An estimated amount of 200 million tons of plastic is produced every year. Plastic needs 500 to 3,000 years to decompose. What should we do with all this plastic that we produce, use and waste every year? I wrote about solutions to clean up the plastic mess in the ocean and a way to recycle the plastic from the coast of Kenya but it requires more than the cleaning up and the recycling process from Nairobi.
Plastic fuel
Fuel made out of plastic
Azza Abdel Hamid Faiad is 16 years old and a student from Egypt (Zahran Language School in Alexandria). She could turn the plastic waste of Egypt into Bio-Fuel with a high yield catalyst (aluminosilicate catalyst). The catalyst breaks down the plastic waste producing gaseous products and then converts it into ethanol which can be used as a biofuel. The idea could grow bigger because the fact, that the produced biofuel can be sold and the plastic is available in huge amounts. Financing and implementation are the issues now. (via greenprophet)
Plastic as art
»Love your plastic« is an art project realized by a friend. The works are made out of used plastics and the background for this project is to attract attention and create awareness related to the usage of plastic.
Some of the works:
LOVE YOUR PLASTIC PYRAMIDE from Johannes Kempe
LOVE YOUR PLASTIC GLÄNZENDE HÜLLE from Johannes Kempe
For more works and facts check out facebook or the website (loveyourplastic.com)
Plastic clothes made out of returnable bottles
Not a new concept but worth to mention it. Clothes are made out of plastic and they contain either new plastic or recycled plastic. Polyester is one of the main plastics used for clothes and this polyester is made out of oil. Oil is as we know rare and expensive. So it’s obvious that they should get recycled. So far a lot of products can be manufactured out of plastic. In Germany plastic bottles have a refund system. Every plastic bottle sold contains a small amount of money in the price which will be returned after returning the bottle to the vendor. Sadly only a few countries in the European Union have a system like this. Countries in the EU using this system:
- Denmark
- Finland
- Estonia
- Croatia
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Sweden
- Switzerland
Why is it important to have a return system? Because old bottles are made out of polyester. So the bottles get shredded and turned into plastic-flakes. These small flakes can get melted and new thread has been created.
Image by: Johannes Kempe – loveyourplastic.com