Converting Waste to Energy

For months, major recycling facilities have been facing a big problem: getting rid of huge amounts of paper and plastic it would normally sell to China. These wastes usually get cleaned up, crushed, and transformed into raw materials for industrial plants. Beijing is no longer buying bales of compacted plastics and paper, claiming the recycled materials are “contaminated.”

For other waste products such as cardboard and metal, China has set a contamination level of 0.5%, a threshold too low for most current US technology to handle. US waste handlers say they expect China will close its doors to all recycled materials by 2020. Many recycling plants no longer bother sorting plastic and paper, and instead simply send it straight to landfills.

What some see as a problem, others might embrace as an opportunity.  Recent advances in Waste to Energy just might be a solution. Combined conversion technologies may be the answer.  While economical small-scale power generation is still in development, use of this converted energy to offset energy costs for VOC Control or process heating needs may be the answer.  Ship & Shore Environmental can deliver these and other heat recovery solutions.