...size varies from source to source some even claiming that it is twice the size of France. It is currently floating halfway between Hawaii and San Francisco, California. Charles Moore, a retired furniture restorer and volunteer environmentalist was returning home from a Hawaiian sailing race in 1997 on a 50 foot catamaran. On a whim he decided to cut across the edge of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, a place that sea goers avoid. Here sea currents bring debris from the Pacific coast of Southeast Asia, North America, Canada, and Mexico. Currently 90 percent of this debris is plastic, an astounding difference from 50 years ago when almost all of it was biodegradable. Currently sea life is severely affected by this floating disaster. They are starving and dehydrated which has lead to them dying. Some animal die what they ingest plastic thinking it was food or get it caught around their neck. Plastic chips are coating the beaches; some so bad that you have to dig down to actually find sand. I am stunned to be honest. After thinking it through I really shouldn’t but somehow the degree to which we harm our environment and ourselves surprises me each time. We need public awareness. People where scrambling around when they thought Y2K was going to happen but when it is ‘just the environment’ there is only a little help here and there. We need to recycle more and manage our waste. Fine those who are not recycling items that can be recycled, money is the best way to motivate the...
Words: 325 - Pages: 2
...Plastics in the Oceans We live in an increasing disposable world. Everything from food to electronics ends up in a landfill somewhere. We are always looking for newer and better products to replace what we already have. The consequences of this behavior are resulting in more and larger landfills, toxic water and a myriad of other problems. With our growing population and excessive consumption, the items we use everyday are becoming disposable so the garbage problem continues to expand exponentially. It is a readily accepted fact that plastics has made our lives both easier and safer, but, at the same time, has also left a damaging imprint on our environment and even our health. The waste management industry has done a very clever job of keeping the inner workings of landfill disposal cloaked in secrecy. As a result we give less and less thought to what actually happens to all the trash we throw away every day. Our culture of convenience is so dominant we do not even see the consequences of our actions. Journalist and filmmaker Heather Rogers, in her essay “The Hidden Life of Garbage” takes us on a journey of garbage disposal that most of us never think about once we take the trash to the curb. She explains one particular method that should give us all pause for thought: In new state-of-the-art landfills, the cells that contain the trash are built on top of what is called a “liner.” The liner is a giant underground bladder intended to prevent contamination of groundwater...
Words: 1498 - Pages: 6
...Map the Supply Chain Paper My significant other and I recently decided to watch a documentary that changed our outlook on an item everyone uses every day, plastics, specifically plastic bottles or bags. In the Pacific Ocean there is a place called the plastic island. This place is a generalized area near midway where the currents drag plastic bottles and other plastic items into. It’s a lull in the middle of the ocean where they all collect. Tons of plastic, from bottles to bags to buoys and computer monitors that are plastic float to this area and are collected onto the beach and piled up. They affect the wildlife, and kill coral reefs. Plastic bottles are one of the most widely used items today to make up all our soda bottles, water bottles and other consumables and we end up using them quick and throwing them away only to pollute the environment. I will map out each step in the supply chain of the water bottle industry. The first stage where all plastics come from is petroleum, though there are other options available the basic form of making plastics comes from petroleum, this is drilled out of the ground mostly from oil platforms in the ocean. At this point all the oil that is pumped out is stored on the platform or piped across the sea floor to a holding tank. The oil is unrefined petroleum oil that can be used for a multitude of products though it needs to be refined and impurities taken out to make it into those products. The next stage of...
Words: 954 - Pages: 4
...Is recycling becoming a familiar habit? [Writing suggestion: Unless in a quote or a title, avoid rhetorical questions in academic writing. A good idea is to provide answers, not questions] Jason Smart COM/156 January 20 2013 Elizabeth Lennon Is recycling becoming a familiar habit? Individuals and large companies are bearing in mind the advantages of going green. There are several statistics that verify the rise of recycling among large companies and individuals. There has been a two year jump in recycling of household containers twice as much as 2008. Statistics show that 29 percent or 238.8 million pounds of non-bottled plastics were recycled in 2010. All though the data about recycling in enlightening, there are still millions of us tossing harmful chemicals in our garbage. There are still items such as discarded bleach bottles, detergent bottles, and commonly used household cleaning chemicals. We may think that it is acceptable to toss these empty chemical bottles in the trash, but it is not because they still contain residue from the compound products. According to EHS (Environmental Health and Safety) rinse procedures should be as followed. All chemical containers, liquid or solid, must be rinsed 3 times before being discarded. A rinse should consist of minimal water being sloshed around the container. The first rinse should be collected as chemical waste, it can be put into any waste container of compatible chemicals, the second and third rinses can then...
