Plastic-Foam ban in NYC

[Dr. Who]

Oh, yeah! Those styrofoam peanuts used for packing are the WORST. I ordered a small casserole dish online....when the box arrived, it was big enough for 10 casserole dishes, and the dish was buried under at least 10 inches of styrofoam peanuts on all sides (mind you, I PAID quite a bit for shipping so it would arrive in one piece, but that was ridiculous!) Other items i have received in the mail were packed with long strips of air-inflated pods made of a thin balloon-like material. Now THAT made sense to me. I just stuck all the "pods" with a knife to deflate them, and the entire wad of packing material collapsed to a little bigger than grapefruit size. Bravo for the mayor of NYC; at least SOMEBODY is trying to do something about plastic foam, it's out of control.

Plus the fact that they collect static electricity and stick to everything and you have to spend time trying to retrieve them off the floor and other surfaces.

[waltky]

Earth-friendly packaging and biodegradable tires...

Using Pulp from Plants Makes Packaging Earth-Friendly
August 22, 2016 — The average American throws away approximately 84 kilos of plastic every year, and much of it ends up in the ocean, according to the marine research group, Algalita. Almost half is tossed away after just one use.

Industrial engineer Paul Tasner spent most of his professional career making plastic, specifically blister packs, the plastic casing for consumer products. Then, one day, already on his way to becoming environmentally conscious, he had an epiphany that changed his life. “My wife came back from a big box retailer with a pair of industrial strength shears for opening packages," he recalled. "That’s what it said on the package: ‘For opening those hard to open plastic, blister packages.’ The shears were called, ‘Open it.’ And, the ludicrous, hysterical part of this scenario was that the shears were packed in a blister pack!” Laid off because of the recession, but far from ready to retire, the 64-year-old decided to start his own company. He would create biodegradable packaging that would offer the same quality as its plastic counterparts, but could be composted into a soil supplement - rather than ending up in trash dumps for thousands of years.

Mascara in plastic packaging (left), next to Pulpworks' compostable packaging

Architect Elena Olivari, who has a background in engineering and design, was looking for a challenge. She decided to take a chance and join Tasner’s start-up, because a family member’s death from cancer had made a strong impact. She explained, “There are links of plastic-related cancer, so even doing something that can reduce that number of people that are harmed by the plastic and reducing the amount of plastic in the world which is becoming absolutely too big to deal with, we’re doing something that made me feel like even if we can make a small difference, that’s better than nothing.” They named their company, launched in August, 2011, PulpWorks. Combining their strengths, Tasner and Olivari created a patent-pending product called Karta-Pack to replace blister packs.

Genera Energy's manufacturing plant in Tennessee, where Karta Packs will be produced.

Tasner, now 71, points to egg cartons as he stresses that the technology they use is not new, "but we take that technology and create what we think are a lot more attractive and sexier packaging than an egg carton. And, by using different materials -- egg cartons are made from recycled newspapers -- we use newspapers, corrugated [cardboard], but we also many different agricultural fibers that give a whole different look and color and feel to them. You wouldn’t recognize it as molded pulp.” Tasner set up deals with half a dozen of his old contacts who use agricultural fibers to create different textures and colors. Now his company has six partners in five countries on different continents who only use local materials. "Our partners in China have access to bamboo and sugar cane, our partner in Canada has access to wheat straw, and on and on and on. Any kind of fibrous material, cellulosic material, is fair game for molding into a package. So, by having a wide variety of geography, you have a wide variety of raw materials.”

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New Research Could Mean Biodegradable Rubber Tires
August 22, 2016: Left-over rubber tires have been the bane of landfills - and environmentalists - for decades.

The most recent statistics suggest that about a billion tires wear out every year all around the world. The big problem with all of these old tires is that they're tough, and if they end up in a landfill, it's unclear how long it will take for them to decompose, especially if they're covered up by other garbage. If they're not covered up, they can also collect rainwater and become a breeding site for mosquitoes. And if they do eventually decompose, they contain some nasty chemicals that can leach into the soil. But, some new science released Monday may give old tires a new, environmentally-friendly future.

Biodegradable rubber

A research team led by Hassan S. Bazzi, at the Texas A&M University campus in Qatar (TAMU-Qatar) has come up with a way to make tires with easily biodegradable materials that might solve the myriad of problems that come with old tires. They presented their research at the 252nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) being held in Philadelphia. Robert Tuba, one of the lead researchers on the project, says the goal was to create something "that is good for the community and the environment."

New research could result in tires that biodegrade and recycle easily.

So they went looking for what Tuba calls a "by-product of the petrochemical industry" that could be turned into "recyclable value-added chemicals." What they found was a molecule called cyclopentene, which is a by-product of the oil refining process. The researchers realized that they could string cyclopentene molecules together to make polypentenamers, which are similar to natural rubber. They are conducting experiments to see if the new synthetic rubber can be mixed with metal and other materials and fillers that go into the modern tire. If it works, the researchers might be able to create a new kind of rubber that is as strong as synthetics that are used in current tires, but that is easy to biodegrade and reuse.

