Entrepreneurs have been trying for years to turn low-value wastes into high-value products. Waste plastic is among the lowest in value, and gasoline or diesel fuel the highest, but machines that carry out that conversion usually consume a lot of energy and get gummed-up by leftover materialthat they cannot convert. Now a company in Washington, D.C., is trying out a new way heating the plastic to a very carefully controlled temperature range, with infrared energy. The company, Envion, is expected to cut the ribbon on Wednesday morning on a $5 million plant that it says will annually convert 6,000 tons of plastic into nearly a million barrels of something resembling oil. The product can be blended with other components and sold as gasoline or diesel.
PBDEs are fire retardants used in soft polyurethane foam in furniture and in textiles and carpets as well as in hard plastic computers, home appliances and dashboards.
Research on PBDEs in laboratory animals link exposure to thyroid hormone disruption, permanent learning and memory impairment, decreased sperm count, fetal malformations, behavioral changes, hearing deficits and possibly cancer.
For over 40 years, bisphenol A labored in relative obscurity as the feedstock for a wide range of commercial plastics and synthetic resins. Growing demand for polycarbonates—for products ranging from baby bottles to compact discs—drives the rapidly expanding multibillion-dollar market for bisphenol A, one of the highest-volume chemicals in commercial production [see related essay (published online 17 July 2007); doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050200]. Bisphenol A molecules, which are joined by unstable bonds to form polycarbonates and resins, leach from containers exposed to heat or highly acidic or basic compounds. Although bisphenol A's estrogenic activity was first reported in 1936, scientific interest in the chemical has recently increased along with evidence of its effects. And as the media increasingly cover these findings, the chemical industry has stepped up its attacks on those studying endocrine disruption.
