Only 7 percent of plastic waste in the United States is recycled each
year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. A startup
company in Niagara Falls says it can increase that amount and reduce the
country’s dependence on foreign oil at the same time.
It
all starts with a machine known as the Plastic-Eating Monster.
Thousands of pounds of shredded milk jugs, water bottles and grocery
bags tumble into a large tank, where they’re melted together and
vaporized. This waste comes from landfills and dumps from all over the
United States.
“Basically, they’ve been
mining their piles for us and sending them here,” says John Bordynuik,
who heads his namesake company, JBI Inc. He invented a process that
converts plastic into oil by rearranging its hydrocarbon chains.
