hey are you thirsty
let's say you've got two bottles of
water in front of you
one is a plastic bottle the other a
reusable one you already know that you
should probably pick the reusable one it
takes less than a minute to wash it
while the plastic bottle could take five
hundred years to decompose plastic
production like for our bottle on the
left is predicted to keep skyrocketing
in the next 10 years and our planet is
going to pay the price but with all that
plastic being made is it possible that
we could do some good with it what if we
were to use all that plastic and convert
it into fuel could our cars run on fuel
created from plastic could we live in
plastic fueled homes how could we
convert plastic into fuel and could
there be a downside this is what if and
here's what would happen if we turned
plastic into fuel plastic hit the scene
in 1869 when inventor John Wesley Hyatt
offered the idea as an alternative to
ivory why well billiards were all the
rage back then and the suppliers
couldn't keep up with the demand for
ivory to make the balls so you could say
the invention of plastic helped out
environmentally mostly for our elephant
friends but since then plastic
manufacturing has doubled every 15 years
and it continues to do so
this puts plastic at the top of almost
all man-made materials so how could we
turn all that plastic into fuel we may
have a couple of options the most
popular being the pyrolysis method
pyrolysis creates energy by decomposing
organic materials by heating them up
between 400 and 650 degrees this
converts the materials into fuels
heat or electricity now let's combine
this with something called cold plasma
cold plasma produces high-energy
electrons which are especially good at
breaking down the chemical bonds found
in plastics so if you were to marry
these two you could take the plastics we
treat as waste and convert them into
methane hydrogen and ethylene both
hydrogen and methane can be used as
clean fuels since their output of
harmful compounds is minimal this
process would allow us to give new life
to all this plastic waste converting it
into a valuable resource and making it
available to industry for reuse but even
if we were able to pull it off would it
do any good according to a study by the
Bren School of environmental science and
management since we began mass producing
plastic about 60 years ago it's
estimated that over 8 billion tons of it
is now inhabiting the earth of that more
than 6 billion tons of it is plastic
waste up to the Year 2015 less than 10
percent of it have been recycled and
nearly 80 percent of it is either in
landfills or polluting the environment
as litter by using plastic for fuel we
would be able to transform it into
something other than just a base for
products destined to pollute our land
and ocean and it's good for more than
just the environment the American
Chemistry Council reports that plastic
to fuel facilities in the US could
create about 39,000 jobs and 9 billion
dollars in economic benefits how's that
for some inspiration but not everyone is
on the plastic for fuel bandwagon could
there be a downside one of the primary
objections some environmentalists have
is that the industry is deceiving people
their concern is that this is not a form
of recycling since the plastics can only
be used once and when they're processed
into fuel they become part of the
problem
the solution they also fear that plastic
to fuel is causing a false sense of
security when we really should be
showing extreme concern about the damage
being done to our environment daily so
after all that could we pull it off
well plastic to fuel doesn't produce the
same amount of energy as petroleum yet
we'll need to continue building and
perfecting the plastic to fuel process
in a world fuelled by money and sources
like petroleum being more and more
expensive to produce a fuel source
that's relatively cheap might be what
helps to win industries over to adopting
this idea but plastic to fuel is only
one of the ideas for countering the
environmental extremes we're now facing
what else could we create from a
renewable source could we create
something like food from thin air well
that's a story for another what if