The Potential of Plastics?

Information Space - Final Project | Created by Hoa Truong | Advised by Professor Eric Field

Background:
In the United States, a large amount of plastics end up in landfills. Since plastics contain energy from fossil fuels, there is potential value to
utilize them as a resource which in turns transfers some supply away from landfills and may help to reduce environmental hazards. There are
three primary ways to convert plastics into energy production. One of these approaches is to burn waste in waste-to-energy (WTE) facilities.
WTE facilities recover the energy from plastics that would otherwise be lost and reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions compared to landfills
which emit methane during the decomposition period. The EPA stated that WTE facilities produce electricity “with less environmental impact
than almost any other source of electricity.”

Goals:
This project sets out to determine if this is truly the case for plastics. If it is, then perhaps the answer would be to increase the usage of WTE
facilities and promote new infrastructure to increase the amount burned. This visualization investigates both the positive effects (electricity
generation) and negative effects (greenhouse gas emissions) of burning plastics as an energy source.