For a few years now, experts in the field have been talking about how we can turn plastics and plastic waste into fuel. This is in the effort to come up with a solution to our continuously growing plastic problem. But other experts are saying this isn't really much help. Apparently, it does the opposite.

Optimists still see it as a solution, as they try to work on the process. Will this idea ever proceed to fruition?

How do we turn plastics into fuel?

Plastics are produced from crude oil. So, to be able to turn plastics into fuel, we must reverse the process. This is called chemical recycling.

Here, plastic waste is first collected and exposed to extremely high temperatures. Doing so causes the carbon chains--which make up polymeric materials like plastics--to breakdown into shorter chains and convert them back to crude oil.

On the other end of the spectrum is mechanical recycling, which involves the collection and sorting of various kinds of plastic waste. After sorting, the plastics are chopped and ground to smaller pieces and then melted to be reprocessed into the same type of plastic, which are then used to produce the endproducts that we use.

When we put it like this, chemical recycling sure does sound simple enough. It also reflects a smaller manufacturing cost. But there are other things that we need to consider.

Some experts Oppose the Idea

While the process does sound revolutionary, some are concerned about its feasibility. Dresden's Technical University Institute of Waste Management and Circular Economy researcher Roman Maletz expressed his side on the matter, saying that chemical recycling of plastics into fuel is not new, nor revolutionary. He also pointed out that the process has so far not worked on a large scale.

"In the past, such plants always ran into problems when in continuous operation," Maletz said. "I don't see how these issues could suddenly be resolved."

Maletz also talked about how the quality of the product is compromised in the process because there is no sorting done before chemical recycling, the quality barely or does not even meet the standard, making it economically unviable.

In another note, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, and Energy Director of the Circular Economy Division, Henning Wilts, talked about the environmental impact of the process. 

"If you break waste apart at a molecular level, you need a lot of energy, so the CO2 savings are quite low," said Wilts. "If the energy needed comes from burning coal, then the whole thing is an environmental disaster." Wilts then voiced that even with the difference in costs, mechanical recycling could still be the way to go.

Deutsche Umwelthilfe's Thomas Fischer, the nonprofit organization's head of the recycling management division, also opposed the idea, saying that it doesn't make sense as the process produces more carbon dioxide, thereby defeating the purpose. "If fuels are produced, which are burned afterward, then, even more, CO2 is blown into the air," Fischer explains. "That's not the idea of a cycle."

Companies and Their Progress in Chemical Recycling Studies

Two years ago, BASF launched ChemCycling, a process that uses chemical recycling to produce pyrolysis oil as a petroleum substitute. The chemical giant hopes to produce polymers in order to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels. Earlier this year, BASF released its aim to produce virgin-grade materials out of recycled plastic using the same process.

Also, in 2018, Australia's OMV has moved from laboratory scale testing to a pilot plant called ReOil. The oil and gas company claims that their plant could process common types of plastic like polyethylene, polypropylene, and polystyrene. 

The company employs mass separation through distillation, which, as OMV claims, produces crude oil with high quality--it is "free of sulfur, lighter than fossil crude oil, and has a higher hydrogen content."

While some companies believe in its potential, some field researchers and experts say the opposite. While it is definitely attractive, at this point, we still cannot say whether the idea of converting plastics into fuel is 100% feasible. After all, researches take a lot of time, especially at a scale as big as this.