Advertisement

If you have an ACS member number, please enter it here so we can link this account to your membership. (optional)

ACS values your privacy. By submitting your information, you are gaining access to C&EN and subscribing to our weekly newsletter. We use the information you provide to make your reading experience better, and we will never sell your data to third party members.

ENJOY UNLIMITED ACCES TO C&EN

Environment

Dow Is Promoting Incineration

by Alexander H. Tullo
May 30, 2011 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 89, Issue 22

Dow Chemical is recycling plastic the old-fashioned way: It’s burning it. The company has wrapped up a trial at its Midland, Mich., headquarters in which it incinerated 578 lb of linear low-density polyethylene film waste from its nearby extrusion laboratories. The firm was able to recover 96% of the energy from the plastic, the equivalent, it says, of about 11.1 million Btu of natural gas. Dow suggests that incineration is a viable alternative to the landfill for those plastics that aren’t commercially recycled. It also asserts that waste-to-energy is an underused scheme in the U.S. compared with Europe, where the practice is fairly common. “The U.S. lags behind many other countries that capture trapped energy from recovered materials,” says Jeff Wooster, plastics sustainability leader for Dow’s North American plastics business.

Article:

This article has been sent to the following recipient:

0 /1 FREE ARTICLES LEFT THIS MONTH Remaining
Chemistry matters. Join us to get the news you need.