How we can turn plastic waste into green energy

In the adventure classic Back to the Future, Emmett "Doc" Brown uses energy generated from rubbish to power his DeLorean time machine. But while a time machine may still be some way off, the prospect of using rubbish for fuel isn't too far from reality. Plastics, in particular, contain mainly carbon and hydrogen, with similar energy content to conventional fuels such as diesel.

Plastics are among the most valuable waste materials – although with the way people discard them, you probably wouldn't know it. It's possible to convert all plastics directly into useful forms of energy and chemicals for industry, using a process called "pyrolysis".

Pyrolysis is a method of heating, which decomposes organic materials at temperatures between 400℃ and 650℃, in an environment with limited oxygen.

In a circular economy – where waste is recycled into new products, rather than being thrown away – technologies that give new life to waste plastics could transform the problem of mounting waste plastic. Rather than wasting plastics, pyrolysis can be used to recover valuable materials with max 75% oil output from the waste plastic material , which can be sent directly back into industry.