Recycling Garbage

In goes garbage, out comes fuel oil.

A Vonnegut fantasy? No. Several companies are engaged in research to make just such a machine. Now Garrett Research & Development Co., a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum, claims that it has solved the technical problems and is ready to build a 50-ton-per-day demonstration plant in San Diego County. The project depends on whether or not the county and the Federal Government will ante up the $3,000,000 necessary to build the plant.

The process by which garbage can be converted into oil is called pyrolysis, the use of heat to transform materials. It was by this means that plant and animal remains were originally converted by underground heat into the world's present reserves of oil, coal and natural gas. In Garrett's design, raw garbage straight from the ashcan would be chopped into gravel-sized pieces by an enormous shredder, then run through a dryer to remove moisture. An air classifier would separate the inorganic matter (metals, glass) from the organic (paper, food wastes). The organic matter would then be ground into a sugar-fine powder and heated to a temperature of 1,000DEG F.

In its plant, Garrett says, a ton of garbage could produce about 480 Ibs. of oil (plus 160 Ibs. of char, 140 Ibs. of magnetic metals like iron and 120 Ibs. of glass), or about $6 of usable material for each $5.50 in operating costs. Independent experts are skeptical about these cost figures, but a garbage converter would be valuable even if it does not operate at a profit. San Diego County, which is weighing the pyrolysis experiment, presently produces 3,500 tons of garbage per day, spends $12 per ton to collect and haul it to the dump, and like most American cities, it is running out of dumping space.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.