Plastic contaminants pose a serious threat to life

According to the British "Guardian" reported that a new study found that Australia waters near the per square kilometer floating up to more than 4,000 small plastic particles, which caused a serious threat to marine life and human life .

The study, co-sponsored by the University of Western Australia and the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, found that the vast majority of plastic particles were polyethylene and polypropylene, which were the main materials for the production of mineral water bottles and fishing supplies.

Researchers carried out seven parades along the Australian coastline and found that although the remote areas of Tasmania were also filled with large quantities of plastic waste, the plastic pollution in Sydney and Brisbane was the most serious. Overall, Australia's plastic pollution level comparable to the Caribbean, but slightly lower than the Mediterranean.

Researchers found that Australia produces about 1.5 million tons of plastic waste each year, of which only 20% can be recycled which including EPS recycling. The study warns that if these plastics are eaten by fish, "it will affect the health of the entire food chain, including the top of the food chain's human health."

Julia Reisser, the first author of the report, said she was surprised to see so much plastic in Australian waters. "Since the 1970s, we have been aware of the problem of plastic pollution, when they are mainly on large vertebrates such as sea turtles and seabirds have an impact, but now these small particles have affected the small fish and floating Biological health. "

She said that we know that plastic may be eaten with a variety of creatures, but it is worrying that these plastics are filled with contaminants such as fertilizers. Plastic is eaten by small fish, will be transferred to the big fish, and then transferred to the human, thus affecting the entire food chain. Studies have shown that toxins from plastics can cause tumors in some fish's liver.

  

We should reduce the usage of plastic bags

Plastics are man-made materials with new properties. They are anywhere in our daily lives. They are very light but they can hold heavy things. That’s why they’re so popular all around the world.

Plastics have found their widest applications. They can be used for almost everything from food coverings to automobiles bodies. Thousands of different products are now made entirely or partially from plastics. Of course more and more plastics will be made in the future.

However, disposable plastic bags do bring severe damage to our environment and lot of harms to life. First and foremost, they are abandoned everywhere. It cannot be absorbed which will have great influence for the environment. Finally the pollution brought by plastic threat to our species life.

The pollution caused by the plastic is called “white pollution”.

To sum up, it is meaningful to limit the use of disposable plastic. It’s significant that our government has banned the use of disposable plastic bags officially, and people will be charged for the use of such bags. This action is reducing the consumption of bags to a great extent.

However, because the plastics are not rusting, they have negative effects on the global environment. The plastics bags are not easily to break down. If you’re burning them, they gas will pollute the environment. If you throw them into the river, the fish will die because they’re contain toxic. If you bury them, the land will not grow any crops. Most of the plastics are white, thus people call it “white pollution”.

In order to protect the environment, we should not use plastics if we could. We should use some cloths bags instead. Only in this way, we can have a good environment.

Everyone in this society should contribute some effort to the improvement of the environment. We should protect our earth and living environment to make a better life. so plastic recycling such as polystyrene recycling is very necessary to protect our environment. And then we can reuse it to do some other products, such as frames and so on.

　

The demand for packaging materials is increasing

At present, send and receive courier has become a lot of people indispensable daily life content, the face of different sizes of express parcels, a wide range of packaging to the packaging materials to the more urgent needs.

Polypropylene disposable consumer demand characteristics determine its different from other industrial products, rigid demand-based, and relatively stable, and the macroeconomic situation is closely related. Mainly related to food, medicine, agriculture, light industry and automotive appliances and other fields, which accounted for 66% of the proportion of non-resistant consumer goods, the future of transparent materials, pipe and some special materials will become polypropylene industry, the new consumer growth point.

In recent years, express delivery business continues to develop rapidly, in 2016 to complete the delivery business volume of 31.35 billion, an increase of 51.7%. According to statistics in 2015, consumption of woven bags of 3.1 billion, 8.77 billion plastic bags, envelopes 3.1 billion, tape 16.99 billion meters, 2.98 billion buffer. Donated nearly 1 billion in 2015, 1.6 billion plastic bags, nearly 2.5 billion lunch boxes.

