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303elliott t1_ircj3ow wrote

I've never thought about that, pretty interesting stuff. If I had to guess, I would say the overall pollution of pipe repair with this method is still less than the pollution of dredging up an entire city block to replace the sewer pipes, not to mention the added cost of the latter. However, more data is almost never a bad thing, and I'm glad someone is doing this research.

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kazyllis t1_ird01zq wrote

Ya, this seems like a pretty good solution and I’m wondering why they don’t just capture the emissions with a device of some sort.

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303elliott t1_ird112w wrote

My guess would be prohibitive costs. Nano plastics are tiiiinnnnyyyy, as such they are incredibly difficult to capture. Additionally, there's probably very little incentive to even try.

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SandDuner509 t1_irdf3eu wrote

Air filter might do the trick

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SpecialOops t1_irdfc1g wrote

Water capture.

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SmarkieMark t1_irdnukz wrote

r/stonerengineering

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SeeMarkFly t1_irdh41q wrote

While trying to filter tiny particles, you also catch all the bigger particles, clogging your filter up really fast.

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Bones_and_Tomes t1_irdj4p9 wrote

Water filtration might help. Bubbler?

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SeeMarkFly t1_irdjqzc wrote

A water curtain wouldn't clog up but then what? Now you have to store the contaminated water or filter particles out of the water in real-time (same problem as before but now wet).

Flushing it down the drain was the original problem.

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EmperorGeek t1_ire8dwb wrote

Saw a technique where they add something like a flocking agent to the water to cause clumping of micro plastics into manageable blobs. Don’t remember if the article discussed the super-fine particles.

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SeeMarkFly t1_iretf8c wrote

I've seen that used in filtering deep-fat fryers. A binding agent is added to the oil that clumps the small particles together. A larger mesh filter can then be used to get most of the small particle contamination.

And because the process we are talking about is NOT continuous but a short process, that would be a good solution.

Would you like some fries with that?

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EmperorGeek t1_irf31ld wrote

Mmmm … Mom says I ate enough plastic fries as a kid!

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Bones_and_Tomes t1_irdxoi6 wrote

Sure, but keeping them in the sewer is preferable to floating about in the air. Microplastics are probably better dealt with at water processing plants.

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FishinWabigoon t1_irecw8a wrote

But then we need nano filters that run the entire city's waste through them to capture these sewer repair nanoplastics. The filters would clog.

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Bones_and_Tomes t1_irer5i9 wrote

So how do we fix this problem. Obviously in an ideal world the microplastics wouldnt get into the water in the first place, so are they more destructive floating about in the air or in water?

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EmperorGeek t1_ire8hjd wrote

From the sewer they get into the ocean don’t they? (Or are at least released to the local aquifer at some point?)

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Bones_and_Tomes t1_ire9coz wrote

They should run through a water treatment plant first.

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EmperorGeek t1_ireae3w wrote

“Should” but there are a lot of storm drains that lead straight to bodies of water.

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Dry-Conference4530 t1_irdwx8d wrote

Could use a chemical to cause the particles to bind together in a holding tank.

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knselektor t1_ire2ovu wrote

congeal the particles with a gel, like clearing a consomme

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pipnina t1_ireel9c wrote

Can either boil the water off or centrifuge it perhaps?

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cheezemeister_x t1_iref9ms wrote

Multilayer filters solve this problem.

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SeeMarkFly t1_irf6fts wrote

Yea, that would work.

I have always worked on large continuous air flow systems and multiple filters are even more expensive than single filters for my applications. Hence I shy away from them.

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Lizasmuffmuncher t1_ireazmy wrote

If micro-plastics are that small just imagine these nano-plastics!

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303elliott t1_irenst6 wrote

If you think that's bad, wait until you hear about Planck plastics!

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jpr64 t1_irdt5kw wrote

> I’m wondering why they don’t just capture the emissions with a device of some sort.

I do drain replacements in an earthquake damaged city in New Zealand. Show me the device and we’ll use it.

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Skud_NZ t1_irdv4a3 wrote

Do you know what the common repair technique is they're talking about? I'm guessing it involves heat and is done while water is still in the pipe.

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jpr64 t1_irdvwpu wrote

Cast in place lining. There’s a few methodologies about using plastics, fibreglass etc. Typically you would put in a bung upstream to stop water/waste flowing down in the process.

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Skud_NZ t1_irdy6b7 wrote

Thanks. I make polyethylene pipe as a job but have no idea about installation/repair really

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jffrybt t1_irdk2up wrote

That’s likely hopefully the should-be-takeaway from this study.

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No-Comparison8472 t1_ircygm5 wrote

Don't under estimate nanoplastic pollution severity though, it is really bad. But you are right that total emissions should be accounted for

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303elliott t1_ird02la wrote

I didn't mean to come across as underestimating the severity of that issue, however I don't see this as being anywhere near a major contributor. If we are going to start taking micro plastic pollution seriously, there are hundreds of worse offenders to tackle before we reach this industry

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Nonanonymousnow t1_ird3eea wrote

God I wish the world would adopt and abide by paretos for things like global warming, water usage, etc ...

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Travianer t1_irdfb6k wrote

What do you mean by this?

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mauxfaux t1_irdfre9 wrote

I think (?) he means that by identifying and actually addressing the 20% of the known worst offenders in each category, we would likely eliminate 80% of the problems associated with each category.

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round-earth-theory t1_irdfw2e wrote

Everyone's favorite fabric is a major source of these fibers.

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Illustrious_Crab1060 t1_irjdcjq wrote

Good for temperature regulation and not freezing to death after sweeting but bad for the environment and us eventually

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manfre t1_ire3ivj wrote

There may be worse industries, but we shouldn't ignore/defer smaller contributors. We can work on improving any we identify in parallel.

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Due-Enthusiasm5656 t1_ird5x2c wrote

Couldn't they just add something at the end to help absorb the nanoplastics?

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303elliott t1_ird7wty wrote

Possibly, but I doubt they have incentive to do it. Not that I agree with it, but construction projects are focused on being as cheap and simple as possible.

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[deleted] t1_ire1caz wrote

Too bad "not spewing nano plastic into the atmosphere" doesn't count as incentive

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tilfes t1_iredevv wrote

I can't see it, it's not there :)

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Miguel-odon t1_irdmdy7 wrote

Slip-lining is far less expensive than digging up the streets to repair and replace old utilities (for situations it is even applicable).

Probably time to reconsider the compounds we use in lots of things, now that we know more about them though.

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jpr64 t1_irdtbm2 wrote

In the US it is, in other countries, not so much. My city was devastated by earthquakes in 2010-11 and we are still repairing damaged drains. For us it is generally cheaper to dig up and lay new drains. Part of the problem is that the existing drains have lost their fall so relining them is fairly pointless.

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