Recently, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a warning that a magnitude 9 earthquake and a strong tsunami occurred in Japan in March this year. Since then, a large number of houses, cars, and various debris have been involved in the Pacific Ocean, forming a huge waste island. According to monitoring, this garbage island is currently drifting in the Pacific Ocean, stretching for hundreds of kilometers. It is expected that it will arrive in Midway Island and Northwestern Hawaii in the spring of next year, and will finally reach the West Coast of the United States from 2013 to 2014, and will reach the Asian coast in approximately 6 years. The latest news shows that the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet is constantly monitoring these wastes. They said that they have never seen such a large amount of garbage drifting...
In fact, before the earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused a lot of garbage to be caught in the ocean, a lot of garbage was already floating in the ocean.
Marine trash is mainly plastic
In 2007, American scientists discovered that, in addition to the seven continents known to people, in the most inaccessible places in the Pacific Ocean, another "new continent" is forming. This "new continent" is completely built up of rubbish. People also call it the "Eighth Continent." This huge garbage island, which is six times the size of the United Kingdom, has two states in the United States, with an area of ​​about 690,000 square kilometers. This huge waste island floating on the sea is currently the largest in the world, and has doubled in size in the past 10 years.
The staff of the International Environmental Protection Organization's “Starfish Project†said that the garbage island floating on the Pacific Ocean is the waste that humans have abandoned in the past 60 years and was brought here by ocean currents. The trash inside is from shampoo bottles, plastic toys, tires, plastic swim goggles and slippers. Woodland, the head of the “Starfish Project†garbage collection team, also stated that the organization had used a 1 meter wide net last year to sample various areas of the Pacific Ocean and that every time they got off the net they could get garbage. Of these wastes, more than 80% are discarded plastic products and it is estimated that plastic waste amounts to 100 million tons. In addition, all kinds of commodities used, consumed, and consumed by humans on land have become part of marine litter, such as rubber, wood products, metals, paper products, textiles and leather, glass and ceramics, etc. And medical supplies. On some garbage, Chinese characters and Japanese characters are also printed, showing that it is drifting across the ocean.
In addition to the Pacific Ocean, other seas in the world have similar garbage islands. In recent years, scientists have also discovered a giant floating refuse dump in the Atlantic Ocean, which is only slightly smaller than the overall size of the Pacific Junk Island. This garbage belt is hundreds of miles away from the North American coast and is made up of tens of thousands of plastic pieces. Although scientists are not yet able to measure its width, the area covered by this huge garbage belt has been from 22 degrees north latitude to 38 degrees north latitude, which is almost the same distance between Cuba and Virginia. The study found that in some sea areas, the maximum plastic density in the ocean reached 200,000 plastic pieces per square kilometer, and most of the debris came from consumer products used in people's daily lives, such as bags and plastic products.
If the giant junk islands in the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean are far away from our lives, the recent “2010 National Marine Environment Bulletin†released by the Chinese Oceanographic Department shows that the situation is not optimistic. According to the communiqué, the classification results of floating garbage, beach garbage, and submarine waste in China's sea surface all show that the largest number of plastic trash is. Of these, 70% of beach waste and 59% of sea-level floating refuse originate from human activities on the coast.
According to the latest statistics of the United Nations, the world produces more than 260 million tons of plastic garbage every year. Most of them are disposable, most of them are discarded, some are buried in land, and some are scattered in the countryside. In the field, some of the treetop branches hanging along the railway line are dumped directly into the sea. They are scattered in every corner of the earth, but they are blown by rain or wind, and then they flow silently. The final destination is ocean.
These marine wastes, mainly plastics, have caused great harm to the ocean. First, plastic waste obstructs the maritime communication line and destroys the vessel; secondly, it causes damage to marine life. For example, Greenpeace found that at least 267 kinds of marine organisms were tortured by eating marine debris or being entangled with marine litter. , And lead to death; Third, the harm through the biological chain of humans, such as heavy metals and toxic chemicals can be enriched in the body through the ingestion of fish, humans eat these fish will be harmed.
Scientists of the "Starfish Project" also pointed out that some marine plastic waste is broken down into small particles under sunlight, leaving the sea full of toxic substances. Researchers had discovered 26 plastics in a fish's body, a sperm whale stranded on California Beach, and 800 pounds of plastic in the body. In response, the researchers warned that trash toxins will enter the food chain sooner or later. The issue of plastic waste in the Pacific Ocean and toxins in plastics will affect food safety in countries such as China and Japan.