Words: 1505 - Pages: 7
...Bio 324 12/01/12 Plastics in the ocean Imagine the massive breadth and spread of our great state of Texas. Now imagine every milli-inch of that piled high with trash: bottle caps, cigarettes, cigarette lighters, tampon applicators, plastic nets, discarded flip flops, Frisbees, soda bottles, milk jugs, diapers, six-pack rings, busted tennis rackets, empty pens, shampoo bottles, empty squeeze bottles of jam, you name it. Now take that image, double it, and plunk into the water. That's what is floating around the eastern corner of a 10-million-square-mile oval known as the North Pacific subtropical gyre. Nicknamed the "Eastern Garbage Patch," this buoyant stew of toxic pollution-most of which is plastic-is only one of five such garbage heaps caught in the swirling high-pressure currents characteristic of gyres. The others reside in the South Pacific, the North and South Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean. And each year, perhaps unwittingly, each one of us adds to plastic to the heap. Plastic makes it into our oceans in a variety of ways. About twenty percent of it comes from goods lost from boats: i.e. accidental loss of fishing tackle and other recreational gear, massive shipping containers carrying millions of plastic items washed overboard during severe storms; litter from pleasure boats, or illegal dumping of unwanted goods. Beachgoer’s debris is also a contributor. The other eighty percent is swept in from land. Just as Nonpoint Source Pollution from fertilizers...
Words: 1188 - Pages: 5
...McGraw-Hill Companies srl 540 APPENDIX B Cases TREXEL We’ve never met a customer who wasn’t interested in our technology. —David Bernstein, CEO of Trexel David Bernstein hung up the phone with Alex d’Arbeloff, Trexel’s largest investor, and contemplated an upcoming Board of Directors meeting scheduled for June 25, 1998. The meeting was only 10 weeks away and Bernstein, Trexel’s president and chief executive officer, needed to present a coherent vision of the company’s new strategy. Bernstein believed that Trexel’s patented technology for manufacturing foamed plastics had the potential to revolutionize much of the worldwide plastics industry. His innovative process technology, known as MuCell, allowed the Woburn, Massachusetts company to produce foamed plastic utilizing 25% to 50% less material than traditional solid plastics without a significant decrease in the strength of the plastic. Bernstein believed the market for products produced via this technology could be in excess of 50 billion pounds of material per year representing potential worldwide annual revenues of over $100 billion. To date, Trexel had entered into numerous development partnerships with manufacturers, but no commercial products had made it to market. Bernstein was torn between his desire to pursue a variety of applications for the technology and the view of...
Words: 51437 - Pages: 206
...Plastic Bags: Cause for Concern Todd Kuchelmeister May 30, 2012 As man continues to develop and his knowledge grows he will continue to be the dominate species on earth. His ability and desire for finding ways to make his life easier have produced many new and innovative things. From electricity to automobiles to fulfilling his dream of putting men on the moon, man has always strived to overcome those things which had earlier seemed impossible. However, with all new the developments that man has accomplished most have come with a downside for the environment. Electricity depending how you produce it has a downside, Nuclear energy comes with radioactive rods that take thousands of years to lose it radioactivity. Coal fired plants cause destruction of to the ecosystem and the emissions pollute the air. Solar and Wind are still in their infancy but their current issues seems mainly to be in the sheer numbers needed to produce enough electricity for an average sized city. One of mans greatest inventions was plastic, its invention back in 1855 called Parkesine has developed into mans most widely used products. Its invention has made man’s life not only easier but safer as well and is even used in the effort to keep people alive. However, as with all of man’s greatest inventions it has a dark side. Polyvinyl Chloride or PVC has phthalates that leech out of the PVC and into our bodies ("Life less plastic," 2007)....
Words: 1361 - Pages: 6
...500 extraordinary islands G R E E N L A N D Beaufort Sea Baffin Bay vi Da i tra sS t a nm De it Stra rk Hudson Bay Gulf of Alaska Vancouver Portland C A N A D A Calgary Winnipeg Newfoundland Quebec Minneapolis UNITED STATES San Francisco Los Angeles San Diego Phoenix Dallas Ottawa Montreal ChicagoDetroitToronto Boston New York OF AMERICA Philadelphia Washington DC St. Louis Atlanta New Orleans Houston Monterrey NORTH AT L A N T I C OCEAN MEXICO Guadalajara Mexico City Gulf of Mexico Miami Havana CUBA GUATEMALA HONDURAS b e a n Sea EL SALVADOR NICARAGUA Managua BAHAMAS DOMINICAN REPUBLIC JAMAICA San Juan HAITI BELIZE C a r PUERTO RICO ib TRINIDAD & Caracas N TOBAGO A COSTA RICA IA M PANAMA VENEZUELA UYANRINA H GU C U G Medellín A PAC I F I C OCEAN Galapagos Islands COLOMBIA ECUADOR Bogotá Cali S FR EN Belém Recife Lima BR A Z I L PERU La Paz Brasélia Salvador Belo Horizonte Rio de Janeiro ~ Sao Paulo BOLIVIA PARAGUAY CHILE Cordoba Santiago Pôrto Alegre URUGUAY Montevideo Buenos Aires ARGENTINA FALKLAND/MALVINAS ISLANDS South Georgia extraordinary islands 1st Edition 500 By Julie Duchaine, Holly Hughes, Alexis Lipsitz Flippin, and Sylvie Murphy Contents Chapter 1 Beachcomber Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Aquatic Playgrounds 2 Island Hopping the Turks & Caicos: Barefoot Luxury 12 Life’s a Beach 14 Unvarnished & Unspoiled 21 Sailing...
