'Chemical recycling' of plastic slammed by environmental group

WTF? "The report said that producing fuel from plastic waste does not qualify as recycling under international definitions and that it creates harmful air pollution and greenhouse gasses when burned."

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What a wonderful report. Turning waste into a usable product is not recycling.

Burning that fuel makes air pollution..... meaning burning "real" fuel does not????

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If burning both fuels makes pollution, why not use the one made from all the plastic waste? Oh, because crude oil = money and kickbacks for the few.

Mat. I agree 100%. If Veolia’s pulverizing wind turbine blades to make a combustible powder is a breakthrough in recycling, why not this?

burning styrene, being a benzene derivative, not sure how great that is…. but extracting btu’s from conventional thermoplastics seems like a good deal to me.

Mat, I agree with you. It seems that whatever steps companies take to try and deal with the plastic problem, they will never be good enough. There will always be the excuse "it's too dirty, or it still causes greenhouse gases". The article states what this group wants and that is the elimination of all single use plastics, but in fact they want all plastics eliminated. But that is just not feasible.

he report said that producing fuel from plastic waste does not qualify as recycling under international definitions and that it creates harmful air pollution and greenhouse gasses when burned."

The process to produce fuel from plastic waste, typically pyrolysis, requires a net expenditure of energy to accomplish. Then when it is burned as a fuel it produces as much greenhouse gas as it would produce had the plastics been incinerated directly without the intermediate step of pyrolysis. All the process accomplishes is to use more energy than direct incineration with no environmental benefit over direct incineration.

If burning both fuels makes pollution, why not use the one made from all the plastic waste?

Let's not forget that Recycle is the poor cousin of Reduce and Reuse.

The more petroleum we use, the more budget there is to bomb civilians in Ukraine, Yemen, etc.