First Wood Then Plastic! using waste plastic as fuel

Check out Bens latest project!  
Very excited to see were this goes.

Ben is the author of the Wood Gasifier Builder's Bible.  He's got a smoking deal today on the Woodgas Builders Bible.

You can find his latest details at webpage

Wow, sounds interesting! For those of us whose internet is too limited to view a video, could somebody summarise the main points, or post a link to something about this in text?

It appears to be some sort of gasifier that uses an unspecified catalyst.

"Fights Climate change" : By burning plastic that could be recycled?

Sure, it's better then burning plastic in an open flame, but if one feeds it with plastic that produces toxic gasses during combustion, those are still released.

Yes apparently it can take care of garbage on site.  Including plastic and such.   Being able to feed a gasifier more then just wood is a plus.

We're I live recycling has to be trucked a couple thousand km's.  Not so carbon neutral.  Also I can see this being handy in places we're recycling facilities don't excist.  Like other countries.   What about on ships or very remote camps were burners or going anyway to dispose of garbage?

Don't be fooled by the hole recycling industry.  Yes it's better then just throwing away, and burying.  But it still takes energy, and precious water to take care of the by product.  

This is not a new proces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasification

Perhaps it is better balanced to have less of a residu problem but the end result is still CO2 etc... And this from plastics which usually come from oil - ie a solid fossil fuel.

The proces itself is in fact similar to the biocharproces. They say something like 'to turn a onetime use plastic bag into....'. Cough, cough, ..... this at best delayed CO2 release. The main benefit being the elimination of a (technically at least) recyclable waste. if you wanted to sequester carbon, just berry the plastic in such a way that you can extract it later when it is profitable to do so with landfill mining techniques.



Some 15 years ago i was involved in a feasability study with a view to commercialise a technique to turn plastics into diesel and gasoline. The technique was legally borderline because of the 'lansink rules' which apply here.   https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladder_van_Lansink or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_hierarchy
That meant that the volume of plastics you could feed into this proces was extremely limited and thus commericaly unviable. Even here where we have a population (and waste) several 100 people/sq km.
Last i heared the folks pushing this went to Brazil. Don't know what happened there.


In my view this looks to good to be true. I live in a region where waste incinirators/gasifiers have done their bit to pollute - amongst others - my garden. I'm a sceptic. I can do without any more neighbours with personal waste incinirators.

I think you need a solid quality controll system to guarantee top results al the time. After all how many accidental dioxine releases do you accept ? Who among us has a PHD in chemistry to make sure?

Yes would be great to get a engineer to review excactly whats in the smoke!

But with my trials and my gasifier the smoke does not smell at all.  Paul's rules "if it smells your doing it wrong ".  I beleave he said!  At any rate I beleave a hot enough fire "different molecular flash points for different materials" is clean.  Just reaching those points for the material to be burned is key!

Making use of waste this way I beleave is great.  Recycling garbage to electricity!  What more could you ask for.

Of course we need to work a lot on just not being consumers but...   easier said then done.  

I would really worry about Dioxins and the like . They are mutagens and a problem not only with large incinerators burning plastics never mind smaller ones .

Not all plastics are the same. Understanding which plastics release what gases is important to such a project. For instance, a polyethylene would release ethane, a highly flamable  and clean burning fuel when mixed properly with oxygen. Gases like acetylene require more oxygen to burn clean. Some plastics would be detrimental to the environment as fuel. Others properly utilized I have not experienced a negative effect in my own experiments and tests of gasification from mainly polyethylene or #2 and # 4 plastic.

I recycle for a living. I don't know of any process being done around here, where plastic is actually turned back into raw petroleum products. I do see Plastic Lumber and plastic Furniture of extremely dubious quality. To me, this stuff is just solid waste disposal meant to deceive a few idiots. Millions of idiots actually.

Any device which can incinerate the stuff and produce relatively clean effluent,  is preferable to having it landfilled or turned into other garbage. I have no idea weather this device works as well as stated. I know that I am perfectly comfortable burning plastics in my masonry stove, once the bricks are white hot.