Plastic Legacies Trisia Farrelly, Sy Taffel, Ian Shaw
2021, 2021-07-09
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There is virtually nowhere on earth that remains untouched by plastics and the situation presents a serious threat to our natural world. Despite the magnitude of the problem, the interventions most ...often put in place are consumer-led and market-based and only nominally capable of addressing the issue. As the problem worsens and neoliberal ideologies limit the world's responses to this crisis, there is a growing need for legislative frameworks that attend to the complex social and ecological issues associated with plastics. The contributors to this volume bring expertise from across academic disciplines to illustrate how plastics are produced, consumed, and discarded and to find holistic and integrated approaches that demonstrate an understanding of the wide-ranging problem. From the plasticization of earth's oceans to the endocrine disrupting chemicals that have the potential to seriously harm life as we know it, these essays beg the question that we all must answer: what is our plastic legacy? With contributions by: Imogen E. Napper, Sabine Pahl, Richard C. Thompson, Sasha Adkins, Stephanie B. Borrelle, Jennifer Provencher, Tina Ngata, Sven Bergmann, Christina Gerhardt, Elyse Stanes, Tridibesh Dey, Mike Michael, Laura McLauchlan, Johanne Tarpgaard, Deirdre McKay, Padmapani Perez, Lei Xiaoyu, and John Holland.
This book covers a wide range of applications and uses of simulation and modeling techniques in polymer injection molding, filling a noticeable gap in the literature of design, manufacturing, and the ...use of plastics injection molding. The authors help readers solve problems in the advanced control, simulation, monitoring, and optimization of injection molding processes. The book provides a tool for researchers and engineers to calculate the mold filling, optimization of processing control, and quality estimation before prototype molding.
Survey's the issues typically raised in discussions of sustainability and plastics * Discusses current issues not covered in detail previously such as ocean litter, migration of additives into food ...products and the recovery of plastics * Covers post-consumer fate of plastics on land and in the oceans, highlighting the environmental impacts of disposal methods * Details toxicity of plastics, particularly as it applies to human health * Presents a clear analysis of the key plastic-related issues including numerous citations of the research base that supports and contradicts the popularly held notions
"Providing guidelines for implementing sustainable practices for traditional petroleum based plastics, biobased plastics, and recycled plastics, Sustainable Plastics and the Environment explains what ...sustainable plastics are, why sustainable plastics are needed, which sustainable plastics to use, and how manufacturing companies can integrate them into their manufacturing operations. A vital resource for
The drastically increasing amount of plastic waste is causing an environmental crisis that requires innovative technologies for recycling post-consumer plastics to achieve waste valorization while ...meeting environmental quality goals. Biocatalytic depolymerization mediated by enzymes has emerged as an efficient and sustainable alternative for plastic treatment and recycling. A variety of plastic-degrading enzymes have been discovered from microbial sources. Meanwhile, protein engineering has been exploited to modify and optimize plastic-degrading enzymes. This review highlights the recent trends and up-to-date advances in mining novel plastic-degrading enzymes through state-of-the-art omics-based techniques and improving the enzyme catalytic efficiency and stability via various protein engineering strategies. Future research prospects and challenges are also discussed.
Biocatalytic depolymerization mediated by enzymes has emerged as an efficient and sustainable alternative for plastic treatment and recycling, which aims to reduce adverse environmental effects and recover valuable components from plastic waste.Metagenomic and proteomic approaches can be harnessed as powerful tools in mining enzymes capable of plastic depolymerization from a wide variety of environments and ecosystems.Plastic-degrading enzymes can be optimized by protein engineering for improved performance, including enhancement of enzyme thermostability, reinforcement of the binding of substrate to enzyme active site, enhancement of interaction between substrate and enzyme surface, and refinement of catalytic capacity.
