Plastic into Oil at Home !

[Katiusha]

Japanese company Blest came up with a converter of plastic back into oil in a table-sized unit! Š”Ž®‰ïŽÐƒuƒŒƒXƒg�|�»•i�î•ñ�@”pƒvƒ‰ƒXƒ`ƒbƒN–û‰»‘•’u �| And they sell small refiners too... Imagine all those plastic strewn beaches as a source for outboard gas and inboard diesel!

Energy consumption for the converter is decent, 1 kW/h with about 3 hour operating time and 80% efficiency.

I am thinking that a combination of converter and refiner might be a very good supplement for dessalinators on the out islands. Looks like Clear Oceans Project is/will be using the same combination for North Pacific Garbage Patch. If there was a similar org that would donate units to out islands together with solar setup... I haven't done the numbers to see if it's possible, but it would be so splendid if it worked!

It always pains me to arrive in a beautiful spot that is half hidden under plastic, to see coral reefs dying entangled in plastic bags and lost fishing gear, to find half-dead fish entangled in plastic... Maybe this technology, being fairly efficient and on a portable scale, would provide a solution?

[Don1500]

Sounds like a good idea. Since this is early in the development the 80% efficiency rating could be improved. Get it up to>90% and it could be viable even in 1st world countries. Have one in every garage. The house of the future might have an out building dedicated to producing oil, gas, and/or hydrogen. The new American Garden

[Katiusha]

Imagine soft drinks bottles advertising: "with our drink you will get x amount of gas for your car!" Collecting garbage would be profitable, eh?

[sdowney717]

Anellotech
Turns wood or plants into fuel using pyrolysis heat pressure and cheap catalyst

Anellotech, Inc.

biomass to fuel in one step, raw materials in one end, fuel out the other end.
right now $60 per barrel equivalent is break even, BUT I imagine this cost could drop.

[Chief Engineer]

Didn't they do something like this in Germany and France during WWII?

[sdowney717]

Germans were turning coal into oil.
Europeans folk due to fuel shortage, they burned wood and turned it into wood gas vapor to burn in internal combustion cars and trucks, but they did not turn wood or plants into gasoline.
ASFAIK.

[Katiusha]

But I loooove the whole idea of turning PLASTIC into oil at home. Have you ever noticed how much plastic there is in the sea? Especially once you leave heavily regulated areas of North America... It's like sailing in a garbage dump. And it won't get better because some plastic disintegrates (? - falls apart on molecular level) after 50,000 years and some never.

Biomass will fall apart on its own. Most plastic won't.

I am hoping that this will be a possible solution for having an incentive to clean up the plastic.

[Katiusha]

Did you know that all EU countries now follow very stringent garbage laws, especially as it applies to big cargo ships?
I talked with some marine officers and they say that for cargo ships sailing to/from European countries it's not feasible to give their garbage (sorted, unsorted - doesn't matter) to European ports. Ports charge excessive fees for garbage dumping, so a lot of cargo ships just throw their garbage overboard once they are out of territorial waters.

Having a machine that transforms plastic into oil fairly efficiently sitting in each port can provide a good reason for accepting garbage.

[Unicorn Dreams]

Reminds me of the Japnese scientist making lunch out of feces...

[ArtM]

I like it, but there are some unanswered questions here:
1) How poisonous are the "residues"
2) What happens if I accidentally try to recycle the wrong kinds of materials
3) How expensive and dangerous is it to maintain the chemicals, filters, catalysts, and wear components?

You might be as well off throwing that plastic into a simple furnace and driving the heat through a simple exchanger.

[sdowney717]

You might be as well off throwing that plastic into a simple furnace and driving the heat through a simple exchanger.

true, it simply burns to ashes, simple and effective.
IMO, most of the plastic waste in the water comes from the land, not from someone on a boat.

[sdowney717]

most all this plastic is land based, people living on the land throw their trash away and it eventually washes into the ocean. People in those poor countries, which is most people, since most people are poor, dont deal well with garbage, they cant afford too, it piles up and they are very trashy, dirty places. People threw-out history have piled trash into dumps and archaeologists dig into this trash to see what daily life was about. So trash dumps are part of the human experience and now part of the human experience is more and more poor people tossing out plastic where ever and whenever.

Plastic Pollution | Coastal Care

[sdowney717]

trash flowing from the land to the river to the sea from the poor countries where billions live out mean and stinky lives.
Are you going to be able to change their life, you very few rich people? Hardly. the rich people come up with schemes while the poor just live hand to mouth.

It appears these folk here are harvesting something from the trash , Trash pickers.

[sdowney717]

African Poverty Photos Life On Trash

African Poverty Photos Life On Trash | FuNsPeDiA...

People in Europe ship their trash to Africa. where it piles up in overflowing garbage dumps. It must be cheaper to do this than dealing with it locally.


I remember watching a video about the trash dumps in Africa and it was quite shocking to see so much electronic waste from all over the world coming to Africa.

here just watch this
FRONTLINE/World Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground | PBS

[Katiusha]

Originally Posted by sdowney717

true, it simply burns to ashes, simple and effective.
IMO, most of the plastic waste in the water comes from the land, not from someone on a boat.

....

People in those poor countries, which is most people, since most people are poor, dont deal well with garbage, they cant afford too

The whole idea here is to give an incentive (oil, diesel, petrol, or money from selling the above) to people on land to collect the garbage and use it instead of throwing it out.

Originally Posted by sdowney717

People in Europe ship their trash to Africa. where it piles up in overflowing garbage dumps. It must be cheaper to do this than dealing with it locally.

Turning plastic into oil might provide enough financial incentive to deal with garbage locally, which would be a great step to reducing the garbage flow.