Eureka!

Eureka! Well sort of anyway.  Depolymerization say what?  This mouth full of syllables is a complex way to break it down baby!  Now the backyard chatter over the internet, in chat rooms around the globe, and smoky filled rooms of oil executives’ people are talking about the decline in oil production globally.  Crude oil is estimated to slow by 76% over the next 15 years at our current rate of consumption.  In 2004, gas prices soared reaching record highs all over the United States causing the U.S. economy to spiral further into debt.  For the first time in my life I was faced with making hard decisions like how much gas to put in the car and have enough money for our food budget. 

Then on a wet Arkansas morning, I walked outside and got slapped in the face with her sweet rainy pine tree air.   As I walked down the wet black top driveway I noticed the luminescent shimmer of oil floating in a slow moving stream going down the driveway along side of me.  After checking the mail, I followed the oily substance back to its source, a rotting water bottle partially buried in a dirt puddle.  That’s when it hit me like a ton of bricks.  If this could be done naturally then there has to be a way to create a machine that can speed this process up for all plastic and separate the oil from the water.  I was right and made it happen in a machine that is extremely energy efficient and puts out less pollution then a R/C hobby car called, The Conversion Pioneer (S/120/220).

                                                  An example of a unit located in Japan
                                                         currnetly baned in the US

     Depolymerization is the process of taking plastic and breaking it down to is core ingredients.  The basic rule of thumb in the making of plastic is to use 80% petroleum and 20% additives.  These numbers are of course varied depending on the plastic needed.  The following facts will help you better understand why I felt something had to be done.

 •Plastic bottles take 700 years to begin composting

 •90% of the cost of bottled water is due to the bottle itself

 •80% of plastic bottles are not recycled

 •38 million plastic bottles go to the dump per year in America from bottled water (not including  soda)

 •24 million gallons of oil are needed to produce a billion plastic bottles

 •The average American consumes 167 bottles of water a year

 •Bottling and shipping water is the least energy efficient method ever used to supply water

 •Bottled water is the second most popular beverage in the United States Plastic bags are made from oil  it takes about 430,000 gallons of oil to produce 100 million plastic bags, and the U.S. goes through 380 billion of them a year. A statistics class at Indiana U did the math and more than 1.6 billion gallons of oil are used each year for plastic bags alone. The more we use plastic bags, the more we waste oil.

According to a report published in December 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that the United States generated 30 million tons of plastic waste in 2009. Compared to other waste streams, such as paper or metals, the rate of plastics recovered for recycling is relatively low. The EPA report indicates that only approximately 7% or 2.12 million tons of all plastic waste generated is actually recovered for recycling. This means that, in 2009, approximately 93% of all plastic waste was headed to landfills, or worse, diverted to countries like China that are already using this type of process. One kilogram of plastic produces almost one liter of oil. To convert that amount takes about 1 kilowatt of electricity, which is approximately 20 cents’ worth. However, even in China this technology is not in consumers reach due to the fear and threating pressures of large oil companies pressuring the inventors and users to limit their usage to small audiences for demonstrations and emergency clean up efforts. In 2010 only five portable units were in India, China, and Japan after they were hit with catastrophic natural disasters.  The operators were granted temporally usage licenses because fuel could not reach some areas affected causing rescue and clean up efforts to slow down. Currently there are 60 operations abroad and only 2 in the states.

Since November of 2010, I have collaborated with a number of people around the world to design a small energy efficient plastic to oil producer that is no bigger than a dishwasher.  My convertor is a self-contained, plug-n-play, all in one system.  You simply open the unit and place your plastics in a trash like container.  Once the door is closed the plastic is then cut up into smaller pieces to conserve space. This step allows maximum production of each cycle.  This step is repeated till the unit senses it has reached an acceptable amount of plastic to output you desired amount of fuel up to 40 liters or 10 gallons of biodiesel.  Next, I decided to have the unit run on solar power or a regular 110 volt outlet (a 220 volt plug as used with a dryer is best) to start the depolymerization process.  The solar cycle takes 22 hours to produce approximately 40 liters of biofuel, while the AC power cycle takes only 8 hours to produce the same amount.  I made sure to build these units so user friendly and safe that I feel comfortable allowing my three year old son to feed the unit and push the green button to start its cycle. Eureka! After a minimum of 8 hours you can lift the gas nozzle just as you would at your local petro station and let the gravity operated fuel dispenser enter your vehicle and fill it up.

Now as we enter a new era we all must do our part to see that the future of this country as well as the rest of the world live in a place that is getting better with less dependence of one natural depleting resource (read a"CEO's Journey", to experience firsthand how to make a change).  I know this quiet energy efficient unit will motivate people to collect every piece of plastic they can get their hands on if it means free gas.  Just think of the positive impacts this will make environmentally and economically starting with one community and ending with world.