Combating oil spill problem using plastic waste

Junaid Saleem*, Chao Ning, John Barford, Gordon McKay

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

43 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Thermoplastic polymers (such as polypropylene, polyethylene, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and high density polyethylene (HDPE)) constitute 5-15% of municipal solid waste produced across the world. A huge quantity of plastic waste is disposed of each year and is mostly either discarded in landfills or incinerated. On the other hand, the usage of synthetic polymers as oil sorbents, in particular, polyolefins, including polypropylene (PP), and polyethylene (PE) are the most commonly used oil sorbent materials mainly due to their low cost. However, they possess relatively low oil absorption capacities. In this work, we provide an innovative way to produce a value-added product such as oil-sorbent film with high practical oil uptake values in terms of g/g from waste HDPE bottles for rapid oil spill remedy.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)34-38
Number of pages5
JournalWaste Management
Volume44
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Oct 2015

Keywords

  • Oil spill
  • Oil uptake
  • Plastic waste
  • Polymer film
  • Sorbent

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