Trash is Gas…
A few months ago, my ‘mates’ and I took a trip to Korea to pitch Change Plastic for Good to some large plastic manufacturers in Seoul. I say ‘mates’ because my partners in the business are from the U.K. and Melbourne, Australia and they are trying to make me adopt my British roots (since I am Canadian from British Columbia and all). We had a blast globe trotting for the greater good of the planet.
While in Korea, our host took us for a tour of the Sudokwon Landfill site and it blew our minds to see what was happening there. In a nutshell, this massive landfill is the 6th largest landfill on earth, taking in a whopping 20,000 tons of waste daily from Seoul. Landfills generate a lot of methane gas, which is a greenhouse gas and has caused all sorts of planetary problems, resulting in treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol. You can only imagine how much methane is released by a huge landfill like Sudokwon. But here’s the kicker…. Sudokwon is tapped to produce 50 megawatts of power! Yup… these guys are using trash for gas. Methane is a clean energy source and the more trash that ends up in the landfill, the more ‘gas’ is created. As we were leaving the site, we saw a fueling station for city buses!
These types of landfills are called ‘Bioreactors’ and leaving the site, we knew this was going to be the future of waste on earth. We got excited as we chatted about Change Plastic for Good and how our polymer enhances plastic breakdown and acts just like organic waste in landfills.
To make a long story short, South Korea recycles 90% of its plastic….you heard that right!! They then take the plastic that is recycled and reuse it. The plastic they can’t reuse they convert into pellets and burn it for fuel, another great end-of-life use for plastic. The remaining plastic would be made with Breakdown polymer and would then biodegrade in landfill, making Sudokwon the most efficient landfill on earth.
This is why they are excited about Change Plastic for Good and this is why everyone should be excited about bioreactor technology. In a world that is swimming in garbage and desperate for alternative fuel, the answer is staring us in the face, and it is just a matter of time before all landfills will capture methane to be fed back to the grid. This is already happening in the U.S. with 82% of landfills capturing methane for clean, free fuel and China is over 50% and growing.
This analogy has been running through my head for the past year…. It would be better if crime didn’t exist, but since it does, we police the streets. The same goes for plastic waste. It would be great if all plastic was recycled, but until then, Change Plastic for Good can help solve a major waste problem.
