How Your Old CDs and DVDs Can Save the Environment
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iStock/Thinkstock(KENT, Ohio) — Still trying to figure out what to do with all those CDs and DVDs that have collected in your living room and den?
If you’re so inclined, pack them up and ship them off to Mietek Jaroniec, a chemist at Kent State University, who together with fellow U.S. and Polish researchers has come up with a way to fight climate change using discarded CDs and DVDs.
Jaroniec says that disc fragments can be processed into activated carbon with large surface areas and volumes of fine pores that actually capture carbon dioxide.
Using this method, the researchers are able to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere, a key greenhouse gas.
This activated carbon from optical discs is also good for absorbing both hydrogen and the carcinogenic compound benzene.
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