Reuse and recycling Flashcards
What is sustainable development??
an approach to development that takes account of the needs of present society while not damaging the lives of the future generation
Not all resources are renewable so its unsustainable to keep using them.
Name some ways resources are unsustainable
1) Extracting resources -> amount of energy used and waste produced = Unsustainable
2) processing resources into useful materials such as glass often uses energy made from finite resources = Unsustainable
Ways of reducing the use of finite resources
1) use less and reduce anything needed to produce it
2) Chemists can develop and adapt processes that use lower amounts of finite resources and reduce damage to the environment, for example chemists have created catalysts that reduce amount of energy required for certain industrial processes
What is Copper?
How can you improve its sustainability ?
Finite resource
Extracting it from low - grade ores ( ores w/o much copper in )
Ways of extracting Copper from low - grade ores ( ores w/o much copper in )
Bioleaching - Bacteria used to convert copper compounds in the ore into soluble copper compounds, separating out the copper in the process.
The leachate contains copper ions that can be extracted by displacement or electrolysis
Phyto mining - growing plants in soils that contain copper, plants can’t use or get rid of copper so they gradually build up in the leaves.
Plant harvested, dried and burnt in a furnace . Ash contains soluble copper compounds, copper can be extracted by electrolysis or displacement.
Advantage and disadvantage of using new methods of extraction rather than traditional methods of copper mining
Smaller impact on environment
they’re slow
Why is recycling metals important ?
1) Mining and extracting metals takes lots of energy, most of which comes from burning fossil fuels
2) Recycling metals often uses much less energy than is needed to mine and extract new metals, conserves the finite amount of each metal in the earth and cuts down on the amount of waste getting sent to landfills.
How are metals usually recycled ?
By melting and casting them into the shape of a new product
Depending on what the metal will be used for after recycling , the amount of separation required for recyclable metals can change.
For example : waste steel and iron can be kept together as they can both be added to iron in a blast furnace to reduce the amount of iron ore required
How can glass recycling help sustainability ?
Reducing amount of energy needed to make new glass products and amount of waste created when glass is thrown away
How is glass recycled ?
1) Glass bottles can often be reused without reshaping
2) Other forms of glass can’t be reused so they’re recycled instead - usually separated by colour and chemical composition before being recycled
3) glass crushed, melted to be reshaped for use in glass products such as bottles or jars. It might also be used for diff purpose such as insulating glass wool for wall insulation in homes
