Wear and tear from tyres significantly contributes to the flow of (micro-)plastics into the environment. This paper compiles the fragmented knowledge on tyre wear and tear characteristics, amounts of particles emitted, pathways in the environment, and the possible effects on humans. The estimated per capita emission ranges from 0.23 to 4.7 kg/year, with a global average of 0.81 kg/year. The emi...

Over the past century, plastics have infiltrated all aspects of human life. From the plastic shrink wrapping that protects food from bacteria and fungus, to the Styrofoam cup that keeps coffee hot and soft drinks cold, to the life-saving medical equipment found in hospitals and doctor’s offices, plastic is everywhere. However, the popularity of plastics comes at great cost. Most plastics are de...

Extrusion is one of the most important production methods in the plastics industry and is involved in the production of a large number of plastics commodities. Being an energy intensive production method, process energy efficiency is of major concern and selection of the most energy efficient processing conditions is a key aim to reduce operating costs. Extruders consume energy through motor op...

The present work is devoted to the study of the decontamination of chars obtained in the co-pyrolysis of plastics, biomass and tyre wastes. The chars were extracted with several organic solvents of different polarities either individually or in sequence. The ability of each selected extractant to remove toxic pollutants was evaluated by comparing the extraction yields and by characterizing the ...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study is to evaluate carcinogens and occupations suspected to cause lung cancer and to generate new hypotheses about occupational risks. METHODS In a hospital-based study 1004 incident lung cancer cases and the same number of population controls matched for region, sex and age were interviewed between 1988 and 1993 for their smoking and occupational history. Exposur...

Sandwich construction is widely accepted as a method of construction especially in the aircraft industry. It is a type of stressed skin construction formed by bonding two thin faces to a thick core, the faces resist all of the applied edge loads and provide all or nearly all of the required rigidities, the core spaces the faces to increase cross section moment of inertia about common neutral ax...

Marine debris has been found in marine animals since the early 20th century, but little is known about the impacts of the ingestion of debris in large marine mammals. In this study we describe a case of mortality of a sperm whale related to the ingestion of large amounts of marine debris in the Mediterranean Sea (4th published case worldwide to our knowledge), and discuss it within the context ...

Biodegradable plastics are those that can be completely degraded in landfills, composters or sewage treatment plants by the action of naturally occurring micro-organisms. Truly biodegradable plastics leave no toxic, visible or distinguishable residues following degradation. Their biodegradability contrasts sharply with most petroleum-based plastics, which are essentially indestructible in a bio...

1 Definition of bioplastics The two main groups of bioplastics are biobased polymers and biodegradable plastics. Biobased polymers are derived from biomass sources, which are not necessarily biodegradable. Biodegradable plastics, on the other hand, can be either made of natural or fossil sources. In 2012, the IUPAC recommended a terminology for biorelated polymers [1, 2]. Two further, special c...

Carbon black was investigated to assess and quantify the possibility that nanoparticles might migrate out of plastic materials used in the food packaging industry. Two types of carbon black were incorporated in low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and polystyrene (PS) at 2.5% and 5.0% loading (w/w), and then subjected to migration studies. The samples were exposed to different food simulants accordi...