It was co-authored by scientists from the University of Montana and the U.S. The new study, published in Environmental Science & Technology, was funded by the National Science Foundation, which is NCAR’s sponsor. Still, the analysis represents the most comprehensive effort to date to account for emissions from trash burning. Quantifying the extent of burning trash may change how policy makers track emissions, as well as how scientists incorporate air pollution into computer models used to study the atmosphere.īecause trash burning is unregulated and unmonitored, Wiedinmyer said that actual emissions could be larger or smaller than the study’s estimates by a factor of two. “The uncontrolled burning of trash is a major source of pollutants, and it’s one that should receive more attention.” “Air pollution across much of the globe is significantly underestimated because no one is tracking open-fire burning of trash,” said NCAR scientist Christine Wiedinmyer, lead author of the new study. For that reason, they are not incorporated into policy making. Unlike emissions from commercial incinerators, the emissions from burning trash in open fires often go unreported to environmental agencies and are left out of many national inventories of air pollution. The researchers also estimated emissions of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas produced by human activity. Such pollutants have been linked to serious medical issues. The new study provides the first rough estimates, on a country-by-country basis, of pollutants such as particulates, carbon monoxide, and mercury that are emitted by the fires. A new study led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research estimates that more than 40 percent of the world’s garbage is burned in such fires, emitting gases and particles that can substantially affect human health and climate change. But this is the first time anyone has burned them so cleanly.Unregulated trash burning around the globe is pumping far more pollution into the atmosphere than shown by official records. 'Using plastic as fuel is not a new idea,' Zhuo said.

The researchers have also shown that the same process works for burning biomass, a leading alternative fuel source that is rapidly gaining traction as our global energy demand reaches new heights. Thus, not only can our plastic waste problem be rerouted to generate electricity, it can also be upcycled to generate one of the market's most popular new materials. The patent-pending process gave way to another surprising result: when the researchers introduced a bit of stainless steel into the reactor, they found it acted as a catalyst for growing uniform carbon nanotubes. This causes the plastic to become a gas, which is then mixed with air before it is burned as a clean fuel.

Instead of directly setting the cup aflame with a match in the open air, the team's reactor heats the material to a whopping 800 degrees Celsius in a completely oxygen-free environment. That simple step has a daunting name: pyrolytic gasification. Toward that end, the team developed a combustion system that adds a simple step to the burning process that allows for turning plastic into a fuel that burns just as cleanly as natural gas. 'We wanted to tackle the problem by preprocessing the plastics,' said Chuanwei Zhuo, a doctoral candidate in Levendis' lab. But this didn't thwart Levendis, who noted that plastic contains the same amount of energy per pound as premium fuel. 'Instead of throwing them away,' Levendis wondered, 'could we make use of them in a cleaner way?' The answer, it turned out, was yes.īurning plastic in the traditional manner creates extremely polluting byproducts, as evidenced by the black smoke produced by the cup. The rest found its way into landfills and some into the oceans, accounting for countless seabird and marine mammal deaths. swept aside 32 million tons as waste, and just 8 percent of that waste was recovered for recycling. The photo represents a mission for Levendis, whose expertise in combustion and device design has led to the development of dozens of clean energy products.Ĭonsider these statistics: In 2011, global plastic production reached 280 million tons.

Burning trash without creating pollutin