In Brazil, cigarette butts and coffee grounds are all treasures.

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Recently, a kind of green iron box with round holes appeared on the streets of many cities in Brazil. This eye-catching sign is the cigarette butt recycling box: smokers can put the cigarette butts into it, which can be recycled and sent to the factory for processing for papermaking, etc.

Turning waste into treasure and asking for energy from garbage, Brazil has made many innovations in "green" and "energy saving" in recent years. Recycling cigarette butts to make paper is its latest measure, and it is also a true portrayal of its environmental protection concept of "seeing potential and creating possibility".

Small cigarette butts save big trees

According to Therese Hoffman, director of the cigarette butt papermaking project and professor of the University of Brasilia, she applied for a registered patent with the Brazilian National Industrial property Association in 2003 and signed a patent license agreement with a company in the state of Sao Paulo in 2014. the company is specifically responsible for the recycling and disposal of cigarette butts. At present, cigarette butt recycling is being promoted in many cities across the country.

The main part of the cigarette butt is the filter tip, which is composed of cellulose acetate. After heating, drainage, stirring, compression, drying and other processes, the harmful substances in the cigarette butt can be basically removed, and the remaining fiber can be used for papermaking. There is a certain gap between this kind of paper and industrial paper in terms of color and feel, but it has attracted much attention because of its "humble" background. At present, this kind of paper has been used by Brazilian government departments and social groups. On this basis, Hoffman's team also successfully made colorful greeting cards, invitations, cartons, notebook covers and other items, the market is more promising.

Although the cigarette butt recycling box is small, it solves the big problem and can be said to kill many birds with one stone. One is to reduce pollution. Scientific research shows that the burning of a cigarette can release more than 4000 kinds of toxic substances, and a considerable part of them remain in the abandoned cigarette butts, which takes up to 5 years to decompose naturally, which does great harm to the soil. Take the author's state of Rio de Janeiro as an example, which has about 2 million smokers and produces an average of 42 million cigarette butts a day, up to 15.33 billion a year. Brazil has 27 states and federal districts, and this figure is expected to increase several times nationwide. The second is to cultivate the concept of environmental protection. Since Rio de Janeiro introduced the Zero garbage Act in 2013, more than 30, 000 people have been fined for littering cigarette butts in the three years to 2016, totaling more than 5.1 million reais (9.2 million yuan). In the "trivial matter" of throwing cigarette butts, the punishment is actually "blocking", and effective recycling is "sparse". The recycling box not only establishes the recycling industry chain, but also helps to cultivate people's concept of environmental protection. The third is to turn waste into treasure. If 7 sheets of A4 photocopy paper are produced per 300 cigarette butts, the state of Rio de Janeiro can produce 980000 sheets per day, or 357.7 million sheets per year. A tree weighing about 100kg can make about 10, 000 sheets of A4 paper, and Rio de Janeiro is equivalent to cutting down 35770 trees a year. In addition, cigarette butt papermaking has a magnifying effect. The recycled cigarette butts can be used not only for papermaking, but also for cement, fertilizer and so on. Inspired by this, the Brazilian central bank also has a way out of the large amount of paper money that has been eliminated from the market. Much of Brazil is located in the tropics, sweat and moisture usually lead to a life span of only two years, and through recycling, a large number of banknotes that have been withdrawn from circulation have been turned into treasures.

"squeeze the sugar to the end."

"turning waste into treasure" is a new topic in Brazil. In 2007, for example, Brazil used vegetable oil used in restaurant and household cooking to build factories to produce biodiesel, thus reducing the environmental pollution caused by the flow of waste cooking oil into rivers and seas through sewers.

Examples of waste utilization abound, and bagasse is a typical one. Brazil is a major producer and exporter of sucrose and ethanol in the world, but 140 kg of bagasse is produced for every ton of sugarcane processed. Traditionally, the main method of bagasse reuse is combustion to generate electricity, but the stacking of a large number of unburnt residues still seriously pollutes the environment. At present, bagasse and residues have a new way out.

In 2012, Brazil successfully converted bagasse waste into carbon fiber materials. As an advanced material with a wide range of industrial applications, the strength of carbon fiber can reach 10 times that of iron and steel, and its ductility and elasticity are better. Traditionally, carbon fiber is generally produced from oil and natural gas, and many additives must be added. The production of carbon fiber with bagasse can not only reduce the dependence on petrochemical raw materials, but also obtain environmental benefits, and its cost is much lower than that of petrochemical carbon fiber.

