Recycling Plastic Waste
long standing successful
Plastic Commodity Recycling
is widely misunderstood.
How do we address the leftover residual materials, hard to sort or just mixed plastic waste streams that are difficult to
recycle in a traditional mechanical recycling method ?
What's the
Problem
What's the
Solution
What's the Problem . . .
- misconception that plastic is not recyclable
- the identifying number put on products for the type of plastic the product is made of is misleading as this implies that all plastics can be recycled
- micro plastics / plastic particles --- tiny plastic particles that can be harmful to the environment and animal health
- plastics in the ocean
- plastics with contaminants and additives can't be recycled
- single use plastics - plastics don't break down so they remain forever -- Single-use plastic products are used once, or for a short period of time, before being thrown away.
- the inability of municipal waste recycling facilities to manage recycling vs. disposal of plastics
- it takes to much energy to recycle plastic
- The same piece of plastic can only be recycled about 2-3 times before its quality decreases to the point where it can no longer be used
- greenhouse gas emissions of partial recovery approaches, gasification & syntax production of combustion fuels
- partial chemical recycling approaches, polymers to monomers
What's the Solution . . .
Overview of the Solution pathway
- total thermal reduction of plastics with conversion into pure fundamental elements.
- carbon emission free fuel to power the thermal reduction process
- hot gas refining
- hydrogen production, CO2 reduction to solid carbon
Overview of the Solution Steps
In an attempt to explain with a broad general overview of the Mixed Plastic Waste Recycling pathways
that may provide a solution to the
Problem.
STAGE # 1. - Raw Plastic Wastesteams
- incoming raw feedstocks of mixed plastic wastes may be generated for any combination of post consumer or industrial
wastestreams including MRF rejects.
STAGE # 2. - Thermal Reduction Process
- the mixed plastic wastes are treated in a closed system with high temperature in the absence of the free flow of oxygen
which converts the plastics into a stream of Hot Gas and separates any solid residues.
STAGE # 3. - Hot Gas Refining
- the hot gas stream contains mainly a mix of hydrocarbons, CO2, Water Vapor and a small quantity of other residues,
these items are segregated in the refining process.
STAGE # 4. - Hydrocarbon Splitting
- the mixed hydrocarbon stream may be processed into any number of hydrocarbon derivatives,
but the preferred pathway is Hydrocarbon Splitting for the production of clean Hydrogen and solid carbon.
Material Recovery Yields
