“Jamaica needs
an End of Life policy as it relates to the disposal of discarded Tyres and
derelict motor vehicles”
Director of the NSWMA (National Solid Waste Management
Authority) Jennifer Edwards commenting on the Riverton City Dump fire on Sunday
March 16th 2014 in an interview with the Jamaica Observer Auto
On Sunday March
16th 2014, the unthinkable happened. On that day I awoke to see a
billowing ball of smoke just to the east of where I live in Swallowfield. At
first glance, having just awoken at about 7am that Sunday, I thought it was a
massive Rain Cloud.
But after
squinting in the sunlight a bit, I realized that the rapid pace at which the Cloud
seemed to be expanding looked more like a volcanic eruption than a rain Cloud.
Then it struck me; it must be a Fire at the Riverton City Dump along Spanish
Town Road leaving Kingston and close to Duhaney Park where I use to live year
ago. It was a massive one too, judging by the height of the Cloud and the speed
at which it was rising!
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It wasn’t until
later in the morning at around 10am when I finally got access to the Internet
that I realized that it was the Riverton City Dump on fire based on these
eye-witness photos as reported in “PHOTOS:
Riverton City Landfill fire”, published Sunday, March 16, 2014 7:34 PM, The Jamaica Observer and “YOUR PHOTOS:
Riverton Landfill On Fire”, Published Sunday March 16, 2014 12:19 pm, The Jamaica Gleaner.
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Making this fire
one of the worst ecological Disasters in terms of release of Toxins such as
Sulphur, Chemicals used to stabilize the Rubber in the Plastic, Steel and Oil
components as I’ve concluded from “Old
Tyres, the burning issue”, published Friday, March 21, 2014 BY BRIAN BONITTO Associate Editor, The Jamaica Observer.
The Growing Tyre Dilemma – Arsonists attempt to
extract Steel from Tyres cause ecological Disaster
Based on
Director of the NSWMA (National Solid Waste Management Authority) Jennifer
Edwards comments as shown above, what’s needed is an End of Life Policy for the
Tyres. They cannot be burnt but as they are beyond the point where they can be
retreaded into new Tyres they have to be disposed of.
Consequently
they end up being stored at the Riverton City Dump, as the NSWMA cannot convert
them to compost as noted in my blog article entitled “NSWMA
can benefit from coming Lithium Demand from All-Electric Vehicle - The Beverly
Hillbillies go Electric”. The previous Director of the NSWMA Joan
Gordon-Webley, had apparently met with representatives from DSC Global in 2009
concerning the sale of the Tyres, but nothing has come of it since.
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But with so much
land area to police, preventing people from milling about in the Garbage
looking for scrap metal, items of value that they can repair and use or even
food is difficult. To this end, the Tyres become easy targets for thieves and
even arsonists, who presumably set fire to the large and growing cache of Tyres
in order to extract the Steel from the Tyres, as that’s valuable to those
involved in the Scrap Metal Trade.
Extracting Valuable Materials from Tyres – Solar
Powered Vacuum Pyrolysis to the Rescue
Thus a ways has
to be found to Recycle the Spare Tyres or extract from them their components
for reuse in making other products, as another Fire of this nature may occur
once again. It also has to be a Jamaican solution, as we cannot depend on
foreigners to come to help us deal with our own waste.
The Recycling
initiatives that Americans and Canadians companies should have started as
described in my Geezam blog article
entitled “How
American and Canadian investors Plan to make money from the US$10 million Trade
in Plastics and other Recyclables in Jamaica” have yet to begin or even
make an impact. Clearly financial viability is the main issue.
Especially as
they may be looking for ways to make money from our situation and collecting Tyres
may not be economically viable in the long run, as many Jamaicans may be
finding ways to make them last longer.
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The GOJ
(Government of Jamaica), specifically the Ministry of Water, Land, Environment
and Climate Change has responded to the persistent problem of PETE
(Polyethylene Terephthalate) Bottles and the lack of foreign help with their
own initiative.
