Company has process for reclaiming plastics and materials from trashed electronics

[philb]

MBA Polymers Recycled Plastic: Plastic from waste plastic http://www.mbapolymers.com/

MBA Polymers has developed a process for reclaiming usable materials from trashed electronics. It takes broken CD players, desktop printers, and laptop computers that have been shredded into small pieces and separates the different plastics, and then sells the materials back to the consumer manufacturers

http://www.redherring.com/Home/12561

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Little things like this lessen my abject horror when I think about

the future of this planet.

[philb]

2. Cities, states should approach such companies and help site recycle plants in their area

There aren't many such, and all areas need them. Excellent oportunity for economic development and dealing with important problems at the same time.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. Help me with this, you seem to have the will to track something down

that merits it. Years ago, either Popular Science or Popular Mechanics had an issue that showed how steel wires and mesh, energized underwater could attract minerals that would complete the process of "building the structure". Along the gulf coastline, wetlands that have an irreplaceable function are being lost at the rate of a football field every minute or some such thing.

I would like to find a site, article or reference to it and send it off to the Army Corp of Engineers or the state government and see if there could be any use for such an endeavor. Believe it or not, they were at one time dropping Xmas trees out there in the hopes of doing some good. I will continue to search, I guess a smart person would just email the two mags, perhaps I will but I thought I'd throw this out there in case anyone who may be involved with these concerns bumps into it.

[philb]

4. There is both sea level rise and subsidence affecting the Gulf coast, & expanding dead zone

The subsidence is worst in the Louisiana area, where large areas previously usable are being abandoned to the Gulf. The Corps of Engineers has made the decision to abandon maintenance of the main shipping channel from the Mississippi river to Alabama and Florida where most of the coal coming down the river going to Alabama and Florida coal power plants is transported, and lots of other product transportation affected. This is due to the problem you cite.

But global warming is causing increased rise in sea level as well, and the Gulf dead zone with oxygen levels too low for healthy ecosystem is also expanding, due to increased use of fertilizer in the mid west and along the Miss. River that is coming down the river and into the Gulf.

I'm not familiar with the article that you mention, but will do a little search. I have limited time as my interests are more than my time. Dumping of biocompatible materials such as waste concrete might have limited impact on some areas but there is unlikely enough such that doesn't have other uses to make much overall impact.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. Try googling Sea-ment or seacrete... but be warned ...

You will get some unrelated links to commercial products, and some with lots of "New Age" baggage. They do point back, however, to Wolf Hilbertz's work.

The wiki article on seacrete is a little too brief to be useful...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seacrete

Actually, I can't find a more useful link to the chemistry involved than the one philb provided. The problem I have always seen with seament is the likely production of chlorine as a byproduct:

and highly oxidizing conditions result in:

2Cl- = Cl2 + 2e-

At high chloride concentrations (as in seawater), there's quite a lot of Cl2 produced.

on edit: Dang, replied to wrong post.

[philb]

5. Reef Restoration Using Seawater Electrolysis in Jamaica

http://www.globalcoral.org/reef_restoration_using_seawater.htm
Is this what you were looking for?


This is an interesting and important topic, but a little off the original topic which is also important
this one deserves a thread of its own. Major problems of the Gulf Coast and what can be done about them. There are things that will help most problems, short term and long term, but these are big major long term concerns that will have huge impacts that aren't getting enough attention

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. Another link, 3 times as strong as concrete

http://www.mbari.org/seminars/2004/winter2004/march3_goreau.html


We have developed marine electrolytic methods to grow solid limestone structures of any size or shape, which get stronger with age, are self-repairing, and ideal habitat for fish and shellfish. We have produced cost-effective building materials three times as strong as concrete, turned eroding beaches into growing ones in the lowest country in the world, and restored coral reefs and fisheries in over a dozen countries. By providing corals with optimal conditions for skeleton formation, we free energy for growth, reproduction, and resisting environmental stresses. This allows us to maintain corals through lethally high temperatures, sediment, or pollution, and quickly restore reefs where natural recovery is impossible. Our corals had 16 to 50 times higher survival during lethal high temperature events. Coral reefs and coastal fisheries are vanishing rapidly. Current strategies to conserve and manage them are doomed to failure unless our technology is rapidly applied on a larger scale.

Next: The Carmelo Formation at Point Lobos: Reconstructing physical and biological processes in an ancient submarine canyon