Turning Plastic Trash Back Into Oil

File under genius. Why does the conversion of oil into plastics have to be a one-way process? A company called Global Resource Corporation had the same thought and figured out that by microwaving plastic at specific frequencies and wavelengths it could be broken apart into its fundamentals: essentially diesel oil and (natural) gas. Check out the photo above: That's black gold. Texas tea.

GRC's gizmo will look a lot like a regular microwave oven, or a cement mixer if you need to melt down bigger stuff. Here you can watch it go to work on bits of shredded automobile tires, which are quickly converted into a small mound of carbon black powder with all the hydrocarbons removed, turned into a small vial of diesel oil and some gas.

The implications are profound, but the simplest is that this could trim landfill space considerably, by cutting in half the mass of plastic-based waste. Since many recyclable products are wrapped in plastic (like copper wire), this could make recycling those items far easier, too. Of course, the fact that this stuff is turned into oil  and gas is a fact not lost on interested parties. Will that oil be able to be refined into something industrially usable? GRC says the output from melting down car scrap can provide enough power to run the machine and others. 

Amazing stuff, and this could really change the way we think about recycling in the future. Why put tons of energy into separating recyclable materials when the machine can do it more efficiently and with even better results? And could such a device ever become a fixture in our homes? Why lug recycling to a far-away center when you can do it in your garage?

LINK: Giant microwave turns plastic back to oil