Words: 249855 - Pages: 1000
...生產與作業管理期末報告 Case Study: Hot Spot Plastics Company 0013142陳品翔 0013116廖冠倫 0013148 邱聖凱 0013151 林梓洋 PARTⅠ Company introduction: Hot Shot Plastics Hot Shot Plastics, Inc. filed as an Articles of Incorporation in the State of California and is no longer active. This corporate entity was filed approximately fourteen years ago on Monday, June 05, 2000, according to public records filed with California Secretary of State. Products: Manufactures processed plastics Plastic cutting machinery, Plastic grinding machinery, Rubber or plastic mills, Rubber or plastic extrusion dies, Plastic injection molds, Thermoforming molds, Ejector pins, In mold decoration IMD cylinder, Blow molding machines, Coating machines, Extruders. PARTⅡ Case introduction: Plastics keychains are being produced in a company named Hot Shot Plastics. The plastic material is first molded and then trimmed to the required shape. The curetimes (which is the time for the plastic to cool) during the molding process affect the edge quality of the keychains produced. The aim is to achieve statistical control of the curetimes using X̅- and R-charts. Questions: 1. Prepare X̅- and R-charts using these data with the method described in the chapter. Solution: Factor for Determining from R̅ the Three-Sigma Control Limits for X̅- and R-Charts | | Factors for R-Chart | Number of observations in each samplen | Factor for X̅-ChartA2 | Lower Control LimitD3 | Upper Control LimitD4 | 4 | 0.73 | 0 | 2.28...
Words: 648 - Pages: 3
...Effectiveness of Shredded Plastic Cups as an Additive in Making Decorative Garden Tiles CHAPTER I A. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY B. RESEARCH PROBLEM General Problem: How effective are shredded plastic cups as additives in making decorative garden tiles? Specific Problems: 1. How effective are shredded plastic cups as additives in making decorative garden tiles in terms of compressive strength? 2. How effective are shredded plastic cups as additives in making decorative garden tiles in terms of durability? 3. How effective are shredded plastic cups as additives in making decorative garden tiles in terms of load bearing capacity? C. RESEARCH OBJECTIVE General Objective: The primary concern of this study is to determine the effectiveness of compressed plastic bottles as fillers for pathways. Specific Objectives: 1. To determine the effectiveness of shredded plastic cups as additives in making decorative garden tiles in terms of compressive strength. 2. To determine the effectiveness of shredded plastic cups as additives in making decorative garden tiles in terms of durability. D. To determine the effectiveness of shredded plastic cups as additives in making decorative garden tiles in terms of load bearing capacity. E. HYPOTHESES It is hypothesized that: 1. The shredded plastic cups have no significant effect as additives in making decorative garden tiles in terms of compressive strength. 2. The shredded plastic cups have no significant...
Words: 1601 - Pages: 7
...is improving Hartman industries LLC. Hartman is a leading company in the field of plastic instillation molding. The powerful tools and state of the art design skills provided by Hartman attracts worldwide acclaim. The Hartman business model dedicates itself with attention to detail, great precision, and high superiority control standards are the assurances of Hartman Industries LLC. Mainly, our group of consultants will pinpoint a quality management system to help recover the organization’s faults to reestablish endless upgrading. We will reveal the selected system, and summarize the requirements for our recommended management system. After discussing the recommended system for improvement, we will transition to the advantage influence of the selected system. Our main objective is to show a confident benefit, so that the organization is ready for a successful future and to approve of the proposal’s deliverables. A thorough implantation plan is critical to deliver quality development and to reach set benchmarks and project deliverables. Lastly, our consultant team will provide illustrations of the quality tools and adjustments Hartman can plan to incorporate for isolating and decreasing process patchiness. Hartman Industries, LLC supplies plastic injection molding of high quality. Throughout the duration of the plastic injection molding business, the company has produced their plastic pieces in three different plant locations Georgia, Michigan, and China. The attainment...
