Indian scientists turn plastic bags into car fuel

In a breakthrough, Indian researchers have developed an innovative method to re-use discarded plastic bags by transforming them into fuel to power car engines.

Process to convert certain kinds of plastic waste into liquid fuel as a way to re-use plastic bags and other products.

Among the plastic waste is the common polymer, low-density polyethylene (LDPE), which is used to make many types of container, medical and laboratory equipment, computer components and, of course, plastic bags.

For every kilogram of waste plastic they could produce 700 grams of liquid fuel

Indian scientists turn plastic bags into car fuel

This could be extremely effective in not only cleaning out waste but provide a massive source of energy for developing countries.. There is so much plastic waste here.

reply to post by maddy21


Petroleum burned to create plastic.

Petroleum burned to turn plastic into liquid fuel.

How economically viable, and environmentally friendly is this truly?

I sure would like to get on the feel good bandwagon, but until I see the hard numbers, gotta stay on the fence with this one.

Oil --energy--monomer--energy-- plastic --energy--fuel

Oil --energy--fuel

pretty way to do something with the nasty not biodegradable plastic but still a waste of energy compared to just taking gas from oil as plastics are 99% coming from oil

Fabulous! That floating plastic trash island the size of Texas in the Pacific ocean will be the next oil field.
They can collect the plastic and use it again. People can walk the beaches cleaning up the littler for fuel for
their cars. That would be a really good thing for the environment.

reply to post by maddy21


I would say that if we have so much excess plastic, and it were to be determined as waste, and if i somehow knew for a fact that we were 100% going to still be using combustion engines for the length of time that all the excess plastic in the world converted to fuel would last us, than i would say go ahead and use it but to be able to determine that imo would be nearly impossible(due to the whole seeing into the future bit)

I really don't wish to offend, because it is the thought that counts, and i must admit that is an extremely intuitive idea, but i personally believe that the issue is our source of energy. Again its great that someone wants to make use out of wasted materials, and i think that for now they should. But hopefully sooner than not we will be able to develop a source of energy which has no combustion and has no pollutive side effects to it.



On a side note i do wonder what pollution the exact chemical process creates in order to convert plastics into fuel. Without any foreknowledge on the subject it does sound a bit messy if you ask me.

Either way good post s & f

It's sad that the world is still focused on oil as energy. Honestly though, I hope this takes hold. The amount of plastic waste is breathtaking. Containers that last forever are being used in seconds and thrown away by billions every day. It would change the recycling world if it's efficient enough.

Seems to me that we need to lower plastic use. Get rid of planned obsolescence is the first step to fixing this problem. Make things better so you don't have to buy a new one every five years is also important. Now why is there so much plastic being produced in the first place. Everything is wrapped in plastic....from a guy who owns a vaccum packing machine. I suppose some is necessary and it should all be recycled.

I can see doing this to plastic that can't be recycled for other products, but like mentioned, if it takes almost as much fuel to create fuel, all you are doing is creating high paying jobs and money for those who hold the patent.

I think that recycling everything is a good idea but even then, the cost of doing this is also high. If we created less, we would have to recycle less. That is the best way. We don't have to go crazy about this, cutting down our plastic waste by twenty five percent to bring it down to what it was twenty years ago would be good. Why can't they use this method right at the recycling factories to make fuel for their recycling processes?

reply to post by maddy21


As much as I hate the oil industry's stranglehold on our economy etc I think its very innovative of the Indian Scientist to look at ways of using an oil waste product which a used poly bag is. Its like squaring the circle.

What about toxic gases produced from the combustion of the converted plastic bags.

reply to post by Frankinpillow


Poly ethylene is CH only, same as burning gas

reply to post by webedoomed


STOP that. I wanna feel good.


reply to post by maddy21


Great find - and on the surface, a good idea. F&S for posting.

double post

reply to post by maddy21


This was reported on ATS 4 years ago.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

The simple fact is that turning plastic into fuel is a waste of energy. Especially when you could just turn the plastic back into usable plastic.

We don't have plastic bags anymore here only degradable ones.
we have to pay 15 cents for them + they are reusable.

The whole idea in an upside down look at the way people who are running things think.....
Who but educated idiots believe that there would be a net energy surplus returned from converting oil into plastic (using energy and resources)
then reconverting plastic back into oil........(using more energy and resources)
The fact is this is a fruitless net energy drain.......probably why we havent heard anymore about it in the last 4 yrs...........

reply to post by maddy21


Looking this over, it seems to me that although there will obviously be a use of energy and infrastructure (some sort of facility) in order to convert plastic waste into useful fuel, and that looked at too closely, it would appear inefficient to operate that way. However, think about it this way if you will.

Right now, someone is scouring the Earth for new oil resources. They fly on planes, take helicopter rides, take a boat with the capability to deliver a submersible to study the ocean floor, drive four wheel drive vehicles, drag geophysics gear with them. Thats using fuel, to find more oil, to make fuel out of. Then, once they find the oil, they do a deal with a government to be allowed to drill the oil (which involves a few visits to the nation in question, to talk to energy ministers, environment ministers, lunches, dinners, and many miles more of travel and fuel use). Then, once that process has been completed, thousands upon thousands of tons of equipment (expending yet more fuel) is moved into the area which contains the oil. The company then drills into the Earth, either under the water in the sea (which is dangerous to the environment if badly handled), or on land. This requires the input of hundreds of men and women.

Rig workers need to be transported to the rigs, which may require hundreds or perhaps thousands of miles on board an aircraft, followed by another ride, probably on a helicopter. Their food needs to be transported too, and replenished often enough that the rig workers have the energy to stay tightly focused on safety and efficiency at work. The product, the raw oil, is then pumped to shore to be refined, a process which requires quite a bit of energy output. Then, it is fractioned into its useful components. This involves heating the crude oil, because as you probably know, crude oil becomes several different types of useful fuels and products when heated. The heating process is energy heavy as well. Then the products which result are transported to petrol stations, or bottled up, depending on thier particular use. This also uses more energy.

Now... rather than doing all that searching, moving, drilling, heating, moving, using all that energy, we could just find some plastic bags (which hardly requires a particularly vast travel expenditure) stuff them into a machine to heat and repurpose the chemical components of the trash, and turn it into useful fuel. Remember, this waste has ALREADY been drilled up from the guts of the Earth, and through the process described above, so using it again saves energy no matter which way you slice it, even if the repurposing action is less energy effective than we might like.

I think it is well worth looking into further.