Solution for plastics...Could we use it?
Jen
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Irish plastics-to-fuel firm hopes to expand to UK
Friday 12 March 2010 Plastics News
http://www.letsrecycle.com/do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=37&listcatid=217&listitemid=54844§ion=plastics
Irish waste-to-fuel firm Cynar Recycling has celebrated the official opening of
a £5 million treatment facility in Leinster, central Ireland, by announcing
plans to develop a range of plants to turn mixed plastic into a synthetic fuel
across Europe.
We think we have the answer and we are doing it every day here, so it is a
significant landfill diversion and we are producing a valuable commodity as
well
Michael Murray, chief executive, Cynar
The company, which is based at Portlaoise, intends to develop five more plants
in the Ireland as well as 30 in the UK and up to 60 across the whole of the
continent.
The Portlaoise plant, which was completed in December 2009 but has just passed
operational tests, is intended to handle 3,000 tonnes of mixed plastic
waste-a-year and produce diesel and gasoline equivalents.
Mixed plastic is sourced from waste management companies based in the province
and also from the agricultural sector under the Irish agricultural plastics
collection scheme - which looks to increase the amount of waste plastic
collected from the farming sector.
Over the next five to seven years, the company intends to develop relationships
with "multi-national" firms in order to allow the firm to expand its operations
to the UK and mainland Europe. The aim is to develop 570,000 tonnes-a-year of
mixed plastic waste treatment capacity.
The company added that it would look to develop waste-to-fuel plants on
existing waste collection sites, in order to help ensure a feedstock of mixed
plastic and also lessen the impact of the process on local logistics.
Michael Murray, chief executive of Cynar, told letsrecycle.com: "The reason I
got into this in the first place is because the biggest problem facing waste
management is dealing with the mixed waste plastic from the black bins. We
think we have the answer and we are doing it every day here, so it is a
significant landfill diversion and we are producing a valuable commodity as
well."
Cynar Recycling
The firm uses a process of pyrolysis to breakdown the plastic feedstock at
heats of between 370 and 420 degrees Celsius to create a mixture equivalent to
petroleum distillate.
At present, it creates two types of synthetic fuel - with 75% of its output
being a diesel equivalent and 25% being a petroleum equivalent. The fuel is
then sold to a commercial partner, with the company currently finalising a deal
with a "large energy firm" - which it could not name for commercial reasons.
