The main sources of white pollution are food packaging, foamed plastic filling packaging, snack boxes and agricultural plastic films. White pollution is a unique environmental pollution in China. A large number of discarded plastic products can be seen everywhere in various public places. They come from nature and are made by human beings, but when they finally belong to nature, they are not easily absorbed by nature, thus affecting the ecological environment of nature.

From the perspective of saving resources, plastic products should be recycled as much as possible, because the main source is exhausted oil resources, but the production cost of recycling at this stage is much higher than the direct production cost, which is difficult to do under the current market economy conditions.

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On June 7, 20 16, Chinese and American scientists announced a breakthrough in the degradation of polyethylene waste plastics, which not only provided a possible new way to solve the pollution of waste plastics called "white pollution", but also the degradation products could be used to produce clean diesel oil and promote the recycling of carbon resources.

This study was jointly completed by Huang Zheng Research Group of Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Guan Zhibin Research Group of University of California, Irvine. Related papers were published in the new issue of the American journal Science Progress.

The "white pollution" caused by waste plastics is one of the most difficult environmental protection problems faced by all countries in the world. At present, most waste plastics are mainly treated by landfill and incineration, but the former occupies land resources and easily pollutes groundwater, while the latter increases carbon emissions and causes air pollution.

In the new research, scientists use the cross-alkane translocation catalytic strategy, and use cheap low-carbon alkanes as reaction reagents and solvents to carry out the recombination reaction with polyethylene, which effectively reduces the molecular weight and carbon chain length of polyethylene.

Low-carbon alkanes are a large number of by-products produced in the process of petroleum refining, which can not be used as fuel or natural gas and have very limited use value. Excessive low-carbon alkanes are like scissors, which are compounded with polyethylene for many times until polyethylene with molecular weight of tens of thousands or even millions is degraded into alkanes that can be used as clean diesel oil.

People's Network —— A New Way to Solve "White Pollution"

Baidu Encyclopedia-White Pollution