Problem no. 9: Waste disposal

PyroGenesis has perfected the ultimate recycling machine: A superheating furnace that reduces trash to valuable raw materials.

By Sidra Durst, Business 2.0 Magazine intern

SAN FRANCISCO (Business 2.0 Magazine) -- The background: We're building bigger and bigger mountains of increasingly toxic garbage. The United States alone annually produces 1.4 billion tons of waste, the majority of which winds up in landfills.

Recycling is a noble goal, but not everything can be recycled, and many places lack the infrastructure for it anyway. Incinerators can reduce the volume of trash, but they emit dioxins and toxic ash, which contaminate the water table. And while newer systems can trap both in filters, those filters then require costly disposal techniques.

The solution: Montreal-based PyroGenesis has refined a process, called plasma arc gasification, in which solid waste is shredded and fed into a furnace where extreme electrical charges bring the temperature above 3,000 degrees.

After an hour or so, waste material breaks down into its molecular building blocks, leaving three marketable byproducts: a combustible synthesis gas, or syngas, that can be converted into steam or electricity; metal ingots that can be resold and melted down again; and a glassy solid that can be processed into material for floor tiles or gravel. Plasma furnaces can safely handle factory and hospital waste, hazardous runoff, and even the oil sludge that comes off ships.

The basic technology is not new; torches were used by NASA scientists in the 1960s to test heat shields on Apollo command modules. PyroGenesis was one of the first companies to try to scale the method for widespread industrial use.

The payoff: With clean-tech investment booming, big clients have started knocking. Carnival, the $11 billion cruise ship operator, uses a PyroGenesis system to reduce 5 tons per day of cabin waste and food on one of its vessels into a few pounds of harmless sand. The U.S. Navy, meanwhile, has hired PyroGenesis to develop plasma waste systems for new aircraft carriers due out in 2015. PyroGenesis recently sold an industrial system to the University of Athens in Greece for about $1 million and is developing 25-, 50-, and 100-ton systems that will sell for as much as $25 million apiece.

The opportunity: The long-term market opportunity is immense: An estimated $40 billion is spent annually to transport, incinerate, recycle, and store waste in the United States alone.

Although several small waste facilities in Japan use plasma-gas furnaces to incinerate their trash, most industry experts predict that the technology is still several years away from widespread commercial use. Dozens of early-stage startups, meanwhile, have been busy developing related products in niche markets for medical and other hazardous wastes. Top of page

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.