Plastic Soup

A grand view

We took State route 1 (also named the Pacific Coast Highway, Cabrillo Highway, or Shoreline Highway) from San Francisco to Santa Cruz and were amazed how clean it was. Two solutions for roadside garbage are obviously paying off: the “Adopt-A-Highway” scheme (whereby a company or organization maintains a segment of the highway in exchange for a billboard which proclaims that they are responsible for its cleanliness), and the very high fines and penalties for littering.

Our thoughts ran free as we drove along the picturesque highway over-looking the sparkling Pacific Ocean.

In our minds’ eye we saw, beyond the horizon, hundreds of fishing boats sailing through the plastic soup, filtering out the plastic from the sea and directly processing it in the small on-board devices.

At best, this device, (designed by Michael Biddle of MBA Polymers), produces new usable plastic from old plastic waste. He has already promised to look at the possibilities as soon as he has examined a sample in his laboratory.

Also a Blester could be put on the boat. The Blester has been developed by the Japanese firm, Blest. It can be found at various schools in Japan: after lunchtime, pupils discard their plastic waste in it and the result is a high quality oil that can be used by the school to burn lamps, run boilers, and run a generator. There is, however, one problem: the Blester can only process three kinds of plastic: polypropylene (PP), polyethylene (PE) and polystyrene (PS). Thus, the plastic used has to be first separated; once again, for that we need Michael Biddle.

In India a woman, Alka Zadgaonkar, has invented a machine in which you can use all types of plastic (93% of which is then processed into fuel). A smaller version of the device could also be used on the fishing boats.

It can even be cheaper … The Shriram Institute in Delhi has invented a system which, according to them, is so simple that anyone can make a sort of fire block out of plastic (making some money out of it as well).

In this way, we could see our debris-removal boats sailing about changing the world.

In the Netherlands we have a great social security system. In the United States this could be improved here and there.

What if, everyone–anywhere in the world–could have the right to a benefit enough to live from? How about, in exchange for this, everyone has to do 20 hours per week work in social services or for the environment? Imagine what the world would look like: older people, the infirm, the handicapped, would be less isolated. The world would be cleaner and more recycling would take place …

Imagine …

Lees deze tekst in het Nederlands