Plastic Waste as a Fuel for Transportation

Plastic Waste as a Fuel for Transportation: A stated choice experiment on the personal preference and acceptability towards adoption to a plastic-based fuel

Six, Pascale (TU Delft Technology, Policy and Management)

Delft University of Technology

Complex Systems Engineering and Management (CoSEM)

2024-02-22

Plastic is one of the major pollutants in the world and currently, more than 300 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide (Miandad et al. 2019). Since only 9.5% of plastic waste is being recycled, littering has caused a lot of non-recyclable plastics (NRP) that wander around damaging the environment and ending up in landfills, oceans and other natural environments (Benavides et al. 2017). This overload of plastic demands action to prevent a worsening situation. Therefore, alternative use of plastic waste is sought whereas a promising solution is to use plastic waste as a fuel for transportation. Plastic waste can be converted into various types of fuels, such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuels. To create these fuels, plastic waste undergoes a process called pyrolysis (Manickavelan et al. 2022). This research is done by first gathering information on the social influences on choice-making when consumers have to choose a fuel type. With this information, a survey is constructed existing of a stated choice experiment. With the results of the survey, further information is sought on the policy frameworks and infrastructures necessary for the implementation of a plastic-based fuel and the environmental impacts of using plastic as a fuel, as these aspects seem to impact the consumers most considering a fuel choice. Combining and analysing the information and degree of importance of each attribute can conclude whether the implementation of using plastic fuel will be feasible and socially acceptable. The outcome will be evaluated concerning the feasibility, performance limitations and social acceptance. The results showed the degree of importance for consumers of price, emissions and infrastructure, from most influential to least, regarding making a fuel choice researched with an unlabelled SCE (Stated Choice Experiment). However, when transmitting from gasoline to plastic, the labelled SCE showed the degree of importance for infrastructure, emissions and price from high influence to low influence. Since using plastic fuel is a transition of fuel, the main focus will lie on the results of the labelled SCE. Concerning missions, the most optimal solution to implement plastic fuel is by providing the fuel as a blend. From research, a blend existing of 75-80% fossil fuel and 20-25% plastic shows improvement in tailpipe emissions reducing CO2 emissions and smoke. For NOx emissions, discussion is still ongoing on whether more or less emissions are produced compared to fossil fuels. However, with the blend range of 75-80% fossil fuel and 20-25%, the least NOx are produced compared to other blend ratios. Since a blend is the most optimal implementation strategy, the ease of having access to plastic-based fuel will not differ from fossil fuels as it will be blended into the currently used fuels. Adding plastic oil to fossil fuels will therefore provide a solution to the excess of plastic waste worldwide with an additional advantage of producing less emissions during combustion compared to the currently used fossil fuels.

Plastic
Fuel
Social Acceptance
Stated Choice Experiment

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Student theses

master thesis

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