Discarded X-mas cards can fuel 20 moon trips!

Dec 26, 2011 |

IANS

London

Tags:

Moon
Xmas

christmascards-wiki.jpg.crop_display.jpg

Discarded Christmas cards and wrapping paper can fuel 20 moon trips by a double-decker bus and back -- the staggering equivalent of 18 million km.

Imperial College of London scientists have shown how waste paper could be turned into high grade biofuel, with the help of micro-organisms, to power motor vehicles.

Some 1.5 billion cards and 83 sq km of wrapping paper are thrown away by British residents over Christmas.

This could provide five to 12 million litres of biofuel, enough to run a bus for for 18 million km. But they go into a landfill or are recycled in local schemes, according to an Imperial College statement.

"If one card is assumed to weigh 20 grams and one square metre of wrapping paper is 10 grams, then around 38,300 tonnes of extra paper waste will be generated at Christmas time," said study author Richard Murphy from the department of Life Sciences at Imperial College.

"Our research shows that it would be feasible to build waste paper-to-biofuel processing plants that give energy back as transport fuel."

"If this technology can be developed further, waste paper might ultimately provide a great, environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels," Murphy added.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/115835" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-b4de8f804f98fd0e5ffdf637b6a76824" value="form-b4de8f804f98fd0e5ffdf637b6a76824" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="86934694" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>