With regard to plastic recycling, do you know what they do with it? Is there some chemical process to turn it back into convenient oil for reuse? How much energy does it take? Will there be a temptation to landfill the lot if the energy cost of recycling is too much relative to buying a fresh barrel of oil?
I'm just wondering if recycling is ironically making the energy crisis worse...
Thanks for the explanation rb. It fits in with the bits and pieces I've picked up very well.
Tess, there is a process that can turn plastics (and most other carbon based materials) back into oil. Trial plants have been running in the USA for a couple of years now but the processs doesn't scale up very well. IIRC Warren Buffet has invested money in it so we'll see what happens.
Our Council want to spend some number of millions that temporarily eludes me (I think 7 thousand over 25 years?) on an incinerator. This will of course completely kybosh any incentive for recycling anything.
The irony is that our recycling infrastructure, rates and public enthusiasm are all really good at the mo. If it ain't broke...
Candy, would that be the proposed Allerton Park incinerator that’s just 3.5 miles away for my house?
Let nobody suppose that simple, inexpensive arrangements are faulty because primitive. If constructed correctly and in line with natural laws they are not only right, but preferable to fancy complicated devices.
Rolfe Cobleigh
RenewableCandy wrote:Our Council want to spend some number of millions that temporarily eludes me (I think 7 thousand over 25 years?) on an incinerator. This will of course completely kybosh any incentive for recycling anything.
The irony is that our recycling infrastructure, rates and public enthusiasm are all really good at the mo. If it ain't broke...
Are some councils exploiting loopholes in the Feed-in Tariff by including these incinerators as Anerobic Digesters?
If this is the case, it would help explain why Candy's local council want to spend that amount of dosh on an incinerator rather than invest a lot less into upgrading its MRF.
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools - Douglas Adams.
With regard to plastic recycling, do you know what they do with it? Is there some chemical process to turn it back into convenient oil for reuse? How much energy does it take? Will there be a temptation to landfill the lot if the energy cost of recycling is too much relative to buying a fresh barrel of oil?
I'm just wondering if recycling is ironically making the energy crisis worse...
Thanks for the explanation rb. It fits in with the bits and pieces I've picked up very well.
Tess, there is a process that can turn plastics (and most other carbon based materials) back into oil. Trial plants have been running in the USA for a couple of years now but the processs doesn't scale up very well. IIRC Warren Buffet has invested money in it so we'll see what happens.
I don't know about the UK of course but here in the US a lot of recycled plastic is just remelted and formed into something useful that doesn't deal with food. One common shape is the spacer blocks for highway guard rails, a job that used to be done by a 6"x6"x18" pressure treated wood block. The RC plastic block has a interior honeycomb for strength and tabs to keep it aligned straight between steel post and rail panel. At 845 blocks per mile of rail and three pounds of plastic per block you can use up tons of old plastic bottles etc. in a hurry and save a bit of forest from an early cut. Job I'm on now has grown to 45,000 feet or so of this rail with a block every 6'-3", for a four mile stretch of four lane highway.
