/ck/ - Food & Cooking

Basic math.
Recycling plastic is very energy intensive.
Specific thermal capacity of polypropylene is roughly comparable to water.
To raise the temperature of 1 mol of water, pictured above, 1 degree kelvin, or celsius, it takes 75.3 Joules.
Water 75.3 J/°K/mol
Polypropylene 70 -80 J/°K/mol
Think how long it takes to boil a pot of water, the amount of energy it takes. From room temperature, assume 22°C, to 100°C is 78°C.
Thats 78°C x 75.3J = 5873.4J or 5.873 kJ.
And that's for the tiny little bit of water in the flask in pic related. 18.02ml.
Plastic, specifically polypropylene melts at a higher temperature than water boils. 130°C
Difference from room temp.108°C, -> 8.132 kJ to melt one of the lowest melting temp thermo plastics (Nylon melts at 220°C). Again, that's only for one mol of the stuff, like maybe the size of two or three bottle caps, smashed flat into one.
And this assumes 100% efficiency in heating.
Another thing to consider is the working temperature of these materials. The injection molds use a temperature much higher than it's lowest melting point. Also the mechanical energy it takes to make it flow into a mold. Meaning my napkin math is very, very heavily low balled.

Recycling plastic is good to keep it out of the oceans and out of landfills, but it takes large amounts of power. That power is made overwhelmingly in polluting sources, like coal powerplants. You are saving one pollutant in exchange for a larger portion of another.


>>15727188
>>15729166
>>15729549
You retards are peak Dunning-Kruger, bottom of the mid-wits.
It's not hard to work out anything if you aren't a zealot, worshipping the fantastical cock of your lord "Science" and zer's disciples, blindly.
Why take the words of another when you can educate yourself. And if you lack the ability to comprehend complex topics like these, why do you so vehemently pick a position on the topic and defend it with such self-righteous arrogance?