a thought that you believe can change how the world handles a global problem?
Over the past few nights I've gotten a thought provoking idea in my mind about the amount of plastics used in the world, and the problems with disposal.
Limiting plastics is a good start. Go back to pasteboard packaging with minimal plastics and advance to no plastics in most packaging. Health products would be one area that could be hard to work with since plastic is sometimes the best way to package drugs, fluids, and items that need to be sterile.
Get rid of throw away drink bottles. Go back to the glass bottles, a little thinner than before, but perfectly recyclable. They would need to be like the old no deposit-no return bottles and use the re-close able caps. Go back to the old glass bottles for mustard and ketchup (pickles are still in glass jars).
We're told that plastics are piling up at re-cycling centers because companies aren't using enough plastic in recycled products. That's kind of easy to fix.
Take unused plastics from the centers and do it like they do cars. Crush the plastics in a high temp unit that makes them into various shapes to use in different types of construction.
I was driving through the I-16/I-75 interchange where thousands of tons of earth have been brought in to fill spaces to support new lanes and bridges. Using blocks of plastics reformed (mostly 4 ft high/6 ft wide/2 ft tall) with spaces made like LEGO blocks to interlock them to fill in the space, put a layer of dirt between each layer of blocks. they would be held in place longer, wouldn't wash out or shift causing damage to the roadway, and be out of the landfills.
Your thoughts on this idea?
Just read recently that they can't keep up with recycling, and most stuff is not actually recycled. I like any idea to reuse the plastic - I'm not an engineer, but I like your idea for using it for fill for road beds.
The blocks could be made in just about any size, shape, and weight.
Need curves around a hillside, need larger blocks, any thing you need, just make different molds.
Need to put them underwater, make the blocks, put them in a pour mold, and encase them in concrete.
The molds would have to be able to hold a high enough temperature to get the plastics to almost melting and high enough pressure to make sure the blocks are solid with no, or little air space inside.
I've just gotten tired of seeing all these drink and water bottles, including the plastic used to package them, go into landfills.
Great idea, but it's not just landfills. Something like 80% of ocean debris is plastics & NOAA has discovered microplastics as far south as the Antarctic floating & in sea life. There are some really disgusting stretches of water in the Indian Ocean where pollution is highly visible. One reason the Olympics were held in Rio was because it was thought that it would force Brazil to clean up its harbors & shorelines. Didn't do a thing. There's good information on what's being done at both the NOAA and Ocean Conservancy sites.
I know there have been several attempts at designing methods to remove the plastics from the oceans. Booms, floating nets, and modified trawlers.
I was thinking of something like a modified combine (like one used to harvest seaweed) that has a rather long and wide screen that goes ahead of the boat at about a 7 degree angle. As the boat goes forward, plastics would be pushed toward the rotating set of paddles pushing the plastics into hoppers where it would be bundled like hay or straw. Older freighters no longer used in the trade could act as tenders following the boats and pull the bales aboard as needed and refuel them when necessary.
