Session Chairs: Kim Van Arkel, Race for Water Foundation; Fredric Sciacca, Race for Water Foundation
This session focuses on how to promote innovative long-term solutions capable of transforming plastic waste into energy in order to prevent plastics from leaking into the ocean.
Joint action at the global level is urgently needed to address the perils facing our oceans. Plastic waste to energy model can help tackling the issue of plastic pollution on land, and can directly improve the health and life of local communities who are often the first victims of this worldwide issue. The first part of the presentation will focus on following areas:
1) Assessment and outcomes: In 2015, Race for Water realized its first around the world Odyssey. Plastic pollution is everywhere. A grand-scale clean-up of the ocean is unrealistic, land-based solutions are key to an efficient fight against plastic pollution.
2) Plastic waste is the problem as well as the solution: How to incentivize local population to collect end-of-life plastics? The requirements in our search were to minimize the needs for plastic separation and cleaning, and to generate a local resource allowing to remunerate collectors. We rapidly moved toward energy recovery.
3) Presentation of the technology: Biogreen® by ETIA : It is an innovative, patented process for continuous thermochemical conversion of waste residue that allows high temperature pyrolysis treatment of various bulk materials including plastic waste. This innovative technological approach demonstrates that remote plastic waste can be an additional resource in energy transition.
4) Pilot projects towards scalability : Currently in production, the first machine will be delivered in the summer 2018 for a 6 months’ testing period to evaluate its performances and assess its environmental footprint.
This model is appropriate in remote and underequipped communities, to foster plastics waste collection at the earliest possible stage. Indeed, these communities suffer from lack of infrastructures to process the waste material. Simple equipment, allowing them to more easily sort, clean, grind and compress materials would also participate to upcycle plastics and improve the local waste management hierarchy. Combination of community sized solutions are key to overcome the challenges of waste management, which is exemplified in Palau. When communities face specific waste challenges such as derelict fiberglass vessel, complementary approaches including repurposing as alternative fuel are also helpful.
Abstracts
Plastic waste: a new resource for the energy transition
presenting: Frédéric Sciacca (Race For Water Foundation, Switzerland); authors: Serge Pittet (Race For Water Foundation, Switzerland), Frédéric Sciacca (Race For Water Foundation)
Joint action at the global level is urgently needed to address the perils facing our oceans. Our plastic waste to energy model aims at tackling the issue of plastic pollution at the source, by turning off the tap of plastic litter leaking into the ocean. Additionally, our projects will directly improve the health and life of local communities who are often the first victims of this worldwide issue. This presentation will focus on following areas:
1) Assessment and outcomes: In 2015, Race for Water realized its first Odyssey: an environmental expedition of 300 days which sailed across all the Oceans. Plastic pollution is everywhere. A grand-scale clean-up of the ocean is unrealistic, land-based solutions are key to an efficient fight against plastic pollution.
2) Plastic waste is the problem as well as the solution:To tackle this terrible issue, we looked at various existing technologies which could create value out of plastic waste in order to incentivize local population to collect it. The requirements in our search were also to minimize the needs for plastic separation and cleaning. We rapidly moved toward energy recovery.
3) Presentation of the technology: Biogreen® by ETIA : It is an innovative, patented process for continuous thermochemical conversion of waste residue that allows high temperature pyrolysis treatment of various bulk materials including plastic waste. This innovative technological approach demonstrates that remote plastic waste can be an additional resource in energy transition.
4) Pilot projects towards scalability : Currently in production, the first machine will be delivered in the fall for a 6 months’ testing period to evaluate its performances and assess its environmental footprint.
Moving up the Value Chain – Bringing Solutions Which are Sized for Communities
presenting: Doug Woodring (Ocean Recovery Alliance, Hong Kong); authors: Doug Woodring (Ocean Recovery Alliance, Hong Kong)
Plastic pollution is one of the more complex challenges of our time, both due to the material itself, and the societal ways and means we are addressing its collection, prevention and use. The most important part of prevention relates to value creation, and without value, there is no incentive to collect, preserve or prevent material loss in the first place. Much of the problem that exists in the creation of plastic pollution is due to the lack of infrastructure to process the waste material in the first place, and for value, instead of having it send to landfills (legal or illegal), dumped or burned. If communities had relatively simple equipment, allowing them to more easily sort, clean, grind and compress materials, there would be a much higher likelihood of turning those waste resources into something valuable that can be then sold to the next buyer or recycler who now appreciates relatively “pure” and non-contaminated material. This session will discuss the opportunities, needs and challenges of bringing solutions which are sized to the task, helping to create jobs, while bringing value to today’s waste streams.
Challenges to Plastic Up-Cycling in Small Island Communities: A Palauan Tale
presenting: Lark Starkey (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, United States); authors: Lark Starkey (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, United States)
Small island communities are subject to greater quantities of plastics due to the dual inputs of marine plastics via ocean currents and packaging plastics imported for local use. The resulting plastic buildup on islands is often combined with a lack of infrastructure and remoteness, leaving few options for management. However, a number of existing technologies and companies exist to reuse plastic waste as a resource to create a product of greater value, a concept commonly known as “up-cycling.” Utilizing these technologies on island to up-cycle plastics or creating incentives to export plastics to other nations for reuse are theoretically beneficial methods to both manage and economically incentivize unwanted marine and local plastics. Yet, up-cycling is often underutilized. The island nation of Palau experiences the common impacts of plastic, yet successfully recycles 50 percent of post-consumer waste in its metropolis Koror. In this study, the primary challenges to up-cycling and plastic management for Palau and similarly structured island nations are uncovered. Challenges can be broken down into the 5 broad categories of geography, society, government, economy, and technology and subsequent recommendations to creatively overcoming challenges are made.
Sustainable Disposal for End-of-Life Fiberglass Vessels
presenting: Evan Ridley (University of Rhode Island, United States); authors: Evan Ridley (University of Rhode Island, United States)
Limited traditional disposal options leave end-of-life vessel owners with the task of deciding how to alleviate the financial burden of caring for an aging fiberglass boat. Unfortunately, this sometimes results in a practice in which unwanted vessels become derelict or abandoned, an event that creates potential environmental and navigational hazards for coastal communities.
The recycling and reuse of fiberglass has long been viewed as an unmanageable task, but new advances in chemical engineering and technology have made sustainable composite materials a feasible goal for the future of marine industry. Rhode Island Sea Grant has set a target on developing a strategic plan for the creation of a statewide vessel recycling program, based on a successful model of European fiberglass disposal processes.
Fiberglass is seen as a suitable candidate for recycling and repurposing thanks in part to its chemical composition and high production value. Activity in Germany over the last ten years has shown fiberglass to have significant potential as an “alternative fuel” for cement production in industrial kilns. The value of these alternative fuels lies in their ability to mimic the the thermal and chemical qualities of traditional fossil fuels when they are incorporated at various stages in the production process.
The overarching goal of Rhode Island’s state program intends to create a system that reflects the best methods for reusing a valuable form of solid waste. Rhode Island’s small size and status as a hub of marine industry make it an ideal laboratory for experimenting with a potential international solution. Through collaboration with cement industry members in the U.S., Sea Grant has taken the first steps toward introducing fiberglass derived from end-of-life vessels into the growing stream of American alternative fuel.