Diesel made from waste plastic and costing as little as eight cents a litre may be the next source of fuel for those seeking to reduce fuel costs. The process of converting plastics to diesel is called thermalysis and has been developed over the past 17 years by United States company Environmental Fuel Development.The technology reverses the process used to make polymer plastics from oil by heating the waste to very high temperatures in a near vacuum and spraying the molten stream on to a hot catalytic plate to produce petroleum and natural gas. The process has zero emissions.Victorian entrepreneur Ray Russell, who is chief executive of Osmotech, the company formed to market the technology in Australia and Asia-Pacific, believes the "new diesel" will be a winner.
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