[Market-farming] Burning Used Agricultural Plastics (!!)

Alliums garlicgrower at earthlink.net
Wed Jan 21 09:16:49 EST 2004


Hi, Folks!

I just had a chance to read the January 2004 issue of the Penn State "Small 
Fruit and Vegetable Gazette"  Check out this article!

Burner Unit for Burning Used Ag Plastics Arrives
Jim Garthe, Department of Ag and Biological Engineering
Mike Orzolek and Bill Lamont, Department of Horticulture


We just received shipment today of a burner from South Korea that uses used 
plastic (polyethylene) as a fuel source that heats water as an energy 
source and can be use in a high tunnel, greenhouse, storage building, 
animal structure or residential house. The burner with 2.5ton water tank is 
8 feet long and 4 feet wide. It will produce approximately 250,000 BTUs 
when the plastic is burnt in the furnace. We are in the process of 
constructing a 30' wide by 96' long high tunnel from Ledgewood Farms and 
will be heating it using the Korean Plastic Burning unit. Jim Garthe, the 
Ag Engineer on this project has developed a densifying unit for all used 
plastics (plastic mulch film, drip irrigation tape, plastic greenhouse 
covers, plastic pots, hay bale wraps, and silage bags) which will produce a 
plastic nugget "plastofuel" similar to a lump of coal. This "plastofuel" 
will be burned in the Korean unit and evaluated for efficiency and air 
emissions. In the next several weeks, we hope to place this information 
with photos on our Center for Plastculture website 
http://plasticulture.cas.psu.edu.


Dorene Pasekoff, Coordinator
St. John's United Church of Christ Organic Community Garden

A mission of
St. John's United Church of Christ, 315 Gay Street, Phoenixville, PA  19460 
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