Is expected in 2017 the amount of domestic express will be more than 40 billion, an increase of over 50%, the amount of plastic to further increase. The next five years, China's express delivery growth will remain at more than 30% growth rate, the demand for packaging products to further increase. Is expected to 2020 domestic delivery volume will reach 80 billion or more, packaging demand for general materials increased rapidly.

According to the increasingly demand of polystyrene, the environment will be polluted by the plastic waste and our company INTCO has different kinds of polystyrene compactors which can recycle the waste plastic. It is a good helper to protect the environment.

Coca-Cola abuse of plastic bottle was protested by the citizens

In response to Coca-Cola's misuse of plastic bottles, Greenpeace hosted a 2.5 tons of sculpture at the door of the Coca-Cola UK headquarters building. The sculpture presents a thought-provoking picture: the family sat on the beach with a seagull and spit out the plastic garbage.

Greenpeace said in a statement, Coca-Cola Company to sell more than 100 billion bottles of plastic bottles of beverage per year, and disposable plastic bottles in the beverage packaging accounted for nearly 60% of the package.

"We are trying to restore the real scale of the Coca-Cola plastic footprint for the first time," said Carson from Greenpeace, told CNN News. Although this statue weighs 2.5 tons, "but every minute into the sea of plastic is (this weight) 10 times."

For the behavior of Greenpeace organization, Coca-Cola expressed "disappointment" and said their company will be released the new version of "sustainable packaging strategy" later this year. 

According to a Coca-Cola company spokesman, "Coca-Cola is a rare consumer products company, one hundred percent recycling packaging company", the company launched in recent years to recover packaging materials, improve energy efficiency management and other measures.

However, Carson said Coca-Cola did not do enough, "they have increased the number of disposable plastic bottles in the past 10 years." It is understood that the plastic degradation process is very slow, which may take hundreds of years.

Throwing such a big quantity of waste plastic bottles is an unwise action. We can recycle these bottles in a special machine and it is a good way to protect the environment and can save the resources. So, plastic bottles recycling such as polystyrene recycling is necessary.

Polystyrene particles recycling gets more attention

It is understood that most of the polystyrene plastic particles is a one-time use, and then millions of tons of white waste were threw in nature as the waste can not be rotten transformation, and make a degradation on their own. Because of this, on the one hand it will cause a serious environmental pollution , On the other hand it is also a valuable waste of non-renewable resources,. Therefore, how to make an effective polystyrene recycling has attracted the attention of researchers around the world.

Polystyrene plastic particles is one of the most widely used plastics in the world. Because of its good water resistance, insulation, low moisture absorption and strong seismic strength, and its light weight, strong material quality, low price, polystyrene plastic particles is widely used in packaging, moisture, water-proof, insulation, shock absorption, decoration, catering and other fields, which are penetrated into the various sectors of the national economy.

At present, the common polystyrene recycling method is break them, and then make the melting regeneration granulation as another material particles, then add the corresponding non-auxiliary agent to process into another material.

For the above proposed commonly used recycling method is to break through the crusher plastic foam, melting, pulling, cutting and molding them, but this kind of  method to produce plastic particles will cause the problems like incomplete raw material crushing, uneven melting temperature control, and also can not avoid be mixed with impurities in the raw materials, which will result in low production efficiency, and because the presence of impurities can lead to equipment damage. So there is a need to think a better way to solve the problem of polystyrene recycling.

Something about general purpose polystyrene

Polystyrene is the product of styrene (vinyl benzene), which is a thermoplastic polymer with linear structure. It is widely used because of its good physical and mechanical properties, environmental safety, chemical inertness of many substances, water, electricity and frost resistance. It includes EPS, XPS, HIPS, and GPPS (general purpose polystyrene).

It is produced in the form of transparent cylindrical particles and processed into finished products by injection molding or extrusion of 190-230 C. Polystyrene (PS) and PS based plastics widely used due to its low cost, ease of processing and a variety of grades.