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In order to understand the degradation potential of plastics in the marine environment, microorganisms that preferentially colonize and interact with plastic surfaces, as opposed to generalists ...potentially colonising everything, need to be identified. Accordingly, it was hypothesized that i.) plastic "specific" microorganisms are closely attached to the polymeric surface and ii.) that specificity of plastics biofilms are rather related to members of the rare biosphere. To answer these hypotheses, a three phased experiment to stepwise uncover closely attached microbes was conducted. In Phase 1, nine chemically distinct plastic films and glass were incubated in situ for 21 months in a seawater flow through system. In Phase 2, a high-pressure water jet treatment technique was used to remove the upper biofilm layers to further, in Phase 3, enrich a plastic "specific" community. To proof whether microbes colonizing different plastics are distinct from each other and from other inert hard substrates, the bacterial communities of these different substrates were analysed using 16S rRNA gene tag sequencing. Our findings indicate that tightly attached microorganisms account to the rare biosphere and suggest the presence of plastic "specific" microorganisms/assemblages which could benefit from the given plastic properties or at least grow under limited carbon resources.
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Increasing pollution of plastic waste is one of the major global environmental threats, deteriorating our land, water and air. The shift towards biobased, biodegradable and compostable plastics is ...considered a green alternative to petroleum-based plastic due to its renewable source or biodegradability. However, there is a misconception about biodegradable plastics and their degradability and behaviour after service life. Biobased, biodegradable and compostable plastics offer various benefits such as less carbon footprint, energy efficiency, independence and eco-safety. On the other hand, there are some disadvantages such as higher cost, limited recycling, misuse of terms and lack of legislation. Also, there is an urgent need for comparable international standard methods to define these materials as biodegradable material, or biocompostable material. There are some standards currently available, however, an in-depth detail and explanation of these standards is still missing. This review outlines the basic definition and chemical structure of biobased, biodegradable and compostable plastics; describes the degradation pathways of biodegradable and compostable plastics; and summarises current key applications of these materials together with possible future applications in different industries. Finally, strategies are developed for minimising the environmental impacts and the need for future research is proposed.
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To develop viable solutions for reducing plastic waste, spatially explicit data on the management of these materials are critical. Here we employ statistical and geospatial methods to present a ...comprehensive assessment of plastic waste in the United States by resin type at the state, county, and local levels. Of the estimated 44 Mt of plastic waste managed in 2019 domestically, approximately 86% was landfilled, 9% was combusted, and 5% was recycled. Landfilled plastics represented significant losses to the country's economy in 2019: an average of US$7.2 billion in market value, about 3.4 EJ as embodied energy (equivalent to 12% of energy consumption by the industrial sector), and 1.5 EJ as an energy source (equivalent to 5.5% and 5% of energy consumption by the industrial and transportation sectors, respectively). Lastly, we posit that substantial amount of landfilled plastic waste could be recovered through advanced sorting, existing, and emerging recycling processes.
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This book is divided into two main parts: processes and materials. The processing part is divided into 18 chapters, each discussing a different joining technique: heated tool, ultrasonic, vibration, ...spin, radio frequency, hot gas, extrusion, laser, infrared, resistive implant, induction, flash free, friction stir, microwave and solvent welding; heat sealing, adhesive bonding and mechanical fastening.A systematic approach has been taken to discuss each method. Typically, the following subjects are discussed for each method: process, advantages and disadvantages, applications, materials, equipment, joint design and welding parameters. This gives a concise but thorough evaluation of the potentials of each method and includes the required knowledge to use this information for practical purposes. The second part of the book covers material-specific joining information. It includes 25 generic polymer families (e.g. polyamides), each containing information on one or more polymers (e.g. nylon 6, 66, 612, 11, 12, etc). The polymers involved are grouped within thermoplastics, thermosets, elastomers and rubbers. Each section on a particular polymer contains information organized according to the different joining methods that have been used for this material. In addition, the book contains an international suppliers directory and a glossary of the key terms used in plastics joining.
Focusing on the engineering aspects of producing and using plastics, this book covers both the polymer basics that are helpful to bring readers quickly up-to-speed if they are not familiar with a ...particular area of plastics processing, and the recent developments that enable practitioners to discover which options best fit their requirements. --
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