Reuse, Reduce, Replace

What are the various options for reducing the amount of plastics in municipal solid waste The first solution increases the life cycle of plastic by multiple use (refill) rather than disposal of packages. This is practiced with glass 

The idea of replacing plastics by other conventional materials has been suggested in many countries, mainly by ecologists. In some cases, legislation has been passed to ban plastics from the packaging market. This campaign has failed, as it was based on a misconception and even ignorance. It is easy to refer to synthetic materials as unnatural or unfriendly. But is it really true  

Comparing another common polymer, polyethylene (PE) used for grocery bags as compared to kraft paper reveals the followings—PE sacks use 20% to 40% less energy than the paper, create 74% to 80% less solid waste by volume and have 63% to 73% less atmospheric emissions. Both PE and PS 

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Cost Media costs vary widely and often form a substantial part of the running costs of a filter reuse of media is important to reduce replacement costs. 

To date, with the exception of vehicle tires, TPEs have been replacing TS rubbers in virtually all applications. Unlike natural TS rubbers, most TPEs can be reground and reused, thereby reducing overall cost. There are types where the need to vulcanize them is eliminated, reducing cycle times, and products can be molded to tighter tolerances. Most TPEs can be colored, whereas natural rubber is available only in black. TPEs also weigh 10 to 40% less than natural rubber (166). 

Although several methods are used to reduce or ehminate solvent consumption within a pharmaceutical process, solvents are often used in excess in order to carry out reachons in a dilute environment because of solubihty and product selectivity issues [2]. As solvents still have a great influence on the quality of the final products, it can be very difficult to find suitable replacements [43]. It is therefore desirable to find solvents for a process that can be easily recovered, separated, and purified for reuse. Spent solvents that are not recovered must be disposed of as wastes, which can be quite costly and add to the environmental burden. 

Further lowering of the blank correction occurs when nonisotopic carriers in chemical procedures are used to replace inert carriers of the element of interest when it is difficult to obtain the inert carrier in a contamination-free condition. Obviously, only clean glassware should be used, reagents should not be reused, and the laboratory should be kept in an immaculate condition. Separations that have high chemical yields and high radiochemical purity reduce the blanks. 

In acid catalysis there is much interest in replacing conventional, homogeneous catalysts, e. g. corrosive metal chlorides and mineral acids, by solid catalysts. This results in an easy separation from the reaction mixture and after regeneration the solids can be reused. In this way the corrosive and environmentally unfriendly waste streams will be drastically reduced. For this application many solid acids are under investigation, especially the ion-exchange polymer resins, of which Nafion is the material with the highest Brpnsted acidity [1-5]. 

Ionic liquids have many useful properties. Unlike most molecular liquids, they are nonvolatile (that is, they don t evaporate readily) and nonflammable. They tend to remain in the liquid state at temperatures up to about 400 °C. Most molecular substances are liquids only at much lower temperatures, 100 °C or less in most cases (see Table 11.3). Because ionic liquids are good solvents for a wide range of substances, ionic liquids can be used for a variety of reactions and separations. These properties make them attractive replacements for volatile organic solvents in many industrial processes. Relative to traditional organic solvents, ionic liquids offer the promise of reduced volumes, safer handling, and easier reuse, thereby reducing the environmental impact of industrial chemical processes. 

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