The unburnable residue can be used to make "green cement". The cement industry is a major polluter, accounting for 5% to 7% of human carbon dioxide emissions. Using the residue of bagasse incineration to make cement can greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The process of processing bagasse is relatively simple, fast and low energy consumption. the production cost of this "green cement" is only 10% of that of traditional cement, and its service life is longer than that of traditional cement. Based on a 15 per cent proportion of bagasse residue in the cement mixture, Brazil could also reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 3 million tonnes a year.

The best use of coffee grounds provides another example of evidence. Brazil consumes about 700000 tons of coffee a year and dumps hundreds of thousands of tons of coffee grounds. As garbage, coffee grounds are most fully developed, so coffee is gloriously blooming into the "second spring" and even the "third spring" and "the fourth spring".

Coffee grounds can filter clean water. Coffee grounds can absorb pollutants such as toxic metals and pesticides, which is more effective than activated carbon commonly used in the market. As a cheap raw material for filtering water, coffee grounds are three times more effective than activated carbon. The coffee grounds have to go through three stages before being processed into a "coffee pie" that can filter water, each of which can turn waste into treasure: the first step is to extract 15% of the coffee oil, which can be used in the food industry, biofuels and daily cosmetics; the second step is to extract the coffee flavor, which can be used in the food industry; the third step is to extract fertilizer ingredients, which can be used in coffee production. Since then, coffee grounds has become a tasteless "coffee pie", coupled with cotton cloth and plastic bottles, can effectively filter water. "Coffee pie" can be used in both waterworks and ordinary families. For the latter, each "coffee pie" can last for about a year and a half.

Roast meat with coffee grounds is more than one stone. In September 2016, the author witnessed the whole process of roasting meat with cylindrical coffee grounds in a slum in Rio, the first experimental site in Brazil. When coffee grounds are filled with 10% sawdust, they release as much energy as charcoal, and the coffee-scented barbecue tastes better than charcoal, just as Xinjiang barbecue is more enjoyable because of its red willow fragrance. After the coffee grounds are burned, the ashes can also be used as fertilizer. In this way, coffee grounds are no longer "dregs" and have been transformed into biofuels and fertilizers that release energy.

Brazil is the first country in the world to make biofuels from coffee grounds. The picture shows Brazilian chefs using cylindrical coffee grounds kebabs with sawdust. Photo by Chen Xiaowei

In the "coffee kingdom" of Brazil, the folk also keep pace with the times. many "recipes" have been developed to make the best use of coffee grounds: flower fertilizers, composting materials, deodorants for refrigerators and shoe cabinets, floor seam repellents, bedroom pesticides, kitchen deodorants, furniture and color dyes, garden cat repellents, etc. Just like the salt, tea and vinegar we use in our daily life, it has a wonderful effect, almost "omnipotent".

See the potential and create the possibility

The fact that Brazil has turned waste into treasure is not the result of "thinking about change when poverty leads to change". In terms of resources, Brazil is "not short of money".

Today, Brazil is a country with only a handful of land and abundant resources. Its natural resources are estimated to be the seventh in the world, but this ranking is actually much higher, taking into account the low costs of exploitation, transportation, storage and use of resources, as well as the diversity, balance and independence of resources. Brazil has the fifth largest land area in the world, but it has a high proportion of effective use area, which belongs to the standard "dig what you have, grow what you grow". The unique natural conditions and the unusually rich resources per capita make outsiders "envy and hate" but also can't help sighing that "God is a Brazilian".

However, instead of sitting idly by, Brazilians aim at the ultimate goal of "how much energy can come back" and attach importance to turning waste into treasure and developing more and cleaner sources of energy. In the face of this priority, everything else must give in. To this end, the number of environmental legislation in Brazil has increased to more than 20,000, far ahead of other countries in the world. At the opening ceremony of last summer's Olympic Games, Brazilians used dazzling projections to reveal cruel environmental problems and sent a clear message to the world that we lack electricity not because of poverty, but at the expense of the environment. At this point, foreign companies in Brazil all have an unforgettable experience and the feeling that "EIA is fiercer than a tiger". It is because of the persistence of the Brazilians that the Amazon rainforest, the "lungs of the earth", has been basically preserved. In this sense, the whole world wants to say "thank you" to Brazil.

Making garbage burn and "dedicate" for life is far more sustainable than blindly developing existing resources. In fact, this is also the proper meaning of "making the best use of things". The topics of "green", "energy saving" and "environmental protection" are related to the survival and development of mankind as a whole. Brazil provides a template for this strategic subject: to see potential, you have to create possibilities.