Recycling and Waste news and discussions

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Experts Say Clean Energy Tech Needs to be Designed for Recycling
by Maddie Stone
January 14, 2022

https://www.theverge.com/22882287/clean ... -recycling

Introduction:
(The Verge) Companies like Apple and Samsung aren’t the only ones making high-tech devices that are hard to take apart and recycle. So are the manufacturers of critical clean energy technologies like solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicle (EV) batteries — and unlike the consumer tech industry, which is slowly starting to reverse some of its unsustainable design practices, there isn’t much being done about it.

Batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines are all essential tools for combating climate change. However, these technologies take considerable energy and resources to make, and the best way to ensure we can keep making more of them sustainably is to recycle those resources at end of life. But today, clean energy recycling is limited by design choices that hinder disassembly, including the widespread use of ultra-strong adhesives. That could change, experts say, if the companies manufacturing supersized batteries for EVs and rare earth magnets for wind turbines shifted toward new adhesives that can be “de-bonded” using light, heat, magnetic fields, and more, or toward glue-free designs.

“Design for recycling hasn’t really come to that market yet,” says Andy Abbott, a professor of chemistry at the University of Leicester who recently co-authored a review paper on de-bondable adhesives and their potential use in clean energy.

Instead, Abbott says, manufacturers tend to “overengineer” their products for safety and durability. Take EV batteries, which are composed of anywhere from dozens to thousands of individual, hermetically-sealed cells glued together inside modules and packs. While the heavy use of adhesives helps ensure the batteries don’t fall apart on the road, it can make them incredibly difficult to take apart in order to repurpose individual cells or recycle critical metals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel.

“At the moment, because everything is bonded together, lots of batteries end up getting shredded,” study co-author Gavin Harper, an EV battery recycling expert at the University of Birmingham in the UK, tells The Verge. “The material is mixed together, which makes subsequent steps in the recycling process more complicated.”
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The Climate Solution in California’s Compost and Crops
by Justine Calma
January 26, 2022

https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/26/2290 ... griculture

Extract:
(The Verge) Scaling up composting, tree-planting, and other sustainable agricultural practices in California could trap about a quarter of the state’s annual carbon dioxide emissions by 2030, according to a new report. These strategies for drawing down greenhouse gases are cheaper and easier to ramp up than technological alternatives, like devices that suck planet-heating CO2 out of the air, and should play a key role in the state’s efforts to address climate change, the report authors argue.
...
The report proposes California allot $29 billion for natural methods of carbon sequestration through 2030. Much of that money would go towards building up facilities for producing and distributing compost, hiring and training staff to manage trees, working with farmers to implement sustainable practices, and giving incentives to farmers to switch to composting.

There are a few different ways composting can make a dent in carbon pollution. Compost is made from food or agricultural waste that might otherwise release greenhouse gases when sent to landfills. Instead, it’s used to nourish crops and grasses for livestock to graze. More productive croplands and pasture and healthier soils, in turn, are better at drawing down and sequestering CO2. Starting this year, California residents and businesses will be required to separate out their food and green waste from other garbage so that it can be composted.

The report also highlights the benefits of agroforestry, the practice of planting trees among crops and pastures. On top of taking in CO2 themselves, these trees can prevent erosion that causes soils to lose carbon. Planting a diversity of crops also improves soil health.
...
…obstacles are significant, says Stephen Hart, a professor of life and environmental sciences at the University of California Merced who was not involved in the analysis. Hart believes the report’s authors overestimated how quickly the state can implement such strategies and worries about whether they can be sustained over time. “The coordination of thousands of farmers, rangeland managers, etc. to meet their suggested targets would like[ly] take an organizational effort unmatched in the State’s history,” he writes in an email to The Verge. He also points out that some farmers concerned about crop yield may not want to switch from high-nitrogen synthetic fertilizers to compost, and worries about the emissions that might come with transporting compost.
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New Enzyme Discovery is Another Leap Towards Beating Plastic Waste
March 21, 2022

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/946863

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) Scientists who helped to pioneer the use of enzymes to eat plastic have taken an important next step in developing nature-based solutions to the global plastics crisis.

They have characterised an enzyme that has the remarkable capacity to help break down terephthalate (TPA), one of the chemical building blocks of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, which is used to make single-use drinks bottles, clothing and carpets.

The research, which is published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), was co-led by Professor Jen DuBois, Montana State University, and Professor John McGeehan from the University of Portsmouth, who in 2018 led the international team that engineered a natural enzyme that could break down PET plastic. The enzymes (PETase and MHETase) break the PET polymer into the chemical building blocks ethylene glycol (EG) and TPA. This new research describes the next steps, specifically for managing TPA.

Professor DuBois said: “While EG is a chemical with many uses – it’s part of the antifreeze you put into your car, for example – TPA does not have many uses outside of PET, nor is it something that most bacteria can even digest. However, the Portsmouth team revealed that an enzyme from PET-consuming bacteria recognises TPA like a hand in a glove. Our group at MSU then demonstrated that this enzyme, called TPADO, breaks down TPA and pretty much only TPA, with amazing efficiency.”

With more than 400 million tons of plastic waste produced each year, the overwhelming majority of which ends up in landfills, it is hoped this work will open the door to improve bacterial enzymes, such as TPADO. This will help tackle the challenge of plastic pollution and develop biological systems that can convert waste plastic into valuable products.
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I feel increasingly like the right solution for plastic waste is to switch to plastic formulas that can be made by pulling co2 out of the air, and shredding and sequestration in pockets in the ground, perhaps even empty oil deposits.

