View RSS Feed

Memories of the 28th Century

Eliminating Trash

Rate this Entry
A few days ago, I wrote a post extolling the virtues of thermal depolymerization for the disposal of the bodies of the dead, and that is a good idea, but since then I noticed many places that had multiple bins for the disposal of trash. It bothered me that there were so many bins, and that people were expected to sort their trash, because it could all go into a thermal depolymerization unit and the organic matter can be reduced to short chain hydrocarbon oil.
The process converts long hydrocarbon chains into short chains that can readily be used as fuel or as raw material for plastics. While this process does not do anything to glass, metal, or other inorganic material, those things could be recovered for the sludge that remains and be recycled in the ordinary way.

Some people would complain that this would put more CO2 into the atmosphere, but it would be recycling material that was already available, and it would decrease the amount of new material that would go into the supply chain.

I initially wrote of disposing of the dead this way, and this would be vastly superior to permanently encasing corpses in concrete tombs, as is often the case in the U.S.A. and using this process would allow people to do some good, even if it would happen after their deaths. Thai process has the potential off being abused; I wrote a story about a nasty person disposing of a murder victim by thermal depolymerization. It would also prevent rechecking a body for evidence of crime.

For domestic trash, there would be little or nothing in the way of negative effects of using thermal depolymerization to get rid of trash, and few people would lose job, and there might be jobs produced. The trash could be collected as it is at present, but it would be delivered to the depolymerization units. The oil and gas produced would be trucked away or stored on-site for local distribution. The sludge of inorganic material would be sold to reprocessors, who would extract useful materials, including metals, calcium and phosphates, etc.

There is nothing novel in this idea. There already are companies that use thermal depolymerization to reprocess their own wastes, and most of them make money on it, but the expansion into domestic trash would be a major change in the way that trash is handled, and the investment in hardware would be substantial.

One huge improvement that depolymerization would provide would be a good way to get rid of plastics, which could b reduced to something like diesel oil. It is likely that most of the so-called “forever chemicals” could be reduced to oil and gas.

This is an example of how technology can take care of itself. I remember thinking decades ago that landfills would have to be mined eventually so that all that good stuff wouldn’t go to waste, and this is how it will be recovered. There are problems with thermal depolymerization, and there probably are materials that will be left in the sludge that are not desirable, but there will not be the huge amounts that are now going into landfills. Some people think that composting is the way to go, but composting does nothing to plastics. Composting might be an excellent first step, but depolymerizing the material left over would solve another problem.




https://energycentral.com/c/ec/what-...polymerization

https://www.pyrolysistooil.net/p/Ind...BoC1roQAvD_BwE

Comments

  1. tailor STATELY's Avatar
    Intriguing post.

    My daughter and I have had conversations re: body composting and mandatory garbage composting recently. "A new law in California requires food waste to be composted: The goal is to reduce food waste in landfills by 75%." Feb 7, 2022 / NPR

    Hoping these modest actions will make for a brighter future for our progeny.

    Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
    tailor
  2. PeterL's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by tailor STATELY
    Intriguing post.

    My daughter and I have had conversations re: body composting and mandatory garbage composting recently. "A new law in California requires food waste to be composted: The goal is to reduce food waste in landfills by 75%." Feb 7, 2022 / NPR

    Hoping these modest actions will make for a brighter future for our progeny.

    Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
    tailor

    Composting is good, but many things cannot be composted. Plastics and some other organic materials can't be composted, but they can be depolymerized. A teo step process might work, but the more steps, the more it would cost. Eliminating cemetaries would be good, and that land could be used for something. Ihave never figured out why people want to save corpses. If they want a memorial, then they might try turning the corpse into a fossil, which doesn't take a terribly long time to get going. That's how I would prefer for my corpse to be handled, and afterwards, it could be set up as a statue.