- Title: CHINA: CHINESE INVENTOR TURNS WASTE PLASTIC INTO DIESEL AND PETROL
- Date: 3rd January 1994
- Summary: NEAR BEIJING, CHINA (RECENT) (RTV -- ACCESS ALL) 1. SV ROAD WITH TRUCKS AND BICYCLES 0.04 2. SV PLANT SITE OF THE GOLDEN RIVER PETROLEUM PRODUCTS FACTORY 0.07 3. SCU LOGO "GOLDEN RIVER" IN CHINESE CHARACTERS 0.10 4. SV WORKERS PUTTING BAGS OF WASTE PLASTICS ONTO CART 0.15 5. SV WORKERS TRANSPORTING WASTE PLASTICS TO THE COAL FURNACE 0.19 6. SV WORKER POURING OUT CATALYST POWDER OUT OF SACK 0.27 7. SV WORKER SHOVELING WASTE PLASTICS INTO FUNNEL (4 SHOTS) 0.49 8. SV WORKER SHOVELING COAL INTO FURNACE (3 SHOTS) 0.57 9. CU TEMPERATURE MONITORING PANEL IN THE COMPUTER ROOM 1.04 10. SV OIL RUNNING INSIDE TUBE (2 SHOTS) 1.12 11. SCU WANG YINGKUI, FACTORY MANAGER SAYS: "I'M SAYING IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CLEANLINESS OF THE PLASTICS" (MANDARIN) 1.23 12. SV MEN WALKING INTO LABORATORY 1.28 13. CU OIL SAMPLES IN BOTTLES (2 SHOTS) 1.35 14. CU BOTTLE LABELLED "PETROL" (CHINESE) 1.36 15. SCU YANG YALI, INVENTOR, SAYS,"IT CAN MAKE ENERGY GOODS, SO AS TO SPEAK, PETROL AND DISELS WHICH ARE NEEDED BY ALL OF US"(MANDARIN) 1.54 16. SV MEN EXAMINING BOTTLES OF OIL PRDUCTS 1.59 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
- Embargoed: 18th January 1994 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: NEAR BEIJING, CHINA
- City:
- Country: China
- Topics:
- Reuters ID: LVACHOJDCUW24KHKD5P694TQXBS2
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- Story Text: Chinese workers are turning dirty plastic scraps into clear diesel and petrol thanks to a clever young inventor.
The Beijing Golden River Petroleum roducts Factory is China's first plant to transform waste plastic into oil, the brainchild of inventor Yang Yali.
Yang, who quit computer science to take up inventing, said he got the idea when he began to think that since plastic comes from oil, maybe it could be turned back into oil.
The catalyst that Yang developed after more than three years of toil is his secret ingredient. He has yet to list the patent but is considering registering it abroad.
Golden River began operation last September. A long shed down one side of the plant is piled high with mounds of grubby plastic.
The plastic is poured into a tank, catalyst power is added and the transformation takes place. Coal furnaces, stoked by more of China's low-paid labour force, glow under the tanks, heating up the mixture until it changes into oil.
The oil is funnelled down a tube and into cooling tanks from where it is injected into a small refinery at the end of the poduction line that converts it into petrol or diesel.
The next step is sale, either to the state distribution system or nearby petrol stations.
Yang does not claim to have developed the only such plant in the world. But he says his method reduces the cost of other more complicated methods used in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
Yang estimates poduction costs at 1,300 yuan ($153) per tonne while the domestic sales price for petrol is 2,000-2,300 ($236-271) per tonne. To process one tonne of plastic requires 300 kg (660 lbs) of coal.
Golden River can process 10-20 tonnes of plastic a day through its two tanks, and Yang says 10 tonnes of plastic poduce at least seven tonnes of oil.
The only pollution from the plant is fumes from the coal furnaces. Everything else can be used. Even the carbon black residue from the dirt on the plastic is sold, for dye.
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