FAQs

Incineration is bad! Dioxins and things!

We agree, that's why we are doing pyrolysis, not incineration. In pyrolysis, plastic is heated without oxygen, so it can't burn. Without burning, it's impossible to create chemicals such as dioxins

What stops you having a big accident like Bhopal?

We use a continuous process, each machine processes 200kg/hour. Only about 10kg of plastic is in the pyrolysis chamber at any time.You can't get a big fire or explosion from 10kg of plastic, though we don't want or expect small ones either!

What about the oil tanks

We do need to store oil until a tanker comes to collect it. We will use double-bunded oil tanks so that if a tank leaks the oil is contained, and we will place the oil tanks within a brick enclosure to ensure that even if the bunding fails, oil will be contained. We will also site the oil tanks at least 10m away from any building that is in useand will comply with all the safety recommendations from our Health & Safety advisors and the Fire Service

Why is there a need for pyrolysis, companies already recycle plastic?

There are lots of different types of plastic. Mechanical recycling is good for hard plastics and bottles (e.g. PET) but not the thin films we will recycle. Currently thin film plastic is incinerated, put in land-fill, or exported to other countries to be incinerated, put in land-fill or dumped in the environment. The House of Lords recommended banning export of plastic waste. Chemical re-cycling through pyrolysis reduces the need to drill for more oil and protects the environment – which is why we picked it as our first project.

Waste processing is smelly and causes lots of litter and dust

We aren't processing raw domestic waste, We receive pre-sorted thin film plastics that have been baled and wrapped in plastic film, so no smells or litter or dust. Bales are stacked outside and used within a week or so of delivery. Bales are only split open once they are loaded into the pre-processing equipment

But what about emissions?

Pyrolysis produces synthetic gas (syngas), oils and char. We sell the oils and char. Syngas is a mix of hydrogen, methane, ethane, propene and carbon monoxide. We need power for our equipment, so we clean the syngas, mix it with hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO) or diesel, and use it as fuel for our generator.. Syngas produces lower emissions than HVO or diesel, so the generator will produce less emissions than if just running on diesel. Exhaust gases will be released via a stack designed to ensure that all relevant emissions limits are met. While burning the syngas does release some carbon dioxide, its 90% less than if the plastic is incinerated.

What about water?

We need water to clean and prepare plastic for pyrolysis. But 90% of the water we need will be recycled/cleaned on site, so only about 10% will be taken from the mains. Water will only be used to clean non-hazardous waste and will be cleaned before going to the drain.