What is your long-term choice?
Dear Friend,
During the festive season, we decorate our homes, and Christmas trees with glitter. Glitter is plastic and because of its minute size, is very likely trapped between our carpet fibers or consumed by our beloved pets. For these reasons, the EU has now banned glitter: it is not biodegradable; it is erroneously consumed by fish who think it is food; this then makes its way up the food chain eventually reaching us and harming our health etc[1].
In an alarming study published recently in the journal proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences[2], even the water we drink is not exempt. Researchers from Columbia University have been able to analyse the hundreds of thousands of nanoparticles of plastic found in plastic bottles of the drinking water we each routinely carry with us each day; particles so infinitesimally small that they cannot be seen under a microscope and minute enough to invade our cells, carrying potentially damaging chemicals into our organs and throughout our bodies.
Not only do we consume an estimated 1,3 billion plastic bottles of water per day with little understanding of the potential long-term damage to our health, but plastics in general have come to play a central role in our lives, from storage and preservation right through to the purchasing power of the credit card. However, the continued blind use of plastics with no thought of future consequences has resulted in the crisis of plastic pollution that we now face, with mountains of plastic waste on land and sea.
This has led some scientists to examine the problem and come up with fresh and innovative ideas.
Earlier this year, a Rice University team of researchers serendipitously discovered a method, through low-emissions, to harvest high-yield hydrogen gas and high-value graphene from plastic waste[3]. In order to upcycle the waste into graphene, flash Joule heating was applied and gas emissions were observed. Kevin Wyss, a Rice doctoral alumnus, predicted that if the graphene produced were to be sold at a minimal price, then clean hydrogen could be produced at no cost.[4]
Chemistry Professor Greg Liu of the Virginia Tech College of Science observed, in turn, the similarity on a molecular level between polyethylene and the fatty acids that are a precursor to soap, with the latter having an extra group of atoms at the end of the chain. Through a cleverly built oven, he and his team worked out how to burn the polyethylene and halt the process in the middle, forming wax molecules ready for soap making. Through saponification they then created the first soap upcycled from plastics.[5] This technique can be used on both polyethylene and polypropylene and any combination thereof which makes it easy to upcycle. Lead author on the paper Zhen Xu said, “This will enlighten people to develop more creative designs of upcycling procedures in the future.”[6]
In Amsterdam, a city strongly committed to green principles and to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by up to 90% by 2050, an innovative collaboration called Plastic Whale Circular Furniture, has set out to solve what it refers to as the “plastic soup problem” by collecting the inevitable build-up of plastic bottles and other plastic waste products in the Amsterdam canal. Using boats that have been made out of recycled plastic, the Plastic Whale company (the first arm of the collaborative venture and first “plastic fishing” company) gathers the waste from the canal with the aid of citizens of Amsterdam and then Vepa, the second arm of the collaboration, creates high-end office furniture from it. This exciting venture benefits the community, the environment and recycles waste into an aesthetically pleasing and useful product.[7]
It is becoming more and more evident that we cannot continue to choke our land and our waterways (clouds, springs, streams, rivers, lakes, seas and oceans) with plastic. We can no longer choke our organs with plastic. We need to refine or move on from plastics into more natural products that support our life cycles, like glass, cotton and recyclable paper. We need to mitigate what we have created and take responsibility for our choices by finding creative recycling and upcycling projects, and this recent research is showing us some viable ways.
If we take seriously our commission to be caretakers of this planet, then we need to keep our thought forms linked to those of Higher Intelligence who will guide us through a greater repository of Knowledge for the greatest Good of all. In this way we can embody the reality that we are transducers of solutions from Higher Thought-Forms even while we live in this world of challenges, for Key 110:21 tells us … [We] can then enter into that dimension where all life motion becomes the Eternal unfoldment, where all is currently being lived, currently being recycled, for the universe has all ideas stored in the Eternal Mind of reflection and revelation.
As sons and daughters of the Divine Light, let us be guided by the illumination of the Shemesh Yahweh, the Sonship of Yahweh, through the Eternal Mind in a life of service to all of our fellow creation. Let the days of our lives be part of the ongoing recycling and transformation of our reality back into the perfection of the original Blueprint of Life.
With Love and Blessings
[1] https://phys.org/news/2023-12-glitter-ready-made-microplastic-pollutiontime-ditch.html
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/08/health/bottled-water-nanoplastics-study-wellness/index.html
[3] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/adma.202306763
[4] https://techxplore.com/news/2023-09-hydrogen-plastic-pay.html?fbclid=IwAR15rUU650GlVMjLk2Y0td0YauSi1mVKhj-PBoJtQ4bv_x6pthYpICeg22E
[5] https://phys.org/news/2023-08-method-upcycling-plastic-soap.html
[6] Zhen Xu et al. 2023. Chemical upcycling of polyethylene, polypropylene, and mixtures to high-value surfactants, Science (2023). DOI: 10.1126/science.adh0993
[7] https://www.greenmatters.com/home/2018/03/07/1PsNYP/furniture-canal-amsterdam
