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> I have trouble seeing a ship being able to recover enough plastic to be greater than its fuel use skimming through it. I don't think this would be the idea.

> I have trouble seeing a ship being able to recover enough plastic to be greater than its fuel use skimming through it. I don't think this would be the idea. I think by making it worth money to recycle the plastic it doesn't get into the oceans. It's certainly not worthwhile trying to getting the existing plastic out of the oceans, this has been well covered by engineers.

Double_a_92 10y ago
You don't even have to recycle it. Burning it for heat energy is enough. Most plastic only produces water and co2 when burned...
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  Are you sure about that? As a younger person I burned a few samples of various things called 'plastic' and the fumes sure smelled like maybe I should be sterile by now.
  - msl 10y ago
    Plastics tend to consists of carbon and hydrogen chains. See for example polycarbonate [1], polyetene [2] and ABS [3] (contains nitrogen). They might however contain all sorts of additives. In order to produce just water, carbon dioxide and nitrogen the burning must be carefully controlled [4] - in your experiment the burning was probably not complete, which explains the fumes (that might have been carcinogenic [4]). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycarbonate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycarbonate [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylonitrile_butadiene_styrene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylonitrile_butadiene_styren... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic#Incineration_of_plastics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic#Incineration_of_plasti...
    - scq 10y ago
      You generally don't want to burn halogenated plastics like PVC though. As I understand it that will release highly toxic dioxins (which cause cancer and birth defects among other things) unless they are incinerated at high temperatures.
      - pjc50 10y ago
        I don't know why this is downvoted, it's correct - incineration of plastics is needs to be done at high temperatures to avoid this problem.
    - adrianN 10y ago
      Maybe it was PVC. That releases plenty of nasties when you burn it.
  - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
    Ditto, the sibling posts seem to cover it except for printed plastics, even if the plastic is good the printing probably wasn't/isn't.
  - DoofusOfDeath 10y ago
    "the fumes sure smelled like maybe I should be sterile by now" You, sir, have just enriched the English language.
- Someone 10y ago
  The C in PVC stands for chloride. Wikipedia claims it is the world's third-most widely produced synthetic plastic polymer, after polyethylene and polypropylene, which are pure carbohydrates. So, technically, it is 'most', but chances are fairly good a random selection of garbage plastic contains chloride, too, and that can be nasty.
roryisok 10y ago
> It's certainly not worthwhile trying to getting the existing plastic out of the oceans, this has been well covered by engineers. Can you link to some info on this?
- aaron695 10y ago
  Well here's a couple of articles quoting scientists. I mean the idea doesn't pass a smell test. If plastics are bad in the oceans how can you remove them in something so big without wiping out ecosystems at the same time? One of the quotes (theoceancleanup) here is a idea from a 17 year old teenager (now 22) who was kickstarted. This also fails a pretty big smell test. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/26/ocean-cleanup-project-environment-pollution-boyan-slat https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/26/ocean-cl... https://www.kcet.org/redefine/6-reasons-that-floating-ocean-plastic-cleanup-gizmo-is-a-horrible-idea https://www.kcet.org/redefine/6-reasons-that-floating-ocean-... Compared to something simple like collecting it before it hit the oceans and you can dump it into something cheap like a truck and process it which it's easy to see how it does work?

Double_a_92 10y ago

You don't even have to recycle it. Burning it for heat energy is enough. Most plastic only produces water and co2 when burned...

TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
Are you sure about that? As a younger person I burned a few samples of various things called 'plastic' and the fumes sure smelled like maybe I should be sterile by now.
- msl 10y ago
  Plastics tend to consists of carbon and hydrogen chains. See for example polycarbonate [1], polyetene [2] and ABS [3] (contains nitrogen). They might however contain all sorts of additives. In order to produce just water, carbon dioxide and nitrogen the burning must be carefully controlled [4] - in your experiment the burning was probably not complete, which explains the fumes (that might have been carcinogenic [4]). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycarbonate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycarbonate [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylonitrile_butadiene_styrene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylonitrile_butadiene_styren... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic#Incineration_of_plastics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic#Incineration_of_plasti...
  - scq 10y ago
    You generally don't want to burn halogenated plastics like PVC though. As I understand it that will release highly toxic dioxins (which cause cancer and birth defects among other things) unless they are incinerated at high temperatures.
    - pjc50 10y ago
      I don't know why this is downvoted, it's correct - incineration of plastics is needs to be done at high temperatures to avoid this problem.
  - adrianN 10y ago
    Maybe it was PVC. That releases plenty of nasties when you burn it.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  Ditto, the sibling posts seem to cover it except for printed plastics, even if the plastic is good the printing probably wasn't/isn't.
- DoofusOfDeath 10y ago
  "the fumes sure smelled like maybe I should be sterile by now" You, sir, have just enriched the English language.
Someone 10y ago
The C in PVC stands for chloride. Wikipedia claims it is the world's third-most widely produced synthetic plastic polymer, after polyethylene and polypropylene, which are pure carbohydrates. So, technically, it is 'most', but chances are fairly good a random selection of garbage plastic contains chloride, too, and that can be nasty.

roryisok 10y ago

> It's certainly not worthwhile trying to getting the existing plastic out of the oceans, this has been well covered by engineers. Can you link to some info on this?

aaron695 10y ago
Well here's a couple of articles quoting scientists. I mean the idea doesn't pass a smell test. If plastics are bad in the oceans how can you remove them in something so big without wiping out ecosystems at the same time? One of the quotes (theoceancleanup) here is a idea from a 17 year old teenager (now 22) who was kickstarted. This also fails a pretty big smell test. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/26/ocean-cleanup-project-environment-pollution-boyan-slat https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/26/ocean-cl... https://www.kcet.org/redefine/6-reasons-that-floating-ocean-plastic-cleanup-gizmo-is-a-horrible-idea https://www.kcet.org/redefine/6-reasons-that-floating-ocean-... Compared to something simple like collecting it before it hit the oceans and you can dump it into something cheap like a truck and process it which it's easy to see how it does work?