| From The Newspaper (16) Environment (6) |
January 7, 2023
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| He watched a special TV program about the 'greenhouse effect' during the New Year holidays, and he came to realize some of his misunderstandings about this issue. He had thought that the percentage of emissions of methane gas in the world was low, so its effect was not so big (for example, cows' belching was considered as a big problem), but he was wrong because the program explained that methane gas affects 25 times more than CO2 for the greenhouse effect. The program's name was '2030 ~ Crossroads for the Future'. That program stated that there are 1.4 billion cars in the world, which is 10 times more than 60 years ago. Electricity consumption per year has become 25 times more than it was 70 years ago. And, it has exceeded the capability of the forests and the seas in the world to absorb that amount, so the temperature has been going up. Another of his misunderstandings was that he had thought that the problem of plastic waste was separate from CO2 emission. But, the program said that plastic is one of the major reasons for CO2 emissions. This is because in order to make plastic and plastic products, a lot of energy is used and CO2 is produced. To come to think of it, making plastic products is the easiest, and probably the cheapest, way to package products. Because of this, a lot of temporary plastic products like PET bottles, egg containers, trays for meats,  small bags of candies, etc. are used. He brings out his plastic wastes for reuse to the garbage bin regularly. But, the program said that only 9 percent of plastics are collected for reuse in the world. It seemed to be too small because he brings a lot of plastic things in several plastic bags from the supermarkets, expecting they would be reused suitably and come back soon. He checked on the internet and found an information article entitled 'Basic understanding of recycling plastic 2022' published by Plastic Cycle Association. He read that in this country there was about 8.2 million tons of waste from plastics in 2020. Half of these were from businesses, and the other half were from houses and offices. 86 % of those plastic waste were reused in 2020. He felt that it might be false information as the association might have received a subsidy from the government. He closely read and found what was the false information. 21% (from the total of 8.2 million =1.73 million tons) were reused as the same type of materials. The other 65% (5.37 million tons, in total 86% is counted as reuse) were used as a material for energy, mainly to make gas and energy like electricity. The other 14% was unused, 8% was just burnt, 6% (670,000 t) was reclaimed. The document added about the breakdown of the 1.73 million tons of recycled plastic. Reused plastics were about 80% (1.38 million tons), and the loss of plastic in the process, surprisingly, was 20% (350,000 t). The breakdown of the 1.38 million tons was PET bottles (490,000 t), package films (250,000 t), packing for electric appliances, etc. (160,000 t). Trays of Styrofoam were only 10,000 t. In his case, half of his plastic wastes were trays. So, he wondered and tried holding a PET bottle and a tray and realized that the tray was rather light. The TV program said that 36% of plastics were used for containers & packages, 16% for building constructions (various materials of insulation), and 14% for synthetic fiber (mainly for clothing). Now he understood that even if all of the plastics were transformed to the original amount of materials, there would still be that extra additional energy that was used to have created more CO2 emissions for only one use. The TV program introduced one solution, a new business model for plastic wastes. A company in the US started a new kind of subscription based "recycling system". The company asked various makers to cooperate. The new company produces non-temporary containers with fashionable designs and logos of the makers, and sells their products in those bottles. The intermediate company collects these empty bottles in a special bag in front of the subscribers' house. They then specially wash them and send them back to each maker, each maker fills the bottle in their product and sends it back to the intermediate company, which then delivers those products to the subscribers' house. This is a kind of a subscription model. He thought that it was a good system both for the customers, because of no difficulties, and for the makers, because they could make sure of their monthly sales. |
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No. 503
*temporary :一時的な、仮設の、臨時の
*bring out :運び出す
*reclaim :埋め立てる
*Styrofoam :発泡スチロール
*insulation :断熱材、絶縁体
*synthetic fiber :化繊
*intermediate :中間