Texon, a fabric manufacturer supplying brands such as Nike and Timberland, is using an age-old process to make trainers carbon neutral.
It has installed a plant on its site in north-east England, run by Thermitech Solutions, that uses a thermochemical process, pyrolisis, to turn tonnes of waste material into gas and oil.
The process is comparable to charcoal burning but Thermitech has adapted it to make it more efficient and reliable. As a result, every £100 paid to get rid of the waste is turned into energy worth £350 – an increase in value of £450.
Texon processes 600 tonnes of material every year, so this innovation also means 147,600 pairs of trainers will become CO2 neutral.
The Thermitech ATC300 system converts waste into gas and oil. It displaces the equivalent amount of electricity and gas that would have been taken from the grid, which is more carbon intensive than pyrolisis.
So the waste material, which in some industries travels around the world for disposal, doesn’t need to be carted away. In the future the company foresees even more benefits – it aims to turn the oil into a product that can be sold.
The technology saves just over two tonnes of CO2 for every tonne of waste it processes. The company says its technology not only cuts a manufacturer’s onsite electricity bill, but is so cost effective that it can achieve pay back in around two years, without the need for government incentives.
The company’s current focus is on relatively high energy non-recyclable plastics but it is testing the technology on recovering rare earth metals, gold and platinum. Early indications are promising.
The process will provide a long-awaited technical solution to recovering valuable raw materials from the last remaining elements of a waste stream. The company anticipates that it will fit well into a number of industry sectors including retail storage and distribution, waste recycling and reprocessing.
.png?w=600)
