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from the save-the-plant-collect-the-whole-set dept.
Have you ever wondered what happens when you put plastic in the recycling bin for collection? It probably goes straight into the garbage tip with the rest of the trash. Up to a short time ago, countries like China offered a decent price for usable plastic, but those deals have dried up, leaving many countries with millions of tonnes of plastic and few solutions to deal with it.
Now, Australian company Licella says it has created a system that can recycle all types of plastic, even to the extent of creating oil that can be turned into bitumen, petrol or back into different kinds of plastics.
His Catalytic Hydrothermal Reactor (Cat-HTR) does just that through a form of chemical recycling that changes the plastics at a molecular level using hot water at a high pressure to turn them back into oil.
[...] Dr Humphreys said the Cat-HTR technology he and his co-founder patented was different from existing plastic-to-oil technologies like pyrolysis, which is a process that involves heating materials at a very high temperature.
Unlike traditional physical recycling, it does not require plastics to be separated according to type and colour, and can recycle anything from milk cartons to wetsuits and even wood by-products.
It also means plastic products can be recycled again and again.
But he said the bigger problem to address is our over-consumption of plastic.
The process of turning rubbish into fuel may sound familiar to sci-fi fans. In the film Back to the Future the time machine car uses garbage as fuel.
The industry has been widely described as in crisis, with a[n Australian] Senate report last year stating that "enormous quantities of recycled material, particularly materials collected through kerbside recycling, are now being stockpiled at great risk to the health and safety of local communities. Moreover, quantities of otherwise recyclable material are being sent to landfill".
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Wednesday November 20 2019, @07:07PM
Agreed on the incentive to not purchase recyclables. Like tariffs, recycling surcharges at time of purchase would make non-plastic packaging more attractive to the consumer on a cost basis.
Also agreed; if there is no incentive/penalty at the time of disposal then the consumer may simply absorb the tax as part of normal inflation and continue to send plastic to the landfill. I've heard that Norway is successful at encouraging separation of compostables from other waste via a hefty fine. Glass/metal/paper are also separated from the waste stream, and there are recycling drops on nearly every street corner to make dropoff easy; not sure if there are fines on those. I do know that several municipalities incinerate their waste, converting it to electrical power for a profit; the fines on mixing wet waste with dry is justified by pointing out that it poisons the incinerator and reduces the effectiveness of the burn.
TL; DR:
I think you're right that there are business cases for processes like this. It requires public goodwill and the right regulatory framework, so mileage may vary by community.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin