Company Recycles Plastic Into Oil

GAITHERSBURG, Md. - What looks like a cascade of confetti is actually a picture of progress. Michael Han hopes it's a milestone on a path toward energy independence.

Han is the CEO of a D.C.-based company called Envion. Han's company is using recyclables at the Montgomery County Waste Transfer Station.

The plastics are being chopped into tiny pieces. A conveyor belt carries the pieces of plastic into a generator that heats them up.

"We're taking what is already there and putting it directly into the unit and within ten minutes you're getting a renewable by-product that is fully sustainable, cost-effective," says Han.

That's right. Ten minutes later those bits of plastic become oil. The shade of the oil depends on the type of the plastic. But it is all what's called "light medium oil".

It can be sold to companies that will turn it into gasoline or jet fuel. Whatever you use it for, it burns.

Envion's system is being tested by Montgomery County. Over 85 percent of the plastic can be turned into refined oil. The rest is then recycled and turned into electricity which makes the whole unit run.

It costs 10 cents to get one gallon of oil. Just seeing one day's worth of plastics in Montgomery County gives you a taste of the 156 million tons of new waste produced each year.

Han hopes one day we'll live in a "land" without "land"fills.