Are aluminum drink cans better than plastic water bottles?

Are you wondering if you should buy drinks that are packed in aluminum cans or in PET bottles?

It depends on which country you are from and how the recycling rate is like for the packaging involved.  Recycling agents in Malaysia would rather take aluminium cans over plastic as one lorry load of aluminium cans earns more than one lorry load of PET bottles.

I read this article posted on July 20, 2019 by TAPP Water:

Glass vs plastic vs aluminium – what is the most sustainable choice?

This is what it reported:

% recovered for recycling in USA
Glass 80%
ALUMINIUM 45%
PLASTIC (PET) 9.5%

Though the recycling rate in reported is 80% for glass bottle, in Malaysia I am not able to find recycling agents for them.

If you read the report, "Disposable Drinking Bottles- Plastic vs. Glass vs. Aluminum" from Macquarie University in Australia website, the recycling rate is different:

Average Amount Currently Recycled reported in Australia
GLASS 50%
ALUMINIUM 50%
PLASTIC (PET) 60%

Maybe it is easier to make a decision based on your views from this report extracted from the report posted at TAPP Water:

Time to decompose
Glass bottle 1 million years*
Single use plastic 400 years
Carton Never**
Aluminium can 100-400 years

Decomposition residue
Glass bottle - Glass
Single use plastic - Microplastics
Carton - Some microplastics
Aluminium can - Metal scrap

How do you stop microplastics from polluting the environment?  Based on this, I would rather choose aluminium over PET bottles.

If you still cannot make up your own mind on it, read what "The Aluminum Association" has to say about it.

Extracted:
"Nearly 75 percent of all aluminum ever produced is still in use today.

Infinitely recyclable and highly durable, nearly 75 percent of all aluminum ever produced is still in use today. Aluminum is 100 percent recyclable and retains its properties indefinitely. Aluminum is one of the only materials in the consumer disposal stream that more than pays for the cost of its own collection."

Note: Though carton is reported not to decompose and there are microplastics residue when they decomposed, if you google "Tetrapak gets recycled into roof sheets" you can read about their efforts with with local charity in Thailand to turn recycled cartons into roofing sheets to provide emergency shelter for people in need.

See how Tetrapak  is recycled in India to benefit the public.


Tetrapak is working on raising awareness that their cartons can be recycled.  I think that children in school should be taught during their art and craft class lessons on how they can extract paper out of cartons as shown in this video.

PET plastics eating bacterium

Good news!  

A team of scientists led by Dr Shosuke Yoshida from the Kyoto Institute of Technology in Japan, discovered a new bacterium with the ability to completely break down PET plastics in a relatively short space of time.

The scientists were able to recreate the bacterium, which has been named Ideonella sakaiensis, in the lab and have them break down the plastic to its basic building blocks: two environmentally harmless monomers called terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol.

And if you are wondering why should we care about this progress, it is obvious that you have not read about the "plastic soup" that Captain Charles Moore discovered at the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, 

Read this at Gizmag.

Plastic waste? Best used as porus bricks?

There is a new cement-like material call Plastisoil being developed.  As the name implies, it is made up of plastic waste and soil.

The developer, Naji Khoury, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Temple University in Philadelphia used discarded polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles which are pulverized and mixed with soil.  The blended mixture is heated with a coarse aggregate to create what he wants.  A porus substance, which when laid will hold rainwater instead of draining off the surface.

He would like to see Plastisoil used for sidewalks, jogging paths, driveways and parking lots in an effort to reduce plastic waste, road filth and oil from polluting the environment as it drains away into canals and rivers with the rainwater on the current surfacing material used, such as, cement or asphalt.

There is a concern though that toxin in the composition of PET could also leak into the environment which would defeat its prupose as a filter.  Moreover, a surface that could hold water would also encourage growth of weeds which could also make maintaining it a problem.

I hope that he will be able to find ways to overcome all these issues and make Plastisoil a reality as it will take 30,000 used PET bottles to make one ton of the material.  As it does not used as much energy to manufacture compard to standard surfacing material like cement or asphalt, this could result in lower cost for us as consumers.

 

Gizmag is my source of information on Plastisoil and you can read its full article at:
http://www.gizmag.com/palstisoil-pervious-concrete-made-from-bottles/17000/

Old gum boots? Best pets ever!

Who in the world would see dogs in old gum boots?  The best kind of pets ever to keep.  No pee, no poo and no taking out for walks.

Yes, I would like to know the creator too and have him or her rub off some of his or her creativity to me.

Plastic waste? An issue to sit on.

Plastic bottle waste is going to be an issue of the past if we can keep coming up with ideas to utilize them.  Here is one from Studio Nuy van Noort to sit on and start thinking.