Dubbed the
Recycle Now Jamaica Project, the JA$200 million Recycling initiative is a
partnership between the GOJ as well as the main companies in Jamaica
responsible for and using Plastic Bottles in the first place to collect and
recycle PETE (Polyethylene Terephthalate) Bottles as noted in my blog article
entitled “GOJ
launches JA$200 million Recycle Now Jamaica Project to Recycle PETE Plastic
Waste - JEEP finally get self-sustaining Engine in small Step towards Telecom
Providers Recycling Electronic Waste”.
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This is the End
of Life Cycle Policy that Director of the NSWMA (National Solid Waste
Management Authority) Jennifer Edwards is alluding. Rather than create a new
Law, merely extend the current Recycle Now Jamaica Project to include those
items as listed in my blog article
entitled “Panther
Corporation of Canada sets up solar Powered Recycling Center - Investing in The
Apparition of Jamaica's Waste Management Problem”:
1.
HDPE Plastic
2.
PETE Plastic
3.
Paper
4.
Styrofoam
5.
Rubber Tyres
6.
Wood chips and Wood
7.
Bamboo
8.
Rare Earth Metal from RDA (Residue Disposal Area)
9.
Organic Waste i.e. food
10. Sewage
11. Water
12. Rainwater
13. Oxalate from Process at
Bauxite Companies e.g. JAMALCO and Ewarton
14. Cooking Oil
15. Electronic Waste
16. Printer Cartridges
Already most of
the above are being recycled in some way or the other:
1.
Red Mud from the RDA (Residue Disposal Area), for which a
Pilot Plant has been built to extract Rare Earth Metals from the Red Mud as
noted in my blog article
entitled “No
news on progress of the Rare Earth Pilot Plant at JBI - Cuba-Jamaica CFL
Project Heralds manufacturing of LED's, Li-Ion Batteries and Sapphire Screens
in Jamaica”.
2.
Cooking Oil Recycling Initiative led by Dr. Michael Coley of
the University of the West Indies as described in my blog article
entitled “UWI
and YCWJ team up to Recycle Waste Cooking Oil - Yendi Phillipps on How to make
National Bio-Diesel Production from Waste Cooking Oil Insidious Chapter 2”.
3.
Incandescent Light
Bulbs as well as Fluorescent Light Bulbs as we transition towards LED (Light
Emitting Diode) Light Bulbs as described in my blog article
entitled “Minister Paulwell revives Cuban Light
Bulb Program - How to Ban Incandescent Bulbs and focus on production of LED
Bulbs in Jamaica”.
4.
Bamboo to make Charcoal and also wooden furniture as
explained in my blog
article entitled “Jamaica's
Bamboo Charcoal exports stalled by lack of Bamboo Furnaces – How to build a
Fresnel Lens Solar Powered Bamboo Furnace and produce Activated Charcoal
byproduct”.
I’d also
suggested that it should be extended to the Telecom Providers as relates to
forming a GOJ partnership to collect and recycle their Electronic Waste in
terms of cellphones, modems and all it components. Cellphones and modems are
not only made of plastic, but more valuable Rare Earth Metals in the Battery
and Circuit Board components.
Ditto too for
Telecom Providers Worldwide in developing a Network of ground-based Lasers to
shoot dead Satellites from orbit before the damage other working Satellites or
land on the Earth as explained in my blog article
entitled “Australian
Government and NASA planning to Search and Destroy Asteroids and Space Debris -
Space Junk and Asteroid spotting is a Non-Stop Global Initiative that Telecom
Providers need to get involved”. But that’s another story for another blog!
No safe means
exists to recycle them except Pyrolysis. Enter Solar Vacuum Pyrolysis as
described in my blog
article entitled “How
to upgrade your Solar Desalinator to a Solar Cooker and make a Solar Foundry
for Vacuum Pyrolysis”. Best of all, Pyrolysis can result in the production
of Diesel and Gasoline fuel, thus resulting in a reduction of Jamaica’s Fuel
Bill!
Extracting Valuable Materials from Tyres – Solar
Powered Vacuum Pyrolysis to the Rescue
Those on the
list that are not currently being actively recycled are probably not being done
as they are not waste available in commercially viable quantities.
Old Tyres can be
made into byproducts that are constitute their main chemical makeup, that being
rubber, being made into other physical forms, once masticated:
1.
Asphalt
2.
Rubber tiles
3.
Adhesives
4.
Astraturf
5.
Carpet underlay
6.
