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How to Resolve the Plastic Crisis

With Suggestions From 2016

By Iria Vasquez-PaezPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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Resolving the plastic crisis is something more think tanks need to be thinking about but also actually doing something about it, not just talking about it and doing nothing. Survival on this planet is rather harsh despite all modern conveniences that we can afford to use. The plastic crisis is reaching epic proportions here. We need to get civilians out there by having a company build a fleet of ships as well as submarines for civilian use so that we can clean up the garbage. We are digging ourselves into a premature grave daily.

Other solutions that are not my own come from this website: Triple Pundit. The oceans of our planet are something we cannot afford to quit paying attention to. The boat idea would be a new branch of the Armed Forces, the seafaring branch since the Coast Guard is not dedicated to cleaning up the planet. The Ocean Cleanup is a non-profit that raised $2.2 million so that founder Boyan Slat would design a way to clean up the oceans. The v-shaped array would push plastic to the center, as we would use ocean currents to help us clean up the plastic instead of letting ourselves be victimized.

The Ocean Cleanup has been testing the pilot barrier since 2016. Low-tech ways of removing the garbage, however, are invented by Andrew Turton and Pete Ceglinski, who have invented the Seabin, a device that gets attached to an unused corner of a marina or port. The shore water pump creates a flow of water into the bin, which causes a gathering of bottles, bags, and other garbage pieces. The surfing duo has raised more than $250,000 on Indiegogo according to the above 2016 article.

Other recently invented devices include Baltimore, Maryland’s Inner Harbor Water Wheel which lifts trash and debris, from water which dumps it into a dumpster barge. The wheel uses the river’s current to turn itself. Ghost Gear refers to abandoned fishing equipment such as nets, line, rope, or traps, which mark 10 percent of global marine litter. The ocean ecological crisis is but one crisis since this needs to be one crisis at a time for those of us who want to resolve it because there may be money in changing plastic back into oil. As it is, plastic can be turned back into oil. Plastic can be made back into diesel, kerosene, and gasoline.

As a species, we have to work on drastically reducing our plastic pollution. The process to turn plastic back into what it was made from is called pyrolysis, designed to break down this plastic. Yet we are still drilling into Earth’s crust. Incinerating plastic may not be the best situation we could be facing on this planet. The population of this planet keeps growing since we have 7 billion people on it. The problem with that is we have to come up with better ways of disposing of our consumerism plastic use. Appallingly, only a small percentage of plastic gets recycled (PC Mag). Plastic is heated to 500 degrees Celsius (932 degrees Fahrenheit).

The oil that is created through this process is called Plaxx, and so for every 7,000 tons of plastic burnt, you get 5,000 tons of Plaxx. What we need to do as a species is set a goal for when our oceans will be entirely cleaned up, hence my idea for civilian ships and submarines working to resolve the plastic crisis as well as making Plaxx from the plastic they do retrieve. The machine used to melt down the plastic is called RT7000, which needs to be invented by 2025 according to CEO of Recycling Technologies, Adrian Griffiths, whose team invented the RT7000 in the first place. We are slowly coming up with solutions to the plastic problem as a species but I would like to know what we come up with to get the rich oil tycoons to quit using oil from the earth’s crust and use alternative fuel sources.

Works Cited

http://www.eco-business.com/opinion/heres-a-solution-for-the-global-plastic-and-energy-crises/

https://www.pcmag.com/news/353516/new-recycling-process-turns-waste-plastic-into-oil

https://www.sciencealert.com/holy-crap-watch-this-guy-turn-plastic-back-into-oil

(https://www.triplepundit.com/2016/02/innovative-solutions-to-the-ocean-plastic-crisis/).

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About the Creator

Iria Vasquez-Paez

I have a B.A. in creative writing from San Francisco State. Can people please donate? I'm very low-income. I need to start an escape the Ferengi plan.

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