From garbage to fuel: Santa Cruz nonprofit pushes program to turn plastic ...
Plying through the infamous "Garbage Patch" in the North Pacific, a solar-powered catamaran gobbles up fishing nets, plastic bags and Styrofoam blocks, and then shoves them into a high-temperature cooker to convert the litter to fuel. This fuel propels the boat farther to devour more plastic - until every large piece has been scooped up.
It sounds like an environmentalist's dream. But it's the ambitious mission of the Santa Cruz nonprofit Clean Oceans Project, which six months ago teamed up with a Japanese manufacturer and a San Jose distributor, E-N-ergy, to bring plastic-to-fuel technology to the Monterey Bay.
The project was founded three years ago by ocean conservationists Nick Drobac and Jim "Homer" Holm, who hope to convince investors and donors of the feasibility of cleaning up plastic pollution and creating fuel at the same time. The proposed solution addresses one of the world's biggest environmental problems: A non-biodegradable material that clogs landfills and waterways, strangles wildlife and contaminates food sources.
In fact, any hope that we have of resolving the mounting global water shortage will depend heavily on both cleaning up existing water sources and recycling the wastewater we currently produce – two jobs that will translate into big opportunity for
The commercial printing industry is among the worst industrial polluters. Apart from the destruction of forests (to obtain wood pulp to make paper), the sector releases polluting wastewater and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which pose health risks