I mean if you animals won't recycle the stuff, refuse to use it in thermal depolymerization to make fuels and other hydrocarbon materials, and won't incincerate it for power plants. put plastic back into the ground to pull the carbon out of circulation. Let it replace the oil we have taken out.
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Breaking Down Plastic into Its Constituent Parts
March 24, 2022

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/947566

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) The chemical industry has a long tradition of producing polymers. This involves turning small molecular building blocks into long chains of molecules that bond together. Polymers are the basis of all kinds of everyday plastics, such as PET and polyurethane.

However, while the formation of polymers is well established and well researched, scientists have given little attention to how polymer chains are broken down (a process called depolymerisation) to recover their individual building blocks – monomers. One reason for this is that breaking down polymers is a complex process. Whether a polymer can be broken back down at all into its constituent parts depends on which of the different polymer manufacturing processes were used. Another reason is that the depolymerisation processes used to date require a lot of energy, which has made them economically unviable. Added to this is the fact that recycled polymers are usually only used in the manufacture of low-value products.

Breaking down polymers is the goal

Athina Anastasaki, Professor of Polymeric Materials at ETH Zurich, wants to change this. She has set herself the goal of producing polymers that can be easily broken down into their building blocks so that they can be fully recycled.

The materials scientist has been able to take a first important step in this direction: A study by her group has just been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society [https://doi.org/...]. In it, Anastasaki and her colleagues show that they can break down certain polymers into their basic building blocks – monomers – and recycle them for use in materials for further applications.

The polymers broken down are polymethacrylates (e.g. Plexi Glass) that were produced using a specific polymerisation technique called reversible addition-fragmentation chain-transfer polymerisation – otherwise known as RAFT. This relatively new method, which is now also attracting the interest of industry, produces polymer chains of uniform length.
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The global 'plastic flood' reaches the Arctic
https://phys.org/news/2022-04-global-pl ... rctic.html
by Alfred Wegener Institute
Even the High North can't escape the global threat of plastic pollution. An international review study just released by the Alfred Wegener Institute shows the flood of plastic has reached all spheres of the Arctic. Large quantities of plastic—transported by rivers, the air and shipping–can now be found in the Arctic Ocean. High concentrations of microplastic can be found in the water, on the seafloor, remote beaches, in rivers, and even in ice and snow. The plastic is not only a burden for ecosystems; it could also worsen climate change. The study was just released in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment.

The numbers speak for themselves. Today, between 19 and 23 million metric tons of plastic litter per year end up in the waters of the world—that's two truckloads per minute. Since plastic is also very stable, it accumulates in the oceans, where it gradually breaks down into ever smaller pieces—from macro- to micro- and nanoplastic and can even enter the human bloodstream. And the flood of debris is bound to get worse: global plastic production is expected to double by 2045.

The consequences are serious. Today, virtually all marine organisms investigated—from plankton to sperm whales—come into contact with plastic debris and microplastic. And this applies to all areas of the world's oceans—from tropical beaches to the deepest oceanic trenches. As the study published by the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) now shows, the High North is no exception.

"The Arctic is still assumed to be a largely untouched wilderness," says AWI expert Dr. Melanie Bergmann. "In our review, which we jointly conducted with colleagues from Norway, Canada and the Netherlands, we show that this perception no longer reflects the reality. Our northernmost ecosystems are already particularly hard hit by climate change. This is now exacerbated by plastic pollution. And our own research has shown that the pollution continues to worsen."
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Scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Develop a Recyclable Pollen-based Paper for Repeated Printing and ‘Unprinting’
April 5, 2022

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/948740

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) Scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have developed a pollen-based ‘paper’ that, after being printed on, can be ‘erased’ and reused multiple times without any damage to the paper.

In a research paper published online in Advanced Materials on 5 April, the NTU Singapore scientists demonstrated how high-resolution colour images could be printed on the non-allergenic pollen paper with a laser printer, and then ‘unprinted’ – by completely removing the toner without damaging the paper – with an alkaline solution. They demonstrated that this process could be repeated up to at least eight times.

This innovative, printer-ready pollen paper could become an eco-friendly alternative to conventional paper, which is made via a multi-step process with a significant negative environmental impact, said the NTU team led by Professors Subra Suresh and Cho Nam-Joon.

It could also help to reduce the carbon emissions and energy usage associated with conventional paper recycling, which involves repulping, de-toning (removal of printer toner) and reconstruction.
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Scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Develop New Method to Convert Plastic Trash into Clean Hydrogen Fuel
April 6, 2022

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/948898

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) Scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have developed a new method for plastic waste to be converted into hydrogen based on pyrolysis, a high temperature chemical process.

Unlike PET plastic bottles which can be recycled easily, plastic litter containing contaminated food packaging, styrofoam and plastic bags, is challenging to recycle. They are currently incinerated or buried in landfills, leading to both water and ground pollution.

Using pyrolysis, plastic litter can then be converted into two main products, hydrogen and a form of solid carbon, called carbon nanotubes. Hydrogen is useful for generating electricity and powering fuel cells like those found in electric vehicles, with clean water as its only by-product.

To further refine the new conversion method and to assess its commercial feasibility, the research team is test-bedding it on the NTU Smart Campus to treat local plastic waste, in partnership with Bluefield Renewable Energy, a local environmental firm that specialises in mobile waste to resources technologies

The multimillion-dollar research joint project, supported by the Industry Alignment Fund-Industry Collaboration Projects (IAF-ICP) administered by Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), aims to develop feasible solutions to economically scale up the conversion of waste plastics to hydrogen over the next three years.
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