Machine converts plastic into oil

I've invented a machine that converts human excrement back into food. I am calling it "The Garden"...

Seriously though, the Japanese have serious space issues, so converting plastic to oil makes sense if the demand for plastic is low and converting the plastic back into plastic is not required, ie the demand for plastic is lower than the demand for oil. Otherwise it makes better sense to simply recycle the plastic back into usable plastic products.

"what would be cool is if the oil it created was in turn burned inside the device as furl to heat and convert the rest of the plastic into oil..."

I am afraid the only thing you would accomplish in this case is converting alot of plastic into the residues of combusted hydrocarbons, as it will take more than the 1 L of oil converted from the 1 kg of plastic to convert the next 1 kg of plastic into 1 L of oil.

 

its a good idea! i mean really good. but as always he will be stopped by big oil and affiliated companies just like water powered cars and carborators that give v8's the fuel economy of 4 cyclinder motors....

 

Energy can only be converted and there is no free lunch, nor a big conspiracy.



actually... one killowatt is 3400 btus and one liter of oil has about 36000 btus. So on tenth of the oil would be required to do the next batch.

 

"actually... one killowatt is 3400 btus and one liter of oil has about 36000 btus. So on tenth of the oil would be required to do the next batch."

In that case I sense economic viability and the potential for commercial application. The next question is, How many 1 L soda bottles does it take for me to drive my 35 mpg car 300 mi?

 

Not really... if oil is your product, then just buy it regular... oil turned into plastic then turned back into oil is not cheaper. Plastic turned into oil processed into gasoline already has a value.... about $2.70/gallon. If it is not cheaper than that, then no go.

Now perhaps to a person scavenging plastic to make fuel..... except we don't know how much the machine costs. Doubt it is affordable to those folks. What is the payback on the machine, operating costs, maintenance...?

Perhaps to a person picking up garbage on the side of the road, it can have value, but plastic as a resource already has a value. What ever it costs for a ton of processed recycled plastic. If all the plastic is bought up to convert to oil, even if it is initially cheaper than fuel oil, it will not stay that way as soon as the price of plastic goes up.

Garbage used to be free.... until it started being recycled, now it has a market and a value. Heck even as fuel it has a value because there are a lot of trash burners out there producing power. Yet recycling has nearly put them out of business because it drove up the cost of their fuel.

There is no free lunch anywhere.

About 10% of crude oil is used to make plastics. That at least is 10% we could cut if we just recycled plastic.... except it costs 40% more for recycled plastic than just making it. (Wiki)

 

So instead of converting plastic back into the oil from whence it came, recycle 100% of discarded plastic thereby freeing that oil which would have been used to replace the discarded plastic for other uses such as boiler, fuel for incinerator, diesel engine, generator, vessel...

 

Good luck with that. People in my neighborhood specifically put out trash on recycling day, and visa versa, because they "can't be bothered to hold on to it" for the extra day or two - despite getting fines for noncompliance.

 

that is surely a cool idea and i think most people would enjoy the process and result.

 

Looks like it time for me to buys some stocks! I swear, if this thing goes through the roof and i didn't buy a penny worth of his stock i am going to shoot myself in the foot!