Expect chemical technology to turn waste into treasure
Since marine litter is mainly waste plastic products, scientists believe that chemical technology can be expected to turn waste into treasure.
One way is to burn marine debris and generate electricity after it is salvaged.
Researchers have long calculated the energy use of plastic incineration. Since almost all plastics are made of non-renewable petroleum, and the main components are hydrocarbons, they can be used for combustion. For example, polystyrene has a higher heat of combustion than fuel oil and is a macromolecular material with a high calorific value. The incinerated ash can be used for land reclamation or island construction.
However, there are several issues that need to be addressed in the incineration of marine litter. First of all, in addition to salvaging and transportation, marine debris needs to be dehydrated for a short period of time, which is troublesome. Secondly, due to the large amount of Dioxin that can be produced by plastic incineration, it will endanger the environment and ecology, and there is a need for advanced incinerators that can particularly control emissions from Erying. Third, incineration of marine debris is also the same as disposal of land-based waste. It requires sorting of garbage and it must first be sorted in order to be burned.
One way is to make fuel from marine litter.
Since more than 80% of marine debris is plastic, this also forms an alternative method of handling marine litter, that is, turning this resource of plastic into another resource. Current research shows that plastics can be transformed into a variety of resources available to humans through a variety of technical means. For example, fuel can be made from waste plastics, water-repellent anti-freeze glues, multi-functional resin glues, etc.
Now, the use of waste plastics to make fuel technology has achieved breakthroughs in some countries.
In 2003, a waste plastic recycling fuel technology and process equipment in Chengdu, China, was appraised by Sichuan Provincial Environmental Protection Bureau and relevant experts. The use of this technology to recover plastics can not only produce gasoline Nos. 90 and 93, but also produce diesel. Due to the low production cost, the selling price is about 300 yuan less per ton than similar products on the market. Of course, whether this technology can be put into production still requires many conditions, such as funds, land, personnel, and the practicality and promotion of the technology.
In November last year, the industrial continuous plastics cracking and oiling technology and equipment project undertaken by a company in Jinan passed acceptance. The results of the appraisal organized by the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation show that the use of raw materials without sorting, no cleaning mixed plastic waste, product conversion rate can reach 65% to 75% of light fuel. The production process is free from waste water and dust emission, and the noise is lower than the national standard.
In 2010, Thailand announced that the first waste plastics recycling fuel project in Thailand and even in Southeast Asia was launched in Hua Hin, Thailand. It can consume 6 tons of waste plastics per day and produce 4,500 liters of fuel. The annual output is 1.35 million liters.
In addition, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan has also developed a process for producing fuel oil from a decomposing tank; the University of Hamburg, Germany has also developed a reactor for the thermal decomposition of waste plastic fluidized bed into fuel oil; a fuel chemist at the University of Kentucky invented a molecular sieve with zeolite Catalysts, various plastics are put into a sand bath, mixed, and then the slurry is poured into the reactor for hydrogenation and pressure, and finally heated to cause the polymer to decompose into high-quality fuel oil.
Making aromatics from marine debris is also a solution.
It is understood that research on aromatic compounds from marine debris is also being carried out in Japan and other countries. Polyethylene, polypropylene, and other waste plastics are heated to 300° C. to decompose them into carbohydrates, and then a catalyst is added to synthesize aromatic compounds such as benzene, toluene, and xylene. When reacted at a temperature of 525°C, 70% of used plastics can be converted into useful aromatics. They can be used as raw materials and fuel improvers for chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and the rest can be converted to hydrogen and propane.
If these technologies are mature and put into production, they will be able to digest sea debris in large quantities, and may allow some countries to compete for these sea-owned waste resources.
An island built with garbage - Singapore Makado Island.
Trash ecology island may not be science fiction
However, the above-mentioned several marine waste disposal methods have high production costs because they need to be recovered from the oceans and then processed on land. In addition, transportation and air drying are links. Excessive costs make many countries less motivated. Therefore, a recent Dutch scientist proposed a new idea: onshore disposal of marine litter, and use a special method to build an artificial island.
It is understood that Dutch scientists plan to build an artificial ecological island consisting of 44,000 tons of plastic waste from the Pacific Ocean, which is the most heavily polluted. According to the idea, this artificial plastic ecological island has an area of ​​10,000 square kilometers, which is similar to the size of Hawaii Island in the United States. This artificial island will become a Venice on the sea.
