Sustainable Plastics -March/ April 2021 - 16

Inside at....Alterra Energy
Alterra liquefaction plant
Alterra Energy photo

Recycling: it
takes all kinds
" The world needs to have a solution for every type of plastic, " said Fred Schmuck,
CEO of advanced recycling company, Alterra Energy. It's not an either-or situation,
he stressed. " People need to realise that the solution we have is complementary to
mechanical recycling. But also that it doesn't have environmental issues and is not
energy inefficient. "

A

dvanced recycling
has come a long
way over the past
two decades. Yet
there is still widespread misunderstanding among the
general public about what it
is and how it works, according to Fred Schmuck, CEO of
Alterra Energy. Twenty years
ago, when pyrolysis started,

16

P016_P018_SP_20210427.indd 16

the process wasn't all that
efficient and the substantial
amount of concern about the
amount of external energy required for heating was probably justified.
" But that's no longer the case, "
he explained. " Efficiency is at the
core of what we've been doing
over the last four years. "
He revealed that the origi-

nal commercialisation date for
the Alterra plant had been the
year 2015. The company spent
four extra years before going
on stream to ensure the process was robust and efficient
enough, especially from an
energy recovery perspective.
" People need to understand
that what might have been reported back a long time ago

is not substantiated today.
It is crucial that we develop
fact-based, technical measures and analyses in order
to get the general public to
understand that this is a viable solution, " he stressed. " It
is certainly not incineration
in disguise: it is a truly novel,
innovative, safe, reliable, environmentally-friendly process. "

March/April 2021

4/15/21 10:33 AM
Sustainable Plastics -March/ April 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sustainable Plastics -March/ April 2021
