A use for waste plastic

[Bumblebeebob]

This is encouraging, a process which converts waste plastic to fuel. Being used in China where most of our plastic recycling ends up! Maybe we can eventually recover it from landfill?

EDP24 - How plastic bags could solve fuel crisis

[Mercadante]

So we can burn some more fossil fuels? I don't think this is really good news.

[Bumblebeebob]

It's got to be better than dumping it though. Agreed ideally it would be better not to produce it in the first place but this is human nature we're talking about!

[Meta menardi]

So you take oil, make it into plastic, use it once, then turn it back into oil. I can see that there is some sense in not wasting plastics, but there seems to be a flaw in there somewhere.

I do take your point about human nature though.

So my collection of very scratchy vinyl could see me buzzing round the... Supermarket car-park?

[m1.carson]

No I don't think so,

Someone was manufacturing fuel from waste chocolate, [I know ladies, a terrible waste ], but it needed 16,000 bars to fuel my car for work for a year, 6,000 miles.

Max.

[Gill Catton]

but isn't plastic a waste product of the hydrocarbon industry anyway?

I don't think its evil stuff - is only how it is disposed of that's awful -

Otherwise it is water proof and can be moulded into any shape for any use, it is usually lighter than steel or wood - can take less energy to produce or recycle or even transport than those things too and can be recycled loads and loads of times into new things, I actually think its too valuable a resource even to burn away to nothing - You wait, it will be some point in the future even in in our lifetime when we are actively mining for the stuff out of landfil.

The replacement fabrics are not necesarily any greener - look at 'plastics' based on corn starch - corn is a food stuff right? Already in demand for food and now biofuels too and can you imagine the extra stretch if we decided we needed corn to make replacement plastic too?
Surely all that would mean would be higher food prices and more rainforest chopped down. How is that significantly better than utilising an aspect of the oil industry which is happening anyway?
- I am rather dismayed that we are still searching for new oil reserves within national parks - I'd rather than money was thrown and research into renewable and sustainable energy resources because if we can't live within our means then we're doomed. (which actually I believe is almost certainly the case!)

BUt while we are still using oil to make fuel, if plastics really are rather a by-product why not continue to produce them? What I feel we should be concentrating on is where plastics end up and on keeping out oceans clean of them.

[Bumblebeebob]

That's a good point, why waste it as a fuel where it will be lost to the atmosphere when it can re-processed and then re-used as some other plastic item. After all, fleeces are made from recycled plastic bottles.

[forfi]

Last price I saw was $800 tonne for plastic bottles,but thats a lot of coke to drink
But not all plastic wastes are nice and cuddly,have you ever seen old silage wrap? mucky yucky and covered on old cow dung? Way to go there from my point of view is incineration.Incineration to cut out too many fussy and expensive recovery steps.[Expensive in time and energy] but this must be done with heat recovery so as to save the oil equivalent. Incineration can be clean if the rules are adhered to [ I wrote a paper on this many years ago,sorry ,its not on google ] . I see this road as much safer and cleaner than landfill which is a last resort.

[gaviston]

I've made a luxury yaught out of plastic bottles and spit mixed with Red Leicester cheese. It should hold up when the big storm hits and also provide basic food and water needs. I've already tested it by going across to France, adding many little fans and frogs taped together, and it did well.

[Dutchess]

Originally Posted by gaviston

I've made a luxury yaught out of plastic bottles and spit mixed with Red Leicester cheese. It should hold up when the big storm hits and also provide basic food and water needs. I've already tested it by going across to France, adding many little fans and frogs taped together, and it did well.

What are you like??????

pmsl

D.