Joined: 6 Feb 2005 Age: 46 Gender: Male Posts: 24,695 Location: 28th Path of Tzaddi
06 Nov 2019, 1:32 pm
Another eco-capitalism presentation, I haven't finished watching it but I think it might be the guy who came up with the skimmers that were intended to essentially pull plastic off of the Pacific garbage patch, grind it to resin, and run it back and forth to the islands.
edit: turns out that was incorrect - these are something like small river-barge plastic waste processors that are designed to use a net to contour the flow of the currents, bounce what's riding the edge of it into an opening, and dispense it from a conveyor belt into collection bins. Looks like it catches its fair share of organic material as well, the trick I'm sure will be having some way of sorting that out when the bins get taken away.
To be clear it's not that I buy all the hype hook line and sinker, I just like seeing people putting (or at least giving a good go at putting) practical economic principles to these sorts of problems - it lends a bit more credibility to the solution being socially durable.
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Joined: 6 Jan 2011 Age: 36 Gender: Female Posts: 35,278 Location: Somewhere in Colorado
06 Nov 2019, 4:31 pm
techstepgenr8tion wrote:
Pretty insightful idea, and I really wish him and the foundation the best of luck in tweaking recyclable plastic into a viable commodity.
I have been thinking for a while if the value of plastic could be raised, it could be a good business. So its awesome that actually might have the means to get that started is talking about it.
I would gladly collect plastic...I did help my dad and a couple of my cousins with some scrapping a couple times but of course I am not much use for moving larger, heavier pieces of metal but plastic is much lighter. I know loads of plastic gets thrown in the trash and goes to the landfill so they will need people here to dig that out I am sure. Also there is lots of plastic on the side of the road, in parks and in rivers and streams that needs collecting.
Joined: 13 Jan 2018 Age: 63 Gender: Male Posts: 2,152 Location: California
07 Nov 2019, 2:32 pm
Story on company turning plastic wastes into road pavement.
If such applications of plastics are increasingly applied, scrap plastics can become a worthwhile commodity to recycle; hence one of many proactive steps to curb plastic wastes in the environment.