Glass is capable of being endlessly recycled – but some countries are better than others
Making new glass from cutlet (small glass pieces) saves significant energy. This is partly because it needs a lower temperature to melt. While it is true that much of the materials that go into glass are not in short supply, it is still more sensible to reuse, particularly if your energy requirements are lower. Apart from energy uses, other benefits of recycling include 20% less air pollution and 50% less water pollution. It also means that glass does not have to go into landfill – we need to reduce rubbish going to landfill down to as close to zero as possible.
Single use plastic plates and cutlery to be banned in England in a few years.
Single use plastic plates and cutlery are very damaging to the natural world. They are unnecessary as equivalents can be made from renewable resources at similar prices.
So why, when Europe has banned these items now does our ban get delayed?
This is foolish, and the opposite of other government policies – We can only hope that they change their mind again
Vestas a wind turbine company has created a project which allows turbine blades to be fully recyclable
Given the huge number of wind turbines that are being created, and are eventually going to reach end of their life.
It is therefore odd that it has taken so long for people to start to make the blades recyclable. The thermoset composites are able to be split and then broken down into their initial component parts. These parts can then be reused as though they are raw materials just created. Indeed at the current time, the only part of a wind turbine that could not be recycled was the blades. As a result, wind turbines can become completely green after manufacture.
This destroys one of the few remaining arguments against wind turbines, and should make way for a significant worldwide increase in turbine deployment.
The race to develop plastic eating bacteria – still years out
In 2016 a special type of bacteria was found on a Japanese dump. While incredibly fast progress is being made, experts warn that their use is still probably years away. The other concern, is that they may leak into the environment. If this were to happen damages could be incredible.
The UK sorts our rubbish at higher rates than anywhere else in the world, so why is so much being incinerated
In the UK we have incredibly stringent rules on recycling. Indeed, there are regular suggestions about giving people smaller bins so that we send less rubbish to the dump.
If this is the case, why is so much of our recycling simply being burned?
Continue reading “The UK sorts our rubbish at higher rates than anywhere else in the world, so why is so much being incinerated”The EU is bringing in laws that require products to last for a decade
At the current time, we have a highly inefficient system. There is no requirement as to how long technology is required to last. In the past, that has perhaps been less noticeable, as the advance in the capabilities has been so fast, that an upgrade generally became desired long before the product wore out.
However, there has been an alarming trend which has seen manufacturers removing manuals to allow products to be serviced, and or sealing parts of the product, so that batteries cannot be replaced or in some other way making DIY fixing hard or impossible.
Continue reading “The EU is bringing in laws that require products to last for a decade”Super enzyme that eats plastic, now 6 times faster
I have written in the past, about a discovery made on a Japanese dump back in 2016 of a plastic eating enzyme. By working in the lab, scientists have been able to speed this process up 6 times, such that full recycling is thought to be possible of plastics within 2 years.
Building electric cars has a high carbon footprint: recycling can change this
Electric cars save carbon dioxide emissions over their lifetime. There are a significant number of fossil fuel producers and combustion engine car produces who will fudge their numbers and suggest the battery cars are actually worse for the environment than fossil fuel cars.
As you can imagine this is false. Electric cars are zero emission in themselves, so how dirty they are is entirely dependent on how dirty the electricity creation is. Detractors will use the dirtiest electricity in the world and round their estimates upwards, usually still coming out with electric cars slightly cleaner than combustion engines.
Continue reading “Building electric cars has a high carbon footprint: recycling can change this”