Reduce, reuse, recycle

Not only is the new rubber biodegradable, but using an energy-efficient process at temperatures as low as 50 degrees Celsius, the researchers were able to decompose the material back into its original components. The team was also able to retrieve an astonishing "100 percent of their starting material from several polypentenamer-based tire additives they developed." The researchers say they have an industry partner. If everything goes according to plan, Tuba says they are willing to "bring the material to market," and the biodegradable rubber will eventually hit the road.

http://www.voanews.com/a/biodegradab...s/3474926.html

[Dr. Who]

I hate those flipping blister packs! Why can't they just vacuum pack items in polyethylene wrap with the paper instructions and hang them from a string. Put a label above the product if it needs a description.

[waltky]

Recycling shrimp shells into biodegradable plastic...

Egyptian Researchers Turn Shrimp Shells into Biodegradable Plastic
March 02, 2017 — Researchers at Egypt's Nile University are developing a way to turn dried shrimp shells that would otherwise be thrown away into thin films of biodegradable plastic they hope will be used to make eco-friendly grocery bags and packaging.

Six months into their two-year project, the research team has managed to create a thin, clear prototype using chitosan, a material found in the shells of many crustaceans. "If commercialized, this could really help us decrease our waste ... and it could help us improve our food exports because the plastic has antimicrobial and antibacterial properties," Irene Samy, a professor overseeing the project, told Reuters. The researchers buy unwanted shrimp shells from restaurants, supermarkets and local fishermen at cheap prices.

Assistant professor Irene Samy and researcher Marwa Faisal work on their project to create biodegradable plastic bags from shrimp shells, a project in collaboration with Nottingham University, at the Nile University in Cairo, Egypt

Using shrimp shells is more sustainable because it could replace synthetic materials used in plastics and cut the amount of biowaste produced by the Egyptian food industry, Samy said. The shells are cleaned, chemically treated, ground and dissolved into a solution that dries into thin films of plastic, a technique the team says has potential for large-scale industrial production. "Egypt imports around 3,500 tonnes of shrimp, which produce 1,000 tonnes of shells as waste. ... Instead of throwing the shells away, we can make biodegradable plastic bags," Hani Chbib, a researcher on the project, told Reuters.

The project is a collaboration between the Nile University team of four and another research group at the University of Nottingham in Britain, where Samy conducted her post-doctoral research and first started experimenting with the idea. The team has only produced small samples and the project is not yet ready to go into commercial production, but the team is working hard to develop properties that would allow the material to go into widespread use. "We are continuing to work on enhancing its properties, like thermal stability and durability," Samy said.

http://www.voanews.com/a/egyptian-re...c/3747253.html

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Pakistani Province Grows 750 Million Trees
March 02, 2017 — Officials in Pakistan say a massive government-run reforestation campaign has grown 750 million trees across a northwestern province since 2015.

The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, or KP, launched the four-year project with a goal of planting 1 billion trees by the end of 2018, hoping it would "turn the tide on land degradation and loss" in a formerly forested province in the Hindu Kush mountain range. Officials and leaders of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party — which rules the province — gathered Thursday in the national capital of Islamabad to mark the progress in what is officially dubbed the "Billion Tree Tsunami," or BTT.

The party chief, Imran Khan, former cricket-star-turned politician, told the gathering the tree-planting initiative has provided employment to "500,000 people in remote mountainous regions where finding livelihood opportunities is extremely difficult." Jobs are an important part of the program in impoverished KP, home to 40 percent of Pakistan's forests, because people cut down trees to sell the timber. Khan said the project is vital "from an environmental conservation and climate-change mitigation and adaptation viewpoint."

Wide-ranging benefits

Provincial officials say thousands of private nurseries have been created after proper training for procuring hundreds of millions of seedlings, while BTT has also helped improve livelihoods of people associated with scores of existing nurseries in KP. The provincial government says it also employed people to protect the forests, which discourage the timber mafia. The nearly $300-million plan is being funded through the provincial government budget, as well as profits from timber confiscated from illegal loggers in the country.

Experts associated with the tree-planting campaign say the drive also is expected to boost water reserves in increasingly parched Pakistan, reduce soil erosion and flooding, and enhance agricultural production. It also will increase the forested area from 20 percent to 22 percent in a country with Asia's highest rate of deforestation.

Global effort

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the only province or sub-national entity to be inducted in the Bonn Challenge. Set up in 2011, the Bonn Challenge calls for the restoration of 150 million hectares of deforested and degraded land by 2020. More than 20 countries so far have responded to the challenge, expressing an ambition to restore more than 60 million hectares by 2020, with more commitments expected.

http://www.voanews.com/a/pakistani-p...s/3746994.html