Why P-Fuel

 

· Self-Sustaining

         The P2D is entirely self-powered and self-sustaining with all its electrical power needs being generated by      a generator set which uses the waste hydrocarbon gases from the process

 

· Energy Efficient

         The heating process uses highly efficient far-infra-red heaters (which give energy savings)

 

· Nil Emissions

         There are no emissions from the process other than those from the cogenerator

 

· 'Green' Production

         The end product of the process is 'green' diesel (ie. low-sulphur diesel) a highly saleable commodity.

 

Background

 

Despite recycling of plastics being subjected to significant community and industry focus in recent years, many plastics streams are still sent to landfill for disposal.  Only approximately 20% of all waste plastics are currently directed to legitimate reuse / recycling destinations.

 

In Australia the NPC has established a goal to increase recycling to 30-35% by 2010. Reuse or recycling technologies for many of the plastics found within municipal waste collections or within postindustrial waste streams are not currently available in Australia.

 

In addition the NPC has established a goal to increase recycling of non-recyclable packaging (including plastics 4-7) from 10% to 25% by 2010.

 

P-Fuel is installing a state-of-the-art Plastics-to-Diesel (P2D) facility in Melbourne to establish a legitimate recycling alternative for these waste streams. The facility will use the technique of pyrolysis to break down the long-chain hydrocarbons within waste plastics in a controlled manner in order to create a saleable product, automotive diesel.

 

A distinct advantage of plastic pyrolysis into fuels as a means of recycling is its ability to handle mixed and unwashed plastics.  Post-consumer plastics are often commingled and contaminated with extraneous materials such as soil, dirt, aluminium foils, paper labels and food remnants. While soil, dirt and glue can be removed from post-consumer plastics by washing, this is a fairly expensive operation and it leads to secondary waste streams such as waste-water.  Pyrolysis recycling of mixed plastics thus has great potential for heterogenous plastic waste that cannot be economically separated.

 

The pyrolysis of waste plastics into liquid fuels allows the recycling of waste mixed plastics (numbers 4-7) that cannot be efficiently recycled by alternative means and can do so without costly sorting and separation.

 

Pyrolysis also enables recycling of plastic laminates, coextrusions and multilayer packaging films, particularly those with aluminium foil layers or metallized polymers that are difficult to recycle using traditional reprocessing technologies (ie. mechanical recycling).

 

Relationship to Covenant Goals and Outcomes

 

Since the P2D process uses plastics that would otherwise be landfilled it meets many of the NPC criteria such as resource efficiency and maximum resource re-utilisation.  Also the end product of the process is automotive diesel so the embodied energy content of the waste plastic is fully utilized.  Light gases and gasoline by-products are used to fuel a cogenerator that in turns supplies electricity to power the entire process.

 

The P2D process enables the recycling of difficult packaging that hasn't been recycled to date such as metallized printed packaging, plastic-foil laminates and lightweight PCR packaging (ex-MRF).

 

The P2D process will enable packaging manufacturers to further develop its product stewardship and extended producer responsibility objectives for recovery and recycling of mixed plastics packaging.

 

The P2D process can handle mixed and unwashed plastic so it also potentially allows the recycling of those dirty, contaminated plastics which up until now are generally landfilled.

 

The P2D process allows significant tonnages of mixed plastic packaging materials to be diverted from landfill and recycled.

 

The P2D plant can process nominally 4500 t/year of packaging waste and up to 6000 tpa is reasonably expected to be processed.

 

The P2D project would focus on those waste plastics that are currently poorly recycled.

 

The P2D project would recover and recycled significant quantities (> 5000 t/a) of those plastics that a currently being landfilled.

 

Meeting of NPC Targets

The P2D process is aligned with specific NPC targets as shown in the table below.

 

NPC Targets	Target Details	Ability of P2D Process to meet Target
Target 1	"Increased recycling of post-consumer plastics"   However the TNO study shows that conventional mechanical recycling of waste plastics is only eco-efficient up to a level of 15-20%.   Current recycling rate of waste plastics in Australia is 20%.	The P2D process enables recycling of waste plastics at levels greater than 20%   P2D can recycle the 20-80% of plastics that are increasingly commingled and contaminated
Target 2	"Increased recycling of 'non-recyclable' packaging"   Certain plastic types (plastics coded 4 to 7) are currently either not recycled or recycled at very low rates due to their design or lack of markets   Increased recovery and recycling of 'composite packaging'	The P2D process can handle difficulty plastics such as LDPE, PP, PS, ABS with ease and without cleaning or separation.   Further the P2D process can handle 'composite packaging' such as multilayer plastic, metallized laminates and coextruded barrier packaging
Target 3	"Decreased amounts of packaging sent to landfill"   Through increased consumption and population growth, the amount of packaging disposed of to landfill could still increase substantially.   Furthermore new innovations in consumer packaging and long-life packaging means increasingly more complicated packaging designs and use of dissimilar functional materials such as gas barrier layers, preservatives, odour absorbers, etc. which make the packaging inherent more difficult to mechanically recycle.	The P2D process can effectively recycled a wide range of lightweight plastic films including those that are heavily printed and those with self-adhesive labels.   P2D can also process mixed packaging such as bread bags, snack food packs, biscuit packaging etc.   P2D can process almost all plastics even if contaminated with dirt, aluminium laminates, printing inks, oil residues, pigments, fillers, additives etc.

 

Threshold Level of Plastic Recycling

A study conducted by the research institute TNO found that there is a 15-2% threshold over which plastic recycling (by conventional means, ie. mechanical recycling) becomes both uneconomic and non-ecoefficient.

 

This is because as one attempts to recycle those plastics over the 15% level (across all plastic types) the plastics get increasingly commingled and increasingly dispersed.  That is the first 15% of plastics which are readily recycled at PET drink bottles and HDPE milk bottles.  As one goes beyond these types of plastics the plastics becomes more challenging since they are more mixed (e.g. LDPE films, PP bottles, PS containers, PS foam) all of which are harder to collect and recycled.  Even beyond this are lightweight, thin film snack food packaging and multilayer food packaging.

 

Thus above a certain level (between 15 and 20%) a higher level of plastics recycling does not result in improved eco-efficiency since recycling of large volumes of relatively clean and homogeneous plastics has already been implemented.  Further plastics recycling requires separate collection, additional sorting, mechanical reprocessing and cleaning processes of more contaminated plastic packaging.  These extra process steps result in a considerable increase in costs, while the environmental benefits are marginal (in the case of more mechanical recycling the points shift horizontally to the left in the graph below.)  The eco-efficiency analysis shows that beyond the 15-20% level of mechanical recycling, pyrolysis becomes preferred over mechanical recycling for the yet to be separated contaminated plastic packaging mixtures.

 

 

 

P-Fuel Plastics to Diesel (P2D) Process

Incorporates the following best practice elements: