Very often we find our recycling bag overflowing with empty bottles, food packaging and a bunch of different household plastic. A recent study at the University of Chester in England has just revealed a solution to handling with plastic waste. In simple words, it is about melting down the trash we produce and converting it into energy, which means fueling car and powering the home using plastic waste.
This could mean using our household waste to truly produce electricity and even fuel the vehicles we drive.
Possibility of fueling car and powering home using plastic wastes
As stated by the University of Chester’s Energy Centre at Thornton Science Park, it is possible to generate energy using home wastes. The institute has been working with PowerHouse Energy for many years to generate the green technology, which uses a glass chamber, heated up to 1,000 °C, to meltdown plastic. The combustion then discharges a variety of gases including hydrogen, which can be converted into fuel.
Luckily, the game-changing element of this tech innovation is that the unrecyclable plastic we get doesn’t require to be sorted, or even washed, to be employed. The method takes all mixed waste, in its impure form, and converts it all into electricity.
When can we use it?
Currently, the innovation can only show the small-scale transformation of plastic to hydrogen and electricity without any residual of plastic, but manufacturers have programs to increase both the capacity and the ability. In the UK and South East Asia, a firm named Waste2Tricity (W2T) is working on development, currently constructing a plant near Ellesmere Port in Cheshire. At the plant, they will generate low-cost and low-carbon hydrogen fuel and electricity to power the site.
Fueling car and powering home
Professor Joe Howe, the Executive Director of Thornton Energy Research Institute at the University of Chester, said about the prototype:
“We are extremely excited to be hosting the prototype demonstrator here at the University of Chester. The technology converts all plastic waste into high quality, low carbon hydrogen synthesis gas which can then be used to power gas engines. A by-product of this process is electricity, meaning waste plastic can not only fuel cars but can also keep the lights on at home.”
Certainly, the world must wake up to this technology. It will make waste plastic worthy with it being able to power the world’s towns and cities and most significantly it can help clean up our oceans of waste plastic now.
Note that we are not encouraging you to use more plastics, but the bright side is we can now utilize the waste of our homes in a beneficial way.
