If all non-recycled plastics in the U.S. were converted to oil, the effort would generate enough transportation fuel to power nearly 9 million cars per year.
That’s according to a video explaining and touting the benefits of plastics-to-fuel technology. The video, “Plastics-to-Fuel: Creating Energy from Non-Recycled Plastics,” is from the American Chemistry Council’s Plastics-to-Oil Technologies Alliance (PTOTA).
The video is accompanied by a guide, “Regulatory Treatment of Plastics-to-Fuel Facilities,” and a fact sheet, intended to influence government regulators. The guide calls on state officials to regulate plastics-to-fuel facilities as manufacturers of products, not as solid waste disposal facilities, and to reward public waste system operators with diversion credits for sending materials to plastics-to-fuel facilities.
“Plastics-to-fuel technologies complement recycling by converting non-recycled plastics into useful commodities,” Craig Cookson, director of sustainability and recycling for ACC’s Plastics Division, stated in a press release. “Plastics are a valuable resource that should be kept out of landfills, and plastics-to-fuel technologies can help us do that.”
The conversion technology, called pyrolysis, can turn post-consumer plastics into fuels and other petroleum-based feedstocks for manufacturing.
The Plastics-to-Oil Technologies Alliance includes Agilyx Corporation (Beaverton, Ore.), Cynar Plc (London), RES Polyflow (Akron, Ohio), Americas Styrenics (The Woodlands, Texas), Sealed Air (Charlotte, N.C.) and Tetra Tech (Pasadena, Calif.).