But I’m going to whip a cat on you right now
who’s had more trouble, trials and tribulations Your cash ain’t nothing but trash — Steve Miller Band 1973 How do recycling and trash factor into Alternate Energy? Here is my, as always, very humble opinion on recycling. Recycling helps protect the environment. It reduces the need for extracting (mining, quarrying and logging), refining and processing raw materials. All of those create substantial land, air and water pollution. Because recycling saves energy, it also reduces greenhouse gas emissions, in many cases. A long time ago one of our founding fathers who was well known for his pithy sayings made this profound statement: “A penny saved is a penny earned.” Fast forward 250 years and Ben Franklin is still right. If we take this metaphorically to alternate energy, we would say a kilowatt saved is 3,412 BTUs not burned. Enter recycling! Due to the brevity of space, I must limit my article to the two most prevalent recycling products or elements that sit on opposite ends of the recycling spectrum: aluminum and plastics. Plus I’ll include a few words on the value of getting heat energy from trash. Aluminum What factors do we need to consider the value of recycling? We have the basic cost. Let’s start with one of the easiest recycling materials from use to reuse, and that is aluminum. Aluminum is a very natural-occurring element. It’s literally everywhere except maybe in the deserts. On my farm, for example, one acre of soil one foot deep would yield 12 pounds of aluminum. Of course, processing this would be cost prohibitive. According to Aluminum.org, 75% of aluminum is still in use from its original form. The cost of recycling aluminum is only 8% of the cost of aluminum mined and processed. This does not factor in the other benefit: Less environmental disruption caused by the mining of bauxite which uses more water and energy for shipping. Aluminum is another product that is a no-brainer for energy saving and environmental impact. However, it has a limited application when compared to plastics. Plastics Plastics are on the other end of the recycling spectrum. Plastic is made from petroleum. The cost of recycling is, unfortunately, rather expensive. You may have read that China has now stopped buying recycled plastic. They stopped because of the environmental impact and health-related issues. China’s expansive labor force made the recycling of plastic cost effective. In general, however, recycled plastic is not cost effective, though the environmental costs of not recycling are staggering. Plastic does not readily break down. When exposed to the sun, it will degenerate to a brittle substance which then cracks. When it cracks, a very fine particle is produced that can affect all aquatic life. For example, the particles can get into the gill slits of fish causing them to “choke” to death. This is a very recent discovery. We are just now seeing the effects of plastic that is only about 50 commercial years old. Comparing the cost of recycled plastic to “fresh” plastic, recycled plastic is about 15% cheaper. However, the purity of this plastic is often not as desirable as the “fresh” plastic. It can often lead to product failure as well. The environmental damage from plastic is almost incalculable. For this reason alone, in my very humble opinion, recycling now should be mandatory. The demand for plastic products increases every year, and so does the waste. Whole islands of plastic have been spotted from space. Trash, a burning question A lot of energy can be produced by burning trash. It also greatly reduces dependency on landfills. However, because my home is in the beautiful Finger Lakes, I have become a NIMBY (Not In My Backyard). You don’t have to go far in our beautiful backyard to see one mound after another of a reminiscent landfill. Most of our landfills are receiving trash from hundreds of miles away. Why on earth (no pun intended) would a landfill be placed near one of the richest beds of fresh water, into which in the long-term, these landfills will eventually leach out? So instead of recycling, there is the other option: trash burning. It makes sense, right? After all, plastics are made from oil, and oil is used for heat and producing electricity. It sounds so homogeneous. Well, if you want to know what remains after burning plastics, go to the state DEC website and find out. In a nutshell, the remains are numerous and just plain nasty. Now a developer wants to put a trash burner at the old Army depot in Seneca County. These are some of the issues: the smell, the noise, the trash traffic, the amount of money it will this cost us vs. what New York City pays us, and the combustion fallout. My humble opinion is to let New York City build one in its backyard. Because NYC, I love your city but here, to quote Steve Miller, “Your cash ain’t nothing but trash.” So what is the plastic answer? The big problem is that China, the major import of recycled plastic, has shut its doors. What are we going to do? I wish I had a quick answer. There is research underfoot to develop bacteria that can dine on plastic. This may be the best answer. But what do we do now? Can we reform this plastic as the Chinese intended? Of course! Who is going to pay for this transformation? Who is going to buy the “reconditioned plastic”? I think this is the way to go right now. There is a market for recycled plastic. However, I don’t believe this market can handle the volume of waste that we produce currently. It will be interesting, indeed, to see the fallout from this very issue. So in closing ... Dear reader, please recycle this article. During your dinner table conversation, let this be a topic of discussion. The bottom line, eventually we will need to recycle everything. We cannot put this off any longer or put the problem off on someone else.
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AuthorJames Bobreski is a process control engineer who has been in the field of electric power production for 43 years. His “Alternate Energy” column runs monthly. Archives
June 2020
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