Re: Another BBC story to add a comment to....

In article <slrn.2006-06-29.14-47-05@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Ben Shimmin
<bas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Advanced
Limb Protectors use polycarbonate and high impact ABS in the manufacture

Well, as a design engineer interested in using the right plastic for the
right job, I was going to make a similar comment to the above, e.g. both
being tough materials but not the same.

However, on the matter of "greenness", recycleability or whatever,
a. Can either of these materials be recycled
i.e. are they thermoplastics or whatever?
b. I am interested in the chemistry of polycarbonate. It is an unusual
sort of name for a plastic.
c. Presumably, the source material for one or both these materials is
petroleum. At worst, could they be incinerated at high temperature, and the
energy used ?
The problem with this is, of course, and assuming it is possible, at
low temps dioxins are produced, I think, and at very high temperatures lots
of Nitrogen oxides of one sort or another.

The other day, my wife and I were having some early afternoon tea. Gazing
towards Gloucester she saw a fire. "Probably E. (a farmer) burning some
rubbish."
But time went by, perhaps 5 min. and the smoke grew and grew. This was a
very large fire.
I got a map and from where we were to the SW reckoned it was on a line
Gloucester, Staverton, Cheltenham.
We later discovered that 150 Portaloos had gone up. I wonder waht they are
made of. The smoke was black and dense, and, fortunately for us, the wind
was from the SW.

John N.

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