High impact polystyrene, styrene copolymer and butadiene and styrene - butadiene rubber, the most widely used (60%). Styrene copolymers have many other modifications.

Polystyrene is used in the production of a variety of household products (disposable tableware, packaging, toys, etc.) and the construction industry (insulation board, fixed template, sandwich panel). Finishing and decoration materials: ceiling modeling, ceiling tiles, sound absorbing polystyrene elements, adhesive base, polymer concentrate; medical equipment: part of the blood transfusion system.

Polystyrene is used to produce films (up to 100 m or up to 20 m when mixed with SBS (styrene butadiene styrene) copolymer. These films have been successfully applied to the packaging and confectionery industry and the production of capacitors

High impact polystyrene (HIPS) and its modification are widely used in household appliances and electronic products (household appliances).

Polystyrene is used in all major polymer and plastic processing methods: extrusion, injection molding and thermoforming.

The United Nations declaration draft is intended to end the disposable plastic

It is reported that in June the United Nations headquarters in New York, held at the high-level meeting of the "United Nations Ocean Conference" draft declaration, in order to prevent the increasingly serious pollution caused by plastic waste, the draft requires countries to completely disable the plastic bags and disposable plastics. Ministers and other ministers will be discussed at the meeting around the sustainable use of the sea and resource protection.

The draft declaration calls on countries to popularize recyclable products and to develop alternatives to degradable plastics that are easily decomposed in the environment. In addition, countries are urged to avoid the use of plastic particles that may have an impact on ecosystems in products such as toothpaste or cleanser. The draft will show the international community's efforts to rectify the pollution of marine plastics.

The meeting was one of the initiatives to achieve the "Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)" adopted by the United Nations in 2015. It is planned to discuss and adopt the Declaration on June 5-9, around the Marine Pollution Initiative, sustainable fisheries, and ecosystem conservation, but the copy may also change in the future.

With regard to plastic waste, the draft seeks to achieve the goal of completely disabling plastic bags, disposable products and plastic particulate products, calling on countries to "develop long-term strategies to reduce the use of plastics and to implement them." But also to promote the "reduction, reuse and recycling" to reduce the land on the plastic waste emissions.

However, I think this draft may not be achieved completely, because the plastic is totally into our daily life, we should think another way to solve these problems, such as plastic recycling, which including polystyrene recycling. Because of it, the environment can be well protected, and the resources can also be well saved.

The different strength between XPS board and EPS board

Here the strength should be pointed out that the tensile strength, polystyrene board bulk density and tensile strength have an absolute relationship, the general EPS capacity of 18Kg / m3 tensile strength is 110 ~ 120KPa, 20Kg / m3 bulk density is about 140KPa. XPS bulk density from 25Kg ~ 45Kg, the intensity from 150KPa ~ 700KPa or higher. (Provided that the thermal conductivity is about 0.03).

XPS board strength in the 200KPa-250KPa, the majority of domestic manufacturers XPS plate in the basic 100 ~ 200kpa, EPS sheet in the 100KPa below, in the increasingly rich facade decoration and coastal areas often have the case of typhoon, the intensity appears very Important, especially for some external wall tiles or high-level, the two kinds of plates are required to reinforce or use fixed parts fixed. Tiles can be drawn more than 400KPa, even if the XPS can not afford to solve the method is to expand the steel mesh through the expansion bolt to the grass-roots level solution, so that the three-dimensional space can be distributed tensile stress, so as long as the anchor properly, steel mesh crack layer is not a big problem.

Compared with EPS, XPS board strength is higher because the xps raw material is polystyrene resin, but compared with XPS due to the nature of EPS sheet (brittle), in the paste area is large, the outer wall of the possibility of cracking, especially the coating surface layer. Flexibility is the problem of wood, take the surface, the sensory knowledge will usually wipe the surface of the polished polystyrene board, and then see the degree of polystyrene board bending to the extent of no cracks, good flexibility, then a few circles are bent Not cracked. Similar to the ductility index in waterproof materials. But the material itself, the flexibility of EPS is better than XPS.