Nippon Steel in Japan, "aims to achieve a 10% reduction in energy consumption from the 1990 level by 2010 and an additional 1.5% reduction through the use of waste plastics." Its process is run captively and rather more involved than the Garthe method. "In the coking chambers of the coke oven, the waste plastics are heated to about 1,200 Deg.C in an oxygen-free condition and pyrolyzed. The charged plastics are pyrolyzed at 200 Deg.C to 450 Deg.C, generate high-temperature gas, and are completely carbonized at 500 Deg.C. Hydrocarbon oils and coke-oven gas are refined from the high temperature gas generated by pyrolysis, and the residue is recovered as coke." You can read the details in this illustrated PDF file [jump to pages 16 and 17]. \
Markets for Plastofuel nuggets in India will however be at the lower end. Already, waste plastic admixture with bitumen is well proven. Plastofuel nuggets may also be used in many industries --small and large-- to generate process heat, using suitable burners.
A road-map for India:
With proven technology and markets available, India needs but a few crucial interventions to turn plastic menace into an opportunity. GoodNewsIndia believes, the following initiatives are needed:
§Incentivise and mandate, village and city governments to gainfully employ locals to gather *all* plastic waste, at as few designated points as possible
§Incentivise and motivate, cottage level entrepreneurs to turn the waste into PDF nuggets or transport to the nearest nuggeting plant
§Mandate road laying contractors to use nuggets as extensively as feasible
§Incentivise the use of PDF by hotels, hospitals and process industries for their heat requirements.
Will that checklist do the trick? Not quite. There will be cost-gaps to be filled up, before the whole recycling idea will scale up, spread wide and pay for itself. And those gaps will have to be filled by the plastics industry in the form of a cess. After all, they enjoy a vast, prone market and it cannot be that their responsibility ceases at their gates.