Words: 318 - Pages: 2
...Review of Related Literature Introduction: Prepaid cards are made out of plastic and other synthetic materials chosen from a variety of cardboard, PVC, PET and Polystyrene. It can be plenty found everywhere especially at present because of the cell phone and as a need of the people especially in their cell phones. Because of the growing population, moreandmore make use of cell phones and the domino effect is the high quantity of used prepaid cards trashed in the environment, which is bad and has no good effect on us. Thickness Because it is made of such materials stated above, it is said to be durable and a good insulator. IV: Prepaid cards are made out of plastic and other synthetic materials chosen from a variety of cardboard, PVC, PET and Polystyrene. DV: Roof serves as support, outer layer of any building, serves as insulation, and drainage. In most countries, a roof protects primarily against rain. Depending upon the nature of the building, the roof may also protect against wind. Roof cannot provide the enough insulation to keep a room free from the heat from the sun. That is why the used of thatch, a natural fibrous material have excellent in… Synthesis of the review: Prepaid cards are made out of plastic and other synthetic materials chosen from a variety of cardboard, PVC, PET and Polystyrene, which is a good insulator. Plastic on the other hand is strong like the containers made out of it. Prepaid card as an Additive in Roof Making ...
Words: 1202 - Pages: 5
...Riordan Manufacturing, Inc. leads the industry in plastic injection molding. Riordan has six manufacturing locations in the United States, and one location in China. Riordan creates innovative plastic designs using state-of-the-art technologies that have earned them international acclaim. The various business entities of Riordan Manufacturing are using different Financial and Accounting applications and their incompatibility is causing many issues in the day to day operations of the company. In order to improve the productivity and efficiency of the business entities, Riordan management is considering outsourcing the Financial and Accounting Application for all the business entities. Outsourcing this application can provide specialized support, can increase the speed for a quick turnaround, and can reduce costs for maximized profits. This document provides the business context, implementation plan, performance measures and review of the costs and benefits of the proposed solution. Business Context Riordan Manufacturing has three operating entities, and a joint venture with their own Finance & Accounting Systems. These F&A systems are not compatible with each other, and they are from different vendors, and on different hardware and software platforms. Consolidated financial reports are generated monthly at the corporate office based on the input received from the business entities. Due to compatibility issues, Riordan is experiencing many operational difficulties...
Words: 284 - Pages: 2
...Abstract Conductive polymers or, intrinsically conducting polymers (ICPs) are organic polymers that can have metallic conductivity or semiconductivity via conjugation and co-doping. Polypyrrole (PPy) as a kind of heterocyclic conjugated conductive polymers is considered to be the most prospective electric conductive polymer due to its relatively high conductivity, stability, and other characteristics. Recently, PPy /magnetic nanoparticles composite materials have become a research hotspot, for its potential application in electromagnetic shielding, molecular electronics, nonlinear optics, absorbing materials, etc. The preparation of this material is mainly through in-situ polymerization. The polymer wrapped around nanoscale magnetic particle via particle-substrate interaction to form a core-shell structure of polymer /magnetic nanoparticles composite materials. But study also shows that this kind of polymer coat may reduce the saturation magnetization of the magnetic nanoparticles. Three methods—chemical method, electrochemical and O/W microemulsion synthesis method were used to synthesize different structural types of PPy. The Four probe method shows that it has good conductivity (793.7 S.m-1).The TEM indicates that the PPy synthesized through O/W microemulsion has better controlled nano size and thus we chose the PPy synthesized by O/W microemulsion to interact with magnetic Co nanoparticles via ligand substitution reaction. The PPy/ magnetic nanoparticles composite material...
Words: 280 - Pages: 2
...Introduction: Polymer is a kind of long, large molecules which have a repeating pattern according to the monomers they are made of. Each pattern These sub-units are typically connected by covalent chemical bonds and each polymer consists roughly of between a thousand and a million monomers. The polymers were commonly found in the nature (e.g. animals, plants). Meanwhile, the polymers were produced synthetical a lot to create different kinds of plastics. Vinyl, neoprene, polystyrene, nylon are very common synthetic polymers and Polyaniline (PANI) is also a conducting polymer. Polyaniline is among a family of conductive polymers, and has properties similar to some metals. It was discovered as “aniline black” in an organic form as part of melanin, a type of organic polymer in 1934. Melanin does many things in nature, including protecting the skin by regulating UV exposure through a polyaniline interaction. In a natural form, polyaniline is usually found folded with other polymers. In the late 1990s it became evident that polyaniline was a flexible and highly useful polymer, and could be used in applications ranging from intelligent windows to computer chips. Polyaniline is a unique type of polymer because it is a type of semiconductor. Polyaniline can be configured to conduct across a wide range, from being utterly non-conductive for insulation use to highly conductive for other electrical purposes. Polyaniline, like other polymers, is highly flexible, which makes it appealing...
Words: 657 - Pages: 3
