This machine can VANISH plastic waste in seconds!
Waste management is the most important problem for countries around the world. It is the topmost concern whenever we talk about environmental conservation. Not only does waste makes our society looks dirty, but it can also cause a lot of environmental problems. When we dig deep into the huge mountains of garbage in our city (literally), we come across different kinds of waste. If you are reading this blog and you know how to use a smartphone or a computer, you probably also know that there are majorly two types of waste: organic and inorganic. What you might not know is just how big this problem is actually.
“India generates most waste globally,” says the World Bank. However, the average waste generated by an individual in India is still less than most of the developed countries. The statistics are high due to a large population. Other developed countries like the USA and a major part of Europe has a much higher amount of waste generated by an individual.
This waste pollutes our ecosystem and contributes to pollution and climate change. Waste generates methane, a gas that is an even more harmful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The problem is not which country generates more waste or which one has bad statistics. This problem is a global concern and affecting all of us in some way or the other. Then why is it that these developed and smart countries haven’t done anything about it? The answer is the typical one you might have already heard, economical. Green-tech generally costs more investment than just dumping the waste. There are, however, a few initiatives but they weren’t much helpful too.
When waste became a huge problem in Europe, they started a process called incineration. A process that is still very famous in Europe, especially the UK. Incineration is a process of burning waste to produce heat. The heat generated is used for the generation of electricity. This is a good temporary solution simply because we are generating a whole lot of greenhouse gasses while burning the waste. It does solve the problem of garbage mountains though.
Can we think of something better? Is there any way we can treat waste better than before? For a long time, people spent innovating in organic and inorganic waste. People made biogas, compost pits, recycled inorganic waste but so far this hasn’t been done on a large scale. There are two main reasons for this. First, segregation is the main challenge governments are facing in waste management. Separating inorganic from organic waste is a huge task! No matter how much the public takes care of but there is still a chance of mixing up when we are talking about billions of kg of waste. The other reason is time. It takes too much time for compost pits and recycling and reusing the inorganic waste. The rate at which we are generating waste vs how soon we can treat it just don’t balance each other out. Thus, we can not rely on such tech for a whole city.
Amongst such challenges, it’s easy to feel hopeless, but I found a start-up called Tesla Green on the internet which is claiming that they can process 1-ton kg of waste per day with their product called Blackhole! Also, they claim that they have already ‘vanished’ mountains of waste in the region of Ladakh, India. This is amazing, especially since they are also claiming that they can process any kind of waste, even plastic, electronic waste, medical waste, industrial waste, literally anything. I got fascinated and dig deep into this. Turns out they are using a technology called plasma gasification as their underlying technology. Plasma is the 4th state of matter, as scientists say, beyond gas, liquid, and solid. We see the phenomenon of plasma in our everyday life, for example, the sun, electricity crackling in a thunderstorm. Plasma is when so much energy is generated in a concentrated area that it can break any kind of molecule you can find on earth. With the discovery and making of plasma torch (which is just a flame of plasma), people found this technology of plasma torch. The process is quite similar to incineration, only that rather than burning waste, we chop the waste into small pieces and feed to a bed of plasma torches (can range from 10–30 depending on the plant) which breaks all kinds of bond in the waste. After all, our waste our nothing but substances we can not consume but they are still made up of molecules. Breaking their bond turns them into a gas. Waste that doesn’t even break down by plasma is excellent for building roads, highways, and bricks for construction since they are tough even to pass the plasma torches. The gas is called Synthesis gas (syngas), a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. We clean this gas and we get fresh liquid hydrogen! Believe it or not, but this syngas can be used in producing diesel, fertilizers, Ethanol, automobile oil, and even electricity! The whole plant will require electricity to run equipment, but will overall be carbon negative, if not carbon neutral at least.
A lot of start-ups are emerging in this technology now and trying to tackle the problem of waste management around the world. Some of them are facing problems while others are still in the development stage. This is an emerging technology and there are a lot of challenges before we can expand it to many cities and countries. The plus side is that we have the liberty to innovate. One of the companies used a sand bed for plasma torches for improved efficiency. Others also used steam for a good flame-like effect. Others stacked two tanks on top of another for cleaner syngas! The possibilities are endless.
The innovation of such a level is not just exciting but very novel for our world. We can treat waste instantly, and with time we will be able to scale such plants to process even 1,000 tons of kg per day. We have a bright future, but also a long road before we can do this.
