Opening the pyrolysis door? Opportunity is a re

Opening the pyrolysis door?

Opportunity is a recurring theme in discussions about the China ban and its U.S. implications. For some in the industry, that means giving more attention to new technologies. Chuck White, an advisor focusing on consumer products and environmental issues for Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, described the “huge demand” in California for low-carbon fuels, which he said presents an opportunity to make use of recyclables.

“These papers and plastics are a tremendously valuable feedstock for producing these low-carbon fuel standards,” he said. But he added that the gasification and pyrolysis technologies required to convert the materials to fuel are discouraged by the state government. They are not considered a form of recycling but rather of disposal, he said.

If the barriers to these technologies were lifted and they were encouraged, he noted, it could “provide a market for these materials for which one really does not now exist.”

However, Nick Lapis of environmental group Californians Against Waste offered an opposing view of the notion of using recovered materials to generate fuel.

“We’re in an interesting situation right now where a lot of the recycling we were previously doing we can no longer do,” Lapis said. “That does not mean that we need to now start calling destruction of resources recycling. We don’t need to cook the books in order to artificially hit numbers.”

Instead, he said the focus should be on market development and on building domestic remanufacturing capacity.

https://resource-recycling.com/plastics/2018/...alifornia/