Their specific blueprint is: Concentrate the plastic waste into a certain part of the ocean, and then use scientific methods to carry out non-toxic and harmless treatment of these plastic waste products to create a hollow floating platform. Connecting these platforms can form the "base" of the island, laying mud and sand on it. If necessary, the height of the soil can be from tens of centimeters to several meters. Then build roads, farmland, beaches and houses, as well as some high-tech factories without pollution. In this way, an ecological island that can grow plants is built. As the island is far from the mainland, all supplies and energy will be self-sufficient. Energy mainly depends on solar energy, wind energy and wave energy, and these are particularly abundant on the island. This small island can meet the daily needs of 500,000 people, that is, it can receive 250,000 permanent residents and 250,000 tourists.
A scientist who participated in the design of an artificial eco-island said: “We designed an artificial eco-island mainly for three purposes: the first is to clean up large-scale plastic waste on the ocean and make the ocean cleaner; the second is to create a new land. The third is to create an environment where people can live and live.†When some coastal residents lose their homes during the hurricane and tsunami, artificial ecological islands will provide new homes for these victims. In addition, the travel life in the vast sea may be boring, and these artificial ecological islands can also provide visitors with a good place for sea travel. Many maritime rubbish museums will be set up on the artificial sea islands of the sea to allow tourists to realize the harm of marine litter to the marine environment and the ecological system while traveling and leisure.
However, compared with incineration and resource conversion, the idea of ​​building an artificial island can only be said to be an ideal, and the idea of ​​a Dutch scientist is only a blueprint compared to the use of garbage to build an artificial island in Singapore and Japan.
Take Shimagao Island, which was built with garbage in Singapore, as an example, the construction method is to first burn the garbage and then seal it into the sea after the garbage is burned. In 1998, the Singapore government built a 1 km-long rock embankment between two offshore islands, Shimaga and Xikang, and separated 11 interconnected bay units to drain the seawater from the unit. , And then discharge a thick layer of plastic film, refuse ash dumped in these units to seal, to prevent leakage. In addition, buried garbage also includes materials that cannot be burned and recycled, such as asbestos. The local government takes samples of seawater around the unit every month. Until now, no leaks or contamination of seawater have been detected. Whenever a unit's waste fills two or three meters high, it will plant sand and then continue to embed garbage. Garbage can be buried up to 30 meters. Plants are then planted on top of it, and garbage is no longer piled up.
Singapore’s Shimagao Island is a reality that has already been achieved. The idea of ​​Dutch scientists is to harmlessly dispose of plastic into a hollow "floating platform" and connect it, and then lay the soil and sand on it. Such islands are actually floating on the surface of the sea, and trials are needed if they are successful. However, this after all provides an idea to eliminate marine litter.
In fact, before the earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused a lot of garbage to be caught in the ocean, a lot of garbage was already floating in the ocean.
Marine trash is mainly plastic
In 2007, American scientists discovered that, in addition to the seven continents known to people, in the most inaccessible places in the Pacific Ocean, another "new continent" is forming. This "new continent" is completely built up of rubbish. People also call it the "Eighth Continent." This huge garbage island, which is six times the size of the United Kingdom, has two states in the United States, with an area of ​​about 690,000 square kilometers. This huge waste island floating on the sea is currently the largest in the world, and has doubled in size in the past 10 years.
The staff of the International Environmental Protection Organization's “Starfish Project†said that the garbage island floating on the Pacific Ocean is the waste that humans have abandoned in the past 60 years and was brought here by ocean currents. The trash inside is from shampoo bottles, plastic toys, tires, plastic swim goggles and slippers. Woodland, the head of the “Starfish Project†garbage collection team, also stated that the organization had used a 1 meter wide net last year to sample various areas of the Pacific Ocean and that every time they got off the net they could get garbage. Of these wastes, more than 80% are discarded plastic products and it is estimated that plastic waste amounts to 100 million tons. In addition, all kinds of commodities used, consumed, and consumed by humans on land have become part of marine litter, such as rubber, wood products, metals, paper products, textiles and leather, glass and ceramics, etc. And medical supplies. On some garbage, Chinese characters and Japanese characters are also printed, showing that it is drifting across the ocean.
In addition to the Pacific Ocean, other seas in the world have similar garbage islands. In recent years, scientists have also discovered a giant floating refuse dump in the Atlantic Ocean, which is only slightly smaller than the overall size of the Pacific Junk Island. This garbage belt is hundreds of miles away from the North American coast and is made up of tens of thousands of plastic pieces. Although scientists are not yet able to measure its width, the area covered by this huge garbage belt has been from 22 degrees north latitude to 38 degrees north latitude, which is almost the same distance between Cuba and Virginia. The study found that in some sea areas, the maximum plastic density in the ocean reached 200,000 plastic pieces per square kilometer, and most of the debris came from consumer products used in people's daily lives, such as bags and plastic products.
