Significant quantities of drinks bottles [usually made of PET] and milk bottles [HDPE] are sorted out of plastic waste and successfully recycled. Unfortunately, after these materials have been removed from the waste stream the rest of plastics used will either be burned for its energy or end up on landfill sites.
The WarwickFBRTM now provides an exciting new alternative to these wasteful options. It allows companies undertaking the recycling of PET and HDPE to use the MPW normally disposed of to provide then energy for the recycling process. This enhances the financial rewards of recycling as well as avoiding the direct use of fossil fuel in the process.
By recovering the energy within the recycling facility, the cost, both in Financial and in Carbon terms, of transporting to a centralised mass burning facility is avoided. Since the heat is also readily useable within a recycling facility the total efficiency of chemical energy to heat and electricity is much greater than a typical mass burning system.