The future of plastic is a popular one in today’s social and political climates.
More people every day are looking at ways to use less plastics – or more importantly create less permanent waste. Due to availability, cost, and overall potential of plastic production – it is a material that will not be going away any time soon. However, there are multiple new innovations looking for ways to make plastic use more sustainable and environmentally friendly.
Already there are additives that are being added to some plastics that make them biodegradable over time for example. Granted these usually still take many years to fully break down. However – there is an innovative process that is being researched and experimented with that uses heat in an environment without oxygen to break down plastic waste into a synthetic oil & gas.
This process emits very little greenhouse gasses and the liquid stock you’re left with can be used to reproduce plastics or even as fuel. This process is called Pyrolysis. Ultimately the potential of the broken-down waste through pyrolysis is still reliant on the quality of the waste being used and the technology being used for the process.
Arguably the best part of a technology such as pyrolysis centers around the fact that it offers a full circular solution to one of the biggest issues surrounding plastics. Looking outside of plastics as well – alternative fuels have been a large focus as well to replace our limited fossil fuels. If pyrolysis were capable of also giving us a new alternative fuel source, it would be hugely beneficial to find ways to implement it.
Ultimately here at Lomont most of our manufactured goods are not ones that contribute to the single-use plastic waste issue. However, we still are very committed to being environmentally friendly and are paying close attention to these innovations to see where we might apply them in our own manufacturing process in the future.
