With the continuous increase in plastic production, the cost is getting lower and lower, a large number of agricultural films, packaging plastic bags and disposable plastic tableware that we have used are abandoned in the environment after use, causing great damage to the landscape and the environment. . As plastic packagings are mostly white, the environmental pollution they cause is called "white pollution."
The potential hazards of "white pollution" are manifold.
1. Disposable plastic lunch boxes and plastic bags contain food that seriously affect our health. The Beijing Consumers Association has issued a consumer warning: When the temperature reaches 65°C, harmful substances in the disposable foam plastic tableware will infiltrate the food, causing damage to the human liver, kidneys and central nervous system.
2. The deterioration of the soil environment has seriously affected the growth of crops. Abandoned agricultural film and plastic bags in the field will remain in the field for a long time, which will affect the permeability of the soil and impede the flow of water, thus affecting the absorption of water and nutrients by crops, inhibiting the growth and development of crops and reducing crop production.
3. Landfilling is still a major method of handling urban waste in China. After the landfill site is soft, the harmful substances such as bacteria and viruses in the waste can easily infiltrate into the ground, contaminating groundwater and endangering the surrounding environment. If the waste plastic is directly incinerated, it will cause serious secondary pollution to the environment.
So, how to prevent "white pollution"?
1. Stop using disposable cutlery and ultrathin plastic bags. Since disposable plastic tableware is difficult to degrade, green cutlery, paper cutlery, is now used in many cities. However, many environmental experts believe that it is not wise to use paper cutlery instead of foam plastic tableware. First, paper cutlery also brings visual pollution. Second, when making paper cutlery, it is bound to cause a large amount of wood consumption, leading to increased deforestation. Thirdly, pulp production has always been a big water consumer, a big energy consumer, and a big emitter.
2. Recycling and recycling of waste plastics is the fundamental way to solve “white pollution”. After the waste plastics are recycled, they are classified, cleaned, and then melted by heating to become products again. From the perspective of composition, polyethylene, polypropylene, and polystyrene are all composed of hydrocarbon elements, while gasoline, diesel, and other fuels are also composed of hydrocarbon elements, but the molecular weight is small. Therefore, these types of plastics are insulated from the air and heated to high temperatures to crack them, and the pyrolysis products are fractionally distilled to obtain gasoline and diesel.
3. Research and development of degradable plastics. There are three types of degradable plastics: photodegradable plastics, biodegradable plastics, and double degradable plastics. However, many degradable plastics are not 100% biodegradable now. They only change plastic into plastic fragments. At present, degradable plastics in the world are still far from being used on a large scale, and the development and use of degradable plastics can only be used as a supplementary measure to solve “white pollution”.
4. Strengthen environmental protection propaganda, enhance citizens' awareness of environmental protection, and form a good environmental protection atmosphere in the society, which is the prerequisite for solving the “white pollution” and other forms of pollution. For example, to recycle waste plastics, it is necessary to implement a garbage collection and packing system and put different types of waste in different garbage cans. This requires us to have a highly conscious awareness of environmental protection.