportunity to develop effective, selective and versatile catalysts for plastic upcycling.”
A method to convert a commonly thrown-away plastic to a resin used in 3D-printing could allow for making better use of plastic waste.
A team of Washington State University researchers developed a simple and efficient way to convert polylactic acid (PLA), a bio-based plastic used in products such as filament, plastic silverware and food packaging to a high-quality resin.
"We found a way to immediately turn this into something that's stronger and better, and we hope that will provide people the incentive to upcycle this stuff instead of just toss it away," said Yu-Chung Chang, a postdoctoral researcher in the WSU School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering and a co-corresponding author on the work. "We made stronger materials just straight out of trash. We believe this could be a great opportunity."
About 300,000 tons of PLA are produced annually, and its use is increasing dramatically.
Although it's bio-based, PLA, which is categorized as a number seven plastic, doesn't break down easily. It can float in fresh or salt water for a year without degrading. It is also rarely recycled because like many plastics, when it's melted down and re-formed, it doesn't perform as well as the original version and becomes less valuable.
(EurekAlert) Wherever the production of harmful greenhouse gases cannot be prevented, they should be converted into something useful: this approach is called "carbon capture and utilisation". Special catalysts are needed for this. Until now, however, the problem has been that a layer of carbon quickly forms on these catalysts - this is called "coking" - and the catalyst loses its effect. At TU Wien, a new approach was taken: tiny metallic nanoparticles were produced on perovskite crystals through special pre-treatment. The interaction between the crystal surface and the nanoparticles then ensures that the desired chemical reaction takes place without the dreaded coking effect.
Further extract:(EurekAlert ) A new way of using compost could boost global crop production and deliver huge benefits to the planet, according to a study co-led by The University of Queensland.
Professor Susanne Schmidt from UQ’s School of Agriculture and Food Sciences said adopting a Precision Compost Strategy (PCS) in large-scale agriculture could improve crop yield, soil health and divert biowaste from landfill where it generates harmful greenhouse gases.
“Instead of relying just on mineral fertilisers, PCS involves supplementing the right type of compost with nutrients to match the needs of soils and crops,” Professor Schmidt said.
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/963618“In Australia alone, more than 7 million tonnes of biowaste ends up in landfill every year where it generates huge amounts of avoidable greenhouse gases and other undesirable effects,” Professor Schmidt said.
“If we repurpose it, we can restore crucial carbon in cropland topsoil.
Read more of the EurekAlert article here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/964324(EurekAlert) A team of researchers led by Meenesh Singh at University of Illinois Chicago has discovered a way to convert 100% of carbon dioxide captured from industrial exhaust into ethylene, a key building block for plastic products.
Their findings are published in Cell Reports Physical Science.
While researchers have been exploring the possibility of converting carbon dioxide to ethylene for more than a decade, the UIC team’s approach is the first to achieve nearly 100% utilization of carbon dioxide to produce hydrocarbons. Their system uses electrolysis to transform captured carbon dioxide gas into high purity ethylene, with other carbon-based fuels and oxygen as byproducts.
The process can convert up to 6 metric tons of carbon dioxide into 1 metric ton of ethylene, recycling almost all carbon dioxide captured. Because the system runs on electricity, the use of renewable energy can make the process carbon negative.
According to Singh, his team’s approach surpasses the net-zero carbon goal of other carbon capture and conversion technologies by actually reducing the total carbon dioxide output from industry. “It’s a net negative,” he said. “For every 1 ton of ethylene produced, you’re taking 6 tons of CO2 from point sources that otherwise would be released to the atmosphere.”