
New technology turns everyday trash into plastic treasure - bookofjoe
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/climate-solutions/israeli-startup-ubq-turning-trash-into-plastic-products/
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chimi
> What’s the “magic” behind this? Executives are coy, but biotechnology expert
> Oded Shoseyov, a Hebrew University professor who has consulted for UBQ, says
> melting plastics and waste creates a homogeneous substance strengthened by
> fibers in the organic ingredients.

The article then goes on to describe a typical waste recycling facility plus:

> a multi-chamber reactor that sits behind a closed sliding door to block
> prying eyes. Temperatures up to 400 degrees break down the organic matter
> into its core elements, and then it and the plastics are re-engineered into
> a matrix through chemical and physical reactions that UBQ keeps secret.

I fear there is really no story here. There is a lot of energy being put into
this system. Something comes out, yes, but is it _worth_ it? How is it better
than a garbage incinerating facility?

There is no evidence presented that the material output is as good as the
material input. Or that the energy required is less than traditional recycling
methods.

This is way too early and way too long of an article to spend a lot of time on
at this point.

~~~
jschwartzi
Maybe we can use this and stop pulling new petroleum into the plastics cycle
for most products. That would let us leave more of it in the ground. And this
also lets us prevent the gases from the food, much of it generated using
petroleum products, from entering the atmosphere, effectively sequestering
carbon into the products.

If all the system really needs is heat and mechanical energy we can generate
that in spades from sunlight. In fact, the sun is far more efficient at
directly heating things up than it is at being turned into electricity. So we
could actually have a recycling plant that for certain kinds of materials is
far greener than throwing the materials away.

First we need to demonstrate that the process works, and that we can spend the
energy to make something useful. Then we figure out if we can source the
energy from somewhere green.

The only real questions I have are what are the chemical inputs, and where do
they come from? And can those chemical inputs be generated directly using heat
or do they require electricity?

It's interesting because it suggests that we can build a recycling machine
that takes garbage and heat and outputs usable materials.

~~~
chimi
It suggests that's possible, but we know that's possible already.

The hard part of plastics recycling which is already being done at various
scales is _isolating_ the plastic. How do you get foodstuffs out of plastic
containers? How do you separate the components of waste, basically?

It's like cleaning metal by burning off everything that burns until all you
have is metal. You're just moving the waste from one place to another.

In this case, the gasses are getting into the atmosphere just like they would
at a traditional incinerating waste facility and there are lots of those
already. They are not a good solution for the long term.

When people are being "coy" about something as the article indicates, there's
usually a reason. In this case, I think it's because the solution solves the
problem, but not better than existing technology and they don't want that to
be revealed to the open market that would tear it apart.

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ansible
Years ago, there were high hopes for technologies like this, such as from
Changing World Technologies. [1]

The idea was that the thermal depolymerization process would yield useful
hydrocarbons and enough methane to run the entire process. Initially they had
a pilot plant running on turkey processing waste (feathers and other stuff).
In practice, it wasn't economically feasible.

We _can_ recycle just about anything, the trick is to get it to be economical
enough.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changing_World_Technologies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changing_World_Technologies)

~~~
pstuart
I was completely enamored with CWT when they first announced, and I'm bummed
to this day that they failed.

It still seems like a technology worth refining -- despite having to compete
with fossil fuels when they've been so heavily subsidized.

~~~
ansible
Yes, it all sounded reasonable and scientifically plausible, speaking as a guy
who's not done much beyond high school chemistry. (Though I did get A's!)

The idea that we could take random carbon-based materials and turn it into
useful oil / feedstock was so cool.

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FooHentai
The meta of this article screams smoke and mirrors - The amount of space it
devotes to pointing out how all of these _former skeptics_ and people with
_all these qualifications_ were now _believers_ just sets off so many alarms.
It's pitched in a way that appears crafted to disarm the readers bullshit-o-
meter rather than presenting some information in good faith.

Also stuff like this: >biotechnology expert Oded Shoseyov, a Hebrew University
professor who has consulted for UBQ, says melting plastics and waste creates a
homogeneous substance strengthened by fibers in the organic ingredients.

Put simply: no. We know that if you just 'melt' all that stuff that is not the
outcome. If done in an oxygenated environment you decompose the organic matter
and break the long-chain hydrocarbons into oxygen-bonded carbons i.e. co/co2.
If you do it in the absence of oxygen you turn the plastic back into short-
chain/oil and the organic matter into char.

Sometimes, a need to keep industrial processes confidential is understandable.
When you're proclaiming to have a 'solution' such as this, it's suspicious.

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Jeff_Brown
> adding as little as 10 percent of its material can make the result carbon
> neutral

Do they mean making plastics with 10% UBQ pellets is carbon neutral? If so,
how can that be? Imagine a world where all plastic was made that way. Each
time a new thing is made, 90% of it is new plastic, the production of which
produces (among other things) carbon dioxide.

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rbtprograms
Seems like promising technology that I will be following, but I will remain
cautious with my expectations. It seems like every week or so a new,
revolutionary technology pops up and completely loses steam.

~~~
djzidon
If it turns out to be sound, I think it's a step in the right direction:
"Substituting a ton of UBQ’s pellets for the same amount of polypropylene
saves the equivalent of about 15 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, Quantis
concluded; adding as little as 10 percent of its material can make the result
carbon neutral, depending on the type of plastic being created."

Ultimately we need a solution that does not create more plastic, but that's
just my uninformed opinion.

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carapace
Oh no, the last thing we need is a way to turn biomass into plastic. That's
the opposite of a solution.

Anyhow, Molten Salt Oxidation is an exothermic reaction that can reprocess
pretty much anything non-metallic (it's used for chemical weapons and
munitions disposal) into syngas.

~~~
hinkley
I’m wondering if they’re just processing syngas back into polymers.

~~~
carapace
It sounds to me more like what thermal depolymerization was supposed to be,
eh?

~~~
hinkley
Possibly.

Supercritical CO2 also has some play in this space, since you can dissolve
different products by adjusting the temperature or pressure.

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tengbretson
This sounds a lot like normal recycling. What am I missing here? Are they
thermal cracking the waste into an entirely new polymer?

~~~
gamblor956
Unlike normal recycling, this process can tolerate impurities (i.e.,
foodstuffs or differing plastics) in the plastic waste input stream, due to
the relatively high temperatures (for thermoplastics) involved (>400 Celsius).
Normal plastic recycling doesn't even permit different types of plastic to be
mixed together.

It's not clear if the biowaste is being burned away or if its constituent
parts are being incorporated into the polymer like additives.

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mkhalil
FYI article is paywalled BUT: I tracked down a request, that if blocked - or
modified but since it's HTTPS => too much work - gets you FULL read access to
any article AND FULL browsing/reading access to WaPO as your heart desires.

In Chrome -> Dev Console -> Request blocking tab -> Enable it and add the
following entry: "[https://www.washingtonpost.com/pwapi-
proxy/*"](https://www.washingtonpost.com/pwapi-proxy/*")

Now just refresh the page and you got full reading + browsing rights. [leave
the dev tool window open or minimized]

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foobar_
For those who have read this, what are the problems with this approach?
Environmental damage is the single most horrible problem with the capitalist
way of things.

From a legislative point of view, I think if every company was forced to
recycle the crap they make, would it make sense?

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andrewfromx
wow between this and the Bill Gates Heliogen story, earth is saved?

~~~
w457uiw4gftyi
Also we can make plastic from waste fish scales now!
[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/bioplastic-made-
fr...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/bioplastic-made-from-fish-
scales-just-won-james-dyson-award-180973550/)

