Is Plastic Fuel in our Future? By Larry DeRidder

We’re increasingly seeing pictures of beaches all over the world simply covered in plastic which has washed ashore. As described in our August 2017 newsletter, it is estimated that 8.8 million tons of used plastic are washed out to sea each year. As much as that is, it’s dwarfed by the 30 million tons of plastic which end up in landfills each year. An interesting solution is being worked on by Cabrillo College (Santa Cruz) and other universities in California, North Carolina, and Illinois, and commercial enterprises. They’re working on a way to convert plastic waste directly into fuel. The technology vaporizes plastic, condenses it into a liquid, and then distills it into gasoline or diesel fuels, and lubricating oils. If the technology can be made cost effective, plastic could become too valuable to discard. Current technology turns about ten pounds of waste plastic into one gallon of fuel.

Plastic is a product of organic chemistry, and as such has an energy content like gasoline and diesel fuels. EcoFuel Technologies claims that if large-scale converters can be designed, built and widely distributed to convert discarded plastic wastes to fuel, we can reduce greenhouse gases by 14%, reduce water consumption by 58%, reduce traditional energy consumption by 96%, and dramatically reduce landfill needs and ocean pollution. Those are pretty dramatic claims. It will be interesting to see how this technology develops over the next few years. Perhaps someday we’ll have former plastic in our boat tanks instead of former corn (alcohol). If you more are interested in the technology the website for EcoFuel Technologies is https://www.ecofueltechnology.com/home/products.