Canadian Plastics' Wilkinson makes case for converting plastic to energy in North America

EXCERPT:
"Could non-recycled plastics provide a cost-effective alternative to conventional energy? A new study out of Columbia University found that non-recycled plastics in the U.S. could provide energy to fuel 6 million cars annually and enough electricity to power 5.2 million households.

There are three basic groupings [or energy recovery], ..one grouping is something called solid recovered fuel and an example of that is taking mixed plastics and turning them into a fuel cube and then substituting that fuel cube for a dirtier fuel, like coal or petroleum, coke, in a cement kiln or an industrial boiler.


COMMENT:
From a Report by Greenpeace (attached):

"One of the larger concerns in burning hazardous wastes is the generation of new, sometimes exquisitely toxic chemicals during and subsequent to combustion—so-called products of incomplete combustion (PICs). Among the PICs that have been identified, dioxins and furans are commonly regarded as the greatest threat to public health and the environment. These and other POPs, including PCBs46 and hexachlorobenzene,47 are created when chlorine-containing materials are burned. Studies suggest that the populations of the U.S. and some European countries now carry body burdens of dioxins and furans that are at or near those levels at which health effects are known to occur in humans.48

• In Japan, where municipal waste contains relatively high levels of the organochlorine plastic, PVC, 67 high dioxin concentrations in soils surrounding a municipal waste incinerator were found to be “well correlated” with high cancer rates among the surrounding population.68

• A team of doctors reported elevated levels of these POPs in the breast milk of women who live downwind from certain incinerators in Germany.69

• U.S. federal and state agencies assessed the levels of dioxins in the blood lipids of people living near an incinerator burning waste from the manufacture of two organochlorine pesticides, 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T.70,71 Over a three-year period, concentrations of the most toxic form of dioxin, 2,3,7,8-TCDD, increased by an average of 25 percent among more than 60 percent of the study participants.72

• Authorities in Spain determined that, over a period of two years, dioxins in the blood lipids of people living near an incinerator burning urban wastes increased by 10 to 15 percent. In addition, their blood lipid levels of PCBs increased by about 5 percent.73

• In Canada, health officials advised against the consumption of wild game taken within a 30 kilometer radius of the Swan Hills PCB incinerator because of the accumulation of dioxins released from that facility.74"


Let us not turn a blind eye to the environmental destruction fossil fuels create in all stages from the initial extraction (contamination of air & water), manufacturing into product (release of toxic chemicals into the air and water), prospects of regeneration for energy replacement (release of toxic chemicals into the air and water, into the land, into human and animals tissues) and be swayed by a seemingly clever and benign way to further the industry's use of fossil fuels. GREEN renewable leadership continues to be lacking in this equation!!!

The mountains of toxic  products made from petroleum (fossil fuel) in the form of plastic containers (water bottles, baby bottles, yoghurt containers, plastic wrap, and bags), plastic building products (decking, siding, paneling, power tools, lawn mowers, chain saws, weed wackers) plastic clothing (nylon), dvds, alarm clocks, et al, are as toxic to the environment and all species if not more so given the synergistic impact as a result of incineration.

Fools we are, should we stand for industry and government to continue in this madness.  Fossil fuels, in any form, new, or discarded, have no place in a world where global warming is destroying all things living. The contribution to global warming from incineration is well understood--and so are the consequences.


October 18, 2011

Could non-recycled plastics provide a cost-effective alternative to conventional energy? During today's OnPoint, Greg Wilkinson, president and CEO of the Canadian Plastics Industry Association and an adviser to the American Chemistry Council, discusses a new Columbia University study that found non-recycled plastics in the United States could provide enough energy to fuel 6 million cars annually and enough electricity to power 5.2 million households. Wilkinson addresses some of the environmental and economic concerns with waste-to-fuel practice....continued....