Well, as reported in Chemistry World, "[r]esearchers in Europe have narrowed the search for bad recycling practices that are to blame for some toys and food packaging inadvertently containing banned pollutants." And they've found ways to check this using handheld x-ray fluorescence spectrometers rather than the much larger gas chromatography method.
"The team found evidence for brominated flame retardants in 61% of 26 samples of toys and cup lids. Rare earth element concentrations in the positive samples correlated to a particular waste stream – plastics used in copier, laptop and computer casings – for the first time providing evidence on the source of the problem. "
Actually 'melted down' to be reused?
A different resource I read said, [t]he recycling process is a secret but talking over email, Oza described the gist: “We use a non-toxic solution that allows the material to enter a more liquid state that can be recast or reapplied” in new Finite-based constructions.
That reads to me a lot more like either dissolving or de-polymerizing rather than 'melting'.
The actual information about Infinite comes at 4:30 in the above video: the reasoning, the general method of binding the desert sand, their testing, the project's future.
Sadly they are very tight-lipped about the method of binding the desert sand together. I'm really curious about it.
CarbonCure works with existing concrete factories to simply add CO2 without changing the concrete recipe or machines. CO2 is collected from smokestacks of large polluters like coal power or cement plants and brought to the concrete factory for recycling. Our proprietary technology injects the CO2 gas into the concrete where it is converted into more stone within the concrete...
The best part is that it costs about the same and it keeps the same good looks and durability that you're used to with regular concrete.
It's green concrete without the trade-offs.
...I find myself skeptical as to just how we get benefits without any downsides at all.
Ok, I don't get it. My understanding is that cement is produced by heating calcium carbonate to decompose it into calcium oxide and carbon dioxide. Why, then, can we just add the carbon dioxide back into the concrete to produce calcium carbonate later in the process? And if that's the case, why did we both to take the carbon dioxide out of the calcium carbonate in the first place?
CarbonCure's system takes captured CO2 and injects it into concrete as it's being mixed. Once the concrete hardens, that carbon is sequestered forever. Even if the building is torn down, the carbon stays put. That's because it reacts with the concrete and becomes a mineral.
...
"The best thing about it is the mineral itself improves the compressive strength of the concrete," Christie Gamble, the director of sustainability at CarbonCure, told CNNMoney."
Again with the extraordinary claims. I'm going to need a little more detail.
From the CarbonCure website...
The technology may be used to increase the compressive strength
performance of a concrete mix. The strength improvement can then be
leveraged in the optimization of the mix design for a specific end goal[.] (source)
...
Once injected into the wet concrete mix, the CO2 reacts with calcium ions from cement to form a nano-sized calcium carbonate mineral that becomes permanently embedded in the concrete. (source)
I hope that this technology is as perfect as is suggested, but I'm not holding my breath.
I am wildly unhappy with the results of the survey quoted at 6:25: "making a single-use plastic bag requires so little energy and produces far lower carbon dioxide emissions compared to a reusable cotton bag, that you need to use your cotton bag 7100 times before it would have a lower impact on the environment than the plastic bag."
Seriously?
That's kind of depressing.
The video actually does a great job presenting a very balanced view of plastics, presenting facts that show that just not using plastics isn't as easy as it looks at first blush.
