Plastic Waste

Plastic pollution is an urgent global problem that threatens the entire ecosystem, causing climate change and many other consequences that humans have to bear. Therefore, citizens need to uphold their sense of responsibility, consciously change living habits, say no to single-use plastic products. Protecting the environment, limiting plastic waste is protecting ourselves.

Identification and Quantification of Microplastics in Aquaculture Environment

The existence of microplastics (MPs) poses a potential threat to the entire ecosystem and has gained wide public attention. As an essential source of aquatic products, aquaculture industries are inevitably subjected to the pollution of MPs, particularly when the plastic products are widely used in aquaculture. Even so, the identification of MPs in aquaculture is rarely reported. Hence, high-efficient analytical methods for accurate detection of MPs in the aquaculture environment are of utmost significance. This review comprehensively summarizes the analytical methods for MPs in aquaculture, including sampling, extraction, and qualitative and quantitative analyses of MPs. MPs are identified and quantified mainly by visual inspection, spectroscopy, or thermal analysis. In addition, this review also points out the limitations of these methods and the accuracy of quality control. Finally, the need for establishing standard methods is emphasized, and suggestions for future research are also proposed.

Environmental Policy for the Restriction on the Use of Plastic Products in Taiwan: Regulatory Measures, Implementation Status and COVID-19’s Impacts on Plastic Products Recycling

In response to international trends regarding the reduction in plastic waste (or plastic pollution), this work used the official statistics that were recently released, focusing on regulatory actions restricting the use of plastic products and/or the increase in recycling in Taiwan. In addition, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on plastic waste generation and plastic products’ recycling were also addressed in the present study. The results showed that the plastic compositions in the garbage slightly increased in recent years, suggesting that the effect of restrictions on the use of plastic products in Taiwan was not significant, even though the regulatory measures have been implemented since 2002. However, chlorine contents in the garbage were significantly increased in 2020. The increase could be attributed to the fact that kitchen waste (containing salt), household waste containing disinfectant (e.g., chlorine dioxide, sodium hypochlorite) or PVC-made products were generated more during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the data also indicated that the monthly quantities of recycled plastic containers and other plastic products had no significant change since January 2020, especially in the outbreak period from May 2021 to July 2021.

Overcompensation of CoA Trapping by Di(2-ethylhexyl) Phthalate (DEHP) Metabolites in Livers of Wistar Rats

Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) is commonly used as a plasticizer in various industrial and household plastic products, ensuring widespread human exposures. Its routine detection in human bio-fluids and the propensity of its monoester metabolite to activate peroxisome proliferator activated receptor-α (PPARα) and perturb lipid metabolism implicate it as a metabolic disrupter. In this study we evaluated the effects of DEHP exposure on hepatic levels of free CoA and various CoA esters, while also confirming the metabolic activation to CoA esters and partial β-oxidation of a DEHP metabolite (2-ethyhexanol). Male Wistar rats were exposed via diet to 2% (w/w) DEHP for fourteen-days, following which hepatic levels of free CoA and various CoA esters were identified using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. DEHP exposed rats showed significantly elevated free CoA and increased levels of physiological, DEHP-derived and unidentified CoA esters. The physiological CoA ester of malonyl-CoA and DEHP-derived CoA ester of 3-keto-2-ethylhexanoyl-CoA were the most highly elevated, at eighteen- and ninety eight-times respectively. We also detected sixteen unidentified CoA esters which may be derivative of DEHP metabolism or induction of other intermediary metabolism metabolites. Our results demonstrate that DEHP is a metabolic disrupter which affects production and sequestration of CoA, an essential cofactor of oxidative and biosynthetic reactions.

Plastic waste

Plastic pollution is an urgent global problem that threatens the entire ecosystem, causing climate change and many other consequences that humans have to bear. Therefore, citizens need to uphold their sense of responsibility, consciously change living habits, say no to single-use plastic products. Protecting the environment, limiting plastic waste is protecting ourselves.

Upcycling plastic waste through empirical implementation of large-scale 3D printing

<p>Plastic waste presents a real global challenge and a threat to health, environment and the global economy. While awareness of the devastating effects of plastic waste on the environment has increased, the production of plastic products is still on the rise. As a result, many countries do not prioritise waste plastic recycling or the export of plastic wastes to other countries for recycling. However, the products from recycled waste plastics are considered to be of low quality and uneconomical to produce on large scale, thus making individuals and corporations giving preference using plastics from virgin materials rather than producing products from recycled plastics. These is therefore a need to develop an effective process through the use of technology to upcycle plastic waste locally to produce products of higher value from waste plastic. The current research sought to investigate the potential of distributed upcycling to change the production and consumption of plastic products in future. To this end, the study sought to prepare high value design application for upcycling and investigated how they could be implemented through large-scale 3D printing in urban environments. To achieve this, the researcher collected plastic waste materials from Wellington in New Zealand to be used in the study experiments. The plastic waste materials were first cleaned, sorted and cut into small pieces using a granulator before being taken through thermal processes to dry them out and set the right temperatures to ensure consistency of the plastic waste extrusion before being taken through the extrusion process. 3D Printing was used to design and make various final products from the recycled plastic waste. Experimentation with different formulations of waste plastic led to production of a high-quality filament successfully achieving the study objectives. As such, upcycling plastic waste using 3D Printing technology provides a locally viable solution to making useful products in large scale as a model for future development.</p>

Upcycling plastic waste through empirical implementation of large-scale 3D printing

<p>Plastic waste presents a real global challenge and a threat to health, environment and the global economy. While awareness of the devastating effects of plastic waste on the environment has increased, the production of plastic products is still on the rise. As a result, many countries do not prioritise waste plastic recycling or the export of plastic wastes to other countries for recycling. However, the products from recycled waste plastics are considered to be of low quality and uneconomical to produce on large scale, thus making individuals and corporations giving preference using plastics from virgin materials rather than producing products from recycled plastics. These is therefore a need to develop an effective process through the use of technology to upcycle plastic waste locally to produce products of higher value from waste plastic. The current research sought to investigate the potential of distributed upcycling to change the production and consumption of plastic products in future. To this end, the study sought to prepare high value design application for upcycling and investigated how they could be implemented through large-scale 3D printing in urban environments. To achieve this, the researcher collected plastic waste materials from Wellington in New Zealand to be used in the study experiments. The plastic waste materials were first cleaned, sorted and cut into small pieces using a granulator before being taken through thermal processes to dry them out and set the right temperatures to ensure consistency of the plastic waste extrusion before being taken through the extrusion process. 3D Printing was used to design and make various final products from the recycled plastic waste. Experimentation with different formulations of waste plastic led to production of a high-quality filament successfully achieving the study objectives. As such, upcycling plastic waste using 3D Printing technology provides a locally viable solution to making useful products in large scale as a model for future development.</p>