Use as insulation in anechoic chambers
7.
Artificial reefs
8.
Children play areas
9.
Car Mats
Director of the
NSWMA (National Solid Waste Management Authority) Jennifer Edwards indicated
they'd begun the search for someone to purchase the Tyres last year but to no
avail, quote: “The discussions had started in September or October last year.
They are Jamaicans living in the United States... Nothing was finalized, but
their lawyers and ours were in dialogue”.
This means that
we have to something about it ourselves. The first step is mastication of the Tyres.
They need to be mechanically crushed and minced in a machine that reduced their
physical shape from that of a Tyre to crumbs that can be more easily stored,
machines for which we can design by modifying a typical grass cutter but with
sharper blades. This would make storing the Rubber Tyres easier as they'd be in
a form that takes up less space and could be placed underground.
The next thing
that could be done at that point is to use Solar Powered Vacuum Pyrolysis to
basically decompose the Tyres to their base constituents as described in my blog article
entitled “How
to upgrade your Solar Desalinator to a Solar Cooker and make a Solar Foundry
for Vacuum Pyrolysis”.
Using this
technique, a very large Vacuum chamber can be built to decompose the Tyres.
This is again technology we as Jamaicans can design and build. Old Tyres can
then be reduced under Vacuum, back to base constituents, mostly long chain
hydrocarbons and Steel.
Via this method,
the valuable Steel can be extracted in molten form, with the evaporated long
chain Hydrocarbons consisting of an Oleum made up mostly of Sulphur and Diesel!
According to the
Youtube channel PyrolysisofTyres,
the decomposition of Tyres produces the following constituents:
1.
50% Oil
2.
30% Activated Charcoal
3.
10% steel
4.
9% Methane Gas
5.
1% water vapour
What this
effectively means is that the Vacuum Pyrolysis of Tyres not only yields Diesel Oil
(the heaviest Oil made of long chain Hydrocarbons) but it also produced Methane
Gas. This can be siphoned off and filtered to remove water vapour and thus be
made into fuel.
This Gas can be
then bottled and use for other purposes or fed back into the process to heat
the Pyrolysis Plant along with Solar power. However, the Solar Energy from
Sunlight concentrated from large window-frame sized Fresnel Lens would be more
than sufficient to do so.
Even more
interesting is that PETE (Polyethylene
Terephthalate) Bottles can also be vacuum pyrolysed to produce Diesel Oil
as well as shown in the series of videos below for YouTube Channel Sascha Ljubisic.
According to them, at temperatures in a vacuum as low as 400 Celcius with a Gas
Burner and 15 kg of plastic, they got the following yield:
1.
16 Liters Diesel
2.
3 kg of grease
The grease is
most likely plasticizers used to stabilize the long chain hydrocarbons of Polyethylene into PETE and HDPE (High Density
Polyethylene) and can be resold or reused in some other way. As I’ve pointed
out, these temperatures can be easily achieve using a Fresnel Lens, which
according to YouTube Channel GreenPowerScience that’s
capable of temperatures in excess of 2000 Celcius, enough to melt most metals
and even rocks!
So armed with
these YouTube Channels, it’s possible to
make a Fresnel Lens based Solar Pyrolysis Kiln to decomposes PETE, HDPE and
even Rubber Tyres into Diesel Oil. The main problems you’ll face is figuring
out a way to control the Temperature and pressure inside of the Vacuum Chamber,
as it doesn’t have to be very high, as most of this process of decomposing
Hydrocarbons will occur at 400 Celcius.
Once decomposed,
with the use of a Xylem Filter as described in my blog article
entitled “MIT
Researchers use White Pine Tree Branches as effective Water Filter - How to
make Potable Water using a Xylem Filter”, you can then strain and then
filter the cooled Oil to produce Gasoline, as filtration with any nano-filter
will remove the heavier fractions of Oil, resulting in Gasoline passing through
over a period of days.
Alternately, you
can also use a Centrifuge made from Large Glass Buckets, melted and molded
using the Fresnel Lens, to separate the Diesel Oil into layers, the lighter
layer being Gasoline and Kerosene. That procedure of melting Glass and forming
into other shapes I’ll explain in another article!
Here’s the YouTube Channel links mentioned above:
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