by Shane Henson — June 6, 2011—The Dow Chemical Company recently announced it has successfully demonstrated the use of recycled plastic to generate energy.
The pilot test measured how plastic that has been reused and recycled to the full extent possible can be used as fuel for an ultimate end-of-life option instead of going to a landfill for disposal.
While most thermoplastics can be reprocessed, there currently are limited end-of-life options for certain types of used plastic packaging, such as some flexible films and containers made from a combination of materials, notes Dow.
Linear low-density polyethylene scrap film generated in one of Dow’s extrusion laboratories was used in the test. The film was reportedly the same type commonly used for packaging food and consumer products.
The test found that 96 percent of available energy was recovered after incinerating 578 pounds of used plastic in a kiln at one of Dow’s waste treatment facilities. The energy recovered was equivalent to 11.1 million BTUs of natural gas and was used as fuel for Dow’s incinerator during the test.