If the giant junk islands in the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean are far away from our lives, the recent “2010 National Marine Environment Bulletin†released by the Chinese Oceanographic Department shows that the situation is not optimistic. According to the communiqué, the classification results of floating garbage, beach garbage, and submarine waste in China's sea surface all show that the largest number of plastic trash is. Of these, 70% of beach waste and 59% of sea-level floating refuse originate from human activities on the coast.
According to the latest statistics of the United Nations, the world produces more than 260 million tons of plastic garbage every year. Most of them are disposable, most of them are discarded, some are buried in land, and some are scattered in the countryside. In the field, some of the treetop branches hanging along the railway line are dumped directly into the sea. They are scattered in every corner of the earth, but they are blown by rain or wind, and then they flow silently. The final destination is ocean.
These marine wastes, mainly plastics, have caused great harm to the ocean. First, plastic waste obstructs the maritime communication line and destroys the vessel; secondly, it causes damage to marine life. For example, Greenpeace found that at least 267 kinds of marine organisms were tortured by eating marine debris or being entangled with marine litter. , And lead to death; Third, the harm through the biological chain of humans, such as heavy metals and toxic chemicals can be enriched in the body through the ingestion of fish, humans eat these fish will be harmed.
Scientists of the "Starfish Project" also pointed out that some marine plastic waste is broken down into small particles under sunlight, leaving the sea full of toxic substances. Researchers had discovered 26 plastics in a fish's body, a sperm whale stranded on California Beach, and 800 pounds of plastic in the body. In response, the researchers warned that trash toxins will enter the food chain sooner or later. The issue of plastic waste in the Pacific Ocean and toxins in plastics will affect food safety in countries such as China and Japan.
Expect chemical technology to turn waste into treasure
Since marine litter is mainly waste plastic products, scientists believe that chemical technology can be expected to turn waste into treasure.
One way is to burn marine debris and generate electricity after it is salvaged.
Researchers have long calculated the energy use of plastic incineration. Since almost all plastics are made of non-renewable petroleum, and the main components are hydrocarbons, they can be used for combustion. For example, polystyrene has a higher heat of combustion than fuel oil and is a macromolecular material with a high calorific value. The incinerated ash can be used for land reclamation or island construction.
However, there are several issues that need to be addressed in the incineration of marine litter. First of all, in addition to salvaging and transportation, marine debris needs to be dehydrated for a short period of time, which is troublesome. Secondly, due to the large amount of Dioxin that can be produced by plastic incineration, it will endanger the environment and ecology, and there is a need for advanced incinerators that can particularly control emissions from Erying. Third, incineration of marine debris is also the same as disposal of land-based waste. It requires sorting of garbage and it must first be sorted in order to be burned.
One way is to make fuel from marine litter.
Since more than 80% of marine debris is plastic, this also forms an alternative method of handling marine litter, that is, turning this resource of plastic into another resource. Current research shows that plastics can be transformed into a variety of resources available to humans through a variety of technical means. For example, fuel can be made from waste plastics, water-repellent anti-freeze glues, multi-functional resin glues, etc.
Now, the use of waste plastics to make fuel technology has achieved breakthroughs in some countries.
In 2003, a waste plastic recycling fuel technology and process equipment in Chengdu, China, was appraised by Sichuan Provincial Environmental Protection Bureau and relevant experts. The use of this technology to recover plastics can not only produce gasoline Nos. 90 and 93, but also produce diesel. Due to the low production cost, the selling price is about 300 yuan less per ton than similar products on the market. Of course, whether this technology can be put into production still requires many conditions, such as funds, land, personnel, and the practicality and promotion of the technology.
In November last year, the industrial continuous plastics cracking and oiling technology and equipment project undertaken by a company in Jinan passed acceptance. The results of the appraisal organized by the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation show that the use of raw materials without sorting, no cleaning mixed plastic waste, product conversion rate can reach 65% to 75% of light fuel. The production process is free from waste water and dust emission, and the noise is lower than the national standard.
In 2010, Thailand announced that the first waste plastics recycling fuel project in Thailand and even in Southeast Asia was launched in Hua Hin, Thailand. It can consume 6 tons of waste plastics per day and produce 4,500 liters of fuel. The annual output is 1.35 million liters.
In addition, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan has also developed a process for producing fuel oil from a decomposing tank; the University of Hamburg, Germany has also developed a reactor for the thermal decomposition of waste plastic fluidized bed into fuel oil; a fuel chemist at the University of Kentucky invented a molecular sieve with zeolite Catalysts, various plastics are put into a sand bath, mixed, and then the slurry is poured into the reactor for hydrogenation and pressure, and finally heated to cause the polymer to decompose into high-quality fuel oil.
Making aromatics from marine debris is also a solution.
It is understood that research on aromatic compounds from marine debris is also being carried out in Japan and other countries. Polyethylene, polypropylene, and other waste plastics are heated to 300° C. to decompose them into carbohydrates, and then a catalyst is added to synthesize aromatic compounds such as benzene, toluene, and xylene. When reacted at a temperature of 525°C, 70% of used plastics can be converted into useful aromatics. They can be used as raw materials and fuel improvers for chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and the rest can be converted to hydrogen and propane.
If these technologies are mature and put into production, they will be able to digest sea debris in large quantities, and may allow some countries to compete for these sea-owned waste resources.
An island built with garbage - Singapore Makado Island.
Trash ecology island may not be science fiction
However, the above-mentioned several marine waste disposal methods have high production costs because they need to be recovered from the oceans and then processed on land. In addition, transportation and air drying are links. Excessive costs make many countries less motivated. Therefore, a recent Dutch scientist proposed a new idea: onshore disposal of marine litter, and use a special method to build an artificial island.
It is understood that Dutch scientists plan to build an artificial ecological island consisting of 44,000 tons of plastic waste from the Pacific Ocean, which is the most heavily polluted. According to the idea, this artificial plastic ecological island has an area of ​​10,000 square kilometers, which is similar to the size of Hawaii Island in the United States. This artificial island will become a Venice on the sea.
Their specific blueprint is: Concentrate the plastic waste into a certain part of the ocean, and then use scientific methods to carry out non-toxic and harmless treatment of these plastic waste products to create a hollow floating platform. Connecting these platforms can form the "base" of the island, laying mud and sand on it. If necessary, the height of the soil can be from tens of centimeters to several meters. Then build roads, farmland, beaches and houses, as well as some high-tech factories without pollution. In this way, an ecological island that can grow plants is built. As the island is far from the mainland, all supplies and energy will be self-sufficient. Energy mainly depends on solar energy, wind energy and wave energy, and these are particularly abundant on the island. This small island can meet the daily needs of 500,000 people, that is, it can receive 250,000 permanent residents and 250,000 tourists.
A scientist who participated in the design of an artificial eco-island said: “We designed an artificial eco-island mainly for three purposes: the first is to clean up large-scale plastic waste on the ocean and make the ocean cleaner; the second is to create a new land. The third is to create an environment where people can live and live.†When some coastal residents lose their homes during the hurricane and tsunami, artificial ecological islands will provide new homes for these victims. In addition, the travel life in the vast sea may be boring, and these artificial ecological islands can also provide visitors with a good place for sea travel. Many maritime rubbish museums will be set up on the artificial sea islands of the sea to allow tourists to realize the harm of marine litter to the marine environment and the ecological system while traveling and leisure.
However, compared with incineration and resource conversion, the idea of ​​building an artificial island can only be said to be an ideal, and the idea of ​​a Dutch scientist is only a blueprint compared to the use of garbage to build an artificial island in Singapore and Japan.
Take Shimagao Island, which was built with garbage in Singapore, as an example, the construction method is to first burn the garbage and then seal it into the sea after the garbage is burned. In 1998, the Singapore government built a 1 km-long rock embankment between two offshore islands, Shimaga and Xikang, and separated 11 interconnected bay units to drain the seawater from the unit. , And then discharge a thick layer of plastic film, refuse ash dumped in these units to seal, to prevent leakage. In addition, buried garbage also includes materials that cannot be burned and recycled, such as asbestos. The local government takes samples of seawater around the unit every month. Until now, no leaks or contamination of seawater have been detected. Whenever a unit's waste fills two or three meters high, it will plant sand and then continue to embed garbage. Garbage can be buried up to 30 meters. Plants are then planted on top of it, and garbage is no longer piled up.
Singapore’s Shimagao Island is a reality that has already been achieved. The idea of ​​Dutch scientists is to harmlessly dispose of plastic into a hollow "floating platform" and connect it, and then lay the soil and sand on it. Such islands are actually floating on the surface of the sea, and trials are needed if they are successful. However, this after all provides an idea to eliminate marine litter.
Tongyun Pipe Industry Co., Ltd , http://www.lcsteelpipes.com