By Mike Hower
- Published on April 2, 2015 by Sustainable Brands
The Dow Chemical Company recently completed a pilot program aimed at showing how certain plastics such as juice pouches, candy wrappers and plastic dinnerware — which are not easily recyclable under traditional models — can be converted into synthetic crude oil for fuel.
As part of the Energy Bag Pilot Program, Dow partnered with the Flexible Packaging Association, Republic Services, Agilyx, Reynolds Consumer Products and the city of Citrus Heights, Calif. to drive a collection pilot program meant to divert non-recycled plastics from landfills and to optimize their resource efficiency across the lifecycle.
From June to August 2014, Dow says around 26,000 households in Citrus Heights were provided with purple bags — called “Energy Bags” — in which participants were asked to collect plastic items not currently eligible for mechanical recycling, so they could be diverted from the landfill and converted into energy. Collected items included juice pouches, candy wrappers, plastic pet food bags, frozen food bags, laundry pouches and plastic dinnerware.
The purple Energy Bags were collected from homes during the community’s regular bi-weekly recycling program, sorted at the recycling facility and sent to a plastics-to-energy plant. Using their patented thermal pyrolysis technology — which is complementary to current mechanical recycling programs — Agilyx converted the previously non-recycled plastics into high-value synthetic crude oil. The crude oil can be further refined and made into gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, fuel oil or lubricants, and can also be transformed back into plastic.