“When you decide to discard some garbage, do you have a headache about their classification? Styrofoam cup, Styrofoam box, Styrofoam cones, Styrofoam food containers, Styrofoam bowls. Can Styrofoam recycling be done easily?“
The correct answer is: you should throw it into the non-recyclable trash can. Styrofoam products are non-recyclable garbage. At the same time, these garbage also cause huge pollution to the environment, causing a menace to people’s survival.
First of all, the random disposal or landfill of Styrofoam foam plastics will cause soil and groundwater pollution. Its particle is not easy to be digested by bacteria and adsorbed by the soil. Due to its low density, it is easy to migrate with the water flow. Compared with ordinary plastic particles, it will cause a wider range of pollution.
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Once it enters the groundwater system, it will not only damage the aquatic ecological environment, but also threaten human drinking water and continue to accumulate in aquatic organisms |
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In addition, waste foam will produce a large amount of toxic gases during the incineration process, such as dioxins and other chlorine compounds. It does not only harm human health, but also damages the atmospheric environment, prompting the global warming. |
More specifically, Styrofoam foam fragments are like a porous sponge. It absorbs all pollutants that can be absorbed in the air. Imagine so many sponge clusters of pollutants floating in the air, floating in the water, and then flowing into the food chain. This is an ecological disaster that we are even not aware of.
Although Styrofoam itself is a kind of non-recyclable garbage, experts have been trying to study how to upgrade Styrofoam recycling , and I will introduce the recycling process to you.
Due to the stable nature of Styrofoam, it is moredifficult to recycle than other normal plastics. It has become the number one daily plastic products that is difficult to recycle. Tragically, it is one of the most used plastics in our life. Also, the Styrofoam recycling‘s conditions are very strict. You must first wash the Styrofoam foam to prevent its particles from being contaminated. (if it is really deeply contaminated, it is basically impossible to recycle).
Mechanical Recycling
The first Styrofoam recycling method is mechanical recycling: Styrofoam foam will be compressed and broken to make new products or reused as filling materials in construction, packaging and other fields. The advantages of mechanical recycling are its simplicity and low cost, but its disadvantages also exist. The quality and performance of recycled Styrofoam foam particles will decrease by the time passes, and it is easy to cause secondary pollution to the environment.
Chemical Recycling
The second recycling method, chemical recycling, is to chemically treat the discarded Styrofoam foam, dissolve it and convert it into other useful compounds, such as solvents or fuels. The advantage of chemical recycling is efficient utilization, but its process is extremely complicated and has high requirements and correspondingly high costs, so it has not been widely used so far.
Energy Recycling
The third recycling method is energy recycling. Burn the discarded Styrofoam foam and use the released heat to generate steam or hot water for heating or power generation. The advantage is that it can generate energy while processing waste plastics, but the disadvantage is also obvious, which is that it will produce harmful gases and ash, causing environmental pollution.
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At present, technology is still advancing, and scientists are studying more effective methods to neutralize the harm of Styrofoam foam to the environment, but this is far from enough - we need to start from ourselves, reduce the use of Styrofoam foam, and prohibit it from entering the environment from the beginning.