Algae Oil, Lignin, Plastics, Waste: The Digest’s 2021 Multi-Slide Guide to Conventional Fuels from Unconventional Sources

April 06, 2021

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by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) Southwest Research Institute’sEloy Flores, Assistant Director R&D in Chemical Engineering, shared this illuminating slide guide on SwRI’s work with alternative fuels technology and all steps from idea/concept, engine testing to pilot plant, scale up and transformation to the commercial plant. READ MORE

Malaysia sends back over 300 containers of illicit plastic waste (Yahoo!/Reuters)

Excerpt from Yahoo!/Reuters: Malaysia became the destination of choice for the world's plastic waste after China banned imports in 2018, but is struggling to fend off a deluge of generally unlicensed unrecyclable garbage.

New U.N. rules on the trade of hazardous waste under the Basel Convention came into force on Jan. 1, intended to discourage the production of hard-to-recycle plastics and to prevent rich countries dumping trash in the developing world, where it often ends up polluting the local environment and the ocean.

Signatories to the Convention may only trade plastic waste if it is clean, sorted and easy to recycle - unless the importing country has granted an exemption.

In a statement on Tuesday, Environment Minister Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man noted how much illicit waste Malaysia had succeeded in intercepting, and promised that shipping companies or agents who broke Malaysia's environment and import laws would face "strict action".

The United States, which produces more plastic waste per capita than any other country, is the only major nation not to have ratified the Basel Convention. However, under the treaty, Malaysia cannot accept prohibited plastic waste from the United States.

(Reporting by Mei Mei Chu; writing by A. Ananthalakshmi; Editing by Kevin Liffey) READ MORE