Research on white pollution (1)

First, what is white pollution?
When white pollution is mentioned, no one may not know them. In our daily lives, all kinds of discarded plastic bags, disposable lunch boxes, and films for agricultural plastic greenhouses belong to the category of white pollution. But if you ask about its exact definition, I am afraid that few people will be able to say it. So, what exactly is white pollution? The so-called white pollution refers to the environmental pollution caused by the disposal of plastic products made of polyethylene and polystyrene after they are used. They are not all white, but because the “typical” disposable plastic lunch boxes and plastic packaging bags are mostly white, this has had such a “name”. Since disposable lunch boxes are the most common sources of white pollution in our daily lives, our team mainly studies them.
Second, the use of disposable plastic lunch box status and harm Today, polystyrene snack box has become part of our daily lives, whether it is a luxury hotel, or street food stalls; whether it is a bus station, or an airport, everywhere Can see their shadow. The material used to make disposable plastic snack boxes is polystyrene, which is an extremely versatile polymer material. Because of its low toxicity, high melting point, strong plasticity, and easy production, it is an excellent material for disposable lunch boxes that are inexpensive to produce and disposable. According to statistics, there are more than 10 billion such lunch boxes consumed each year in the country, and only over 400,000 are used every day in Nanjing. The “white waste” that Shanghai produces every day is as much as 200 tons... Disposable plastic boxes The use of a wide range, the huge amount of this can be seen in general.
However, it is such a widely used material that has become a major enemy of environmental protection.
Due to the extremely long degradation cycle of polystyrene-made lunch boxes, its degradation cycle can be as long as 200 years under normal circumstances. In other words, in a very long period of time, it will "go it its own way" and keep its polymer form unchanged.
So what should be done with those discarded lunch boxes? Burn it? No. When they burn, they will produce more than 10 kinds of toxic gases, which will directly cause air pollution. It will not work if they bury it. In order to shape the material, various types of additives must be added during the production process. Over time, some of the toxic additives will be gradually released, causing damage to the soil and water resources; then, recycling and reuse will be necessary. Unfortunately, they are available. The value of regeneration is extremely low, not to mention how much volume and quality of small-sized lunch boxes are recycled every day! In addition, Freon, which is used as blowing agent, is recognized by the scientific community and causes irreversible damage to the Earth’s atmospheric ozone layer. The culprit.
It can be seen that the difficulty in degrading disposable plastic lunch boxes is a major cause of “white pollution”.
Not only that, Freon, used as a foaming agent, has been recognized by the scientific community as the "culprit" of irreversible damage to the Earth's atmospheric ozone layer.
Disposable plastic lunch boxes can cause great damage to the environment. Is it absolutely harmless to the human body?
The facts tell us that the answer is not the case. A new scientific research shows that the raw material for making disposable plastic lunch boxes: Polystyrene is a carcinogenic environmental hormone material. Experiments have shown that such dishes can cause the production of dioxins at high temperatures below 65°C, which was the "most vicious" carcinogen ever mentioned by the media.
Not only that, as the Chinese government is beginning to restrict the production of disposable plastic lunch boxes, it is very likely that the market will use lunch boxes made by illegal underground processing plants. As a result, product quality, especially hygiene, has also become a problem.
In summary, disposable plastic lunch boxes have great harm to the environment as well as to the health of the body.