Every year, Americans throw away tons of plastic.
In 2012, Americans dumped 32 million tons of plastic into the trash, according to an Environmental Protection Agency report.
While many plastic products are recyclable—and a percentage of what was disposed in 2012 was recycled—there are also many items, such as flower pots and styrofoam containers, that are not.
A process called pyrolysis may serve as a viable option to make the most out of non-recyclable plastic waste.
Al Jazeera recently reported on a company called Waste Technologies, which will produce petroleum with plastic waste through pyrolysis. This converts plastic into oil by dissolving waste products through heat in the absence of oxygen.
Moinuddin Sarker, owner of the company, anticipates the production of 20 to 30 million barrels of fuel per year with it. He is currently working with local sanitation companies to purchase their plastic waste.
Using this non-recyclable plastic to generate energy could be a beneficial process.
A study by the Earth Engineering Center at Columbia University projects that retrieving plastic buried in America’s landfills could generate enough fuel to power 9 million automobiles or electricity to heat 14 million homes for one year.
“Plastic is considerably higher in energy than coal and wood,” said Charles Mussche, one of the authors of the study. “[But] the companies are still in their kids’ shoes. They are getting into their teen years, but it is not a developed industry.”
The creation of plastic typically involves heating crude oil, cooling it and then throwing preservatives into the mix so it can maintain a shape.
Reverting plastic back to oil requires heating it between 707 to 752 degrees Fahrenheit in an oxygen-deprived area. It then turns into vapor that can be converted into liquid in the form of gasoline or diesel, among other fuels. This type of liquid can then be used right away into a machine with an engine, according to Sarker.
Another company, RES Polyflow, also generates energy using materials that are not easily recyclable. One of its goals is to convert an average of 5,000 pounds of waste per hour, which would produce 3 million gallons of fuel annually.
The company’s chief executive officer, Jay Schabel, told Al Jazeera that “if we can make plastic waste a valuable material, the benefit is that it’s less likely it’ll continue to pollute the environment.”
There are high hopes that this process will benefit the environment, but others are wary of potential consequences and of the process.
One concern experts have is that pollutants could emit more carbon and contribute to global warming.
Additionally, because facilities producing energy through waste products are still in their early stages, there is still uncertainty in how they will fare.
Environmental scientist Keith Weitz told Al Jazeera that federal regulations may hinder the profitability of businesses, such as those of Sarker and Schabel.
He wrote in an email to the news organization that “the synthetic oil produced by pyrolysis will likely require additional refining if it is to be used as a vehicle fuel. This increases the cost to facilities and consumes energy resources.”
Environmentalist Charles Moore who discovered the great Pacific garbage patch in 1997, said the goal should be to stop the production of plastic and that pyrolysis does not do this.
Similarly, energy expert John DeCicco from the University of Michigan said the process does not contribute to reducing carbon emissions.
Another worry environmental groups have is that the preservatives added to keep the shape of plastic when it is created turns into black char when it is melted. Both Sarker and Schabel, however, said char only makes up 2 percent of the weight of the plastic waste.
Although there are environmental costs to the procedure, Schabel said producing oil domestically should be viewed as an upside because petroleum will not need to be transported from across the globe.
(With reports from Al Jazeera)
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Weekend November 15-18, 2014 Sec. D pg.1)
