500 Miles on 10-Percent Plastic Waste

Dean Sigler Diesel Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Plastic threatens to choke the world’s oceans, five gyres or “garbage patches” of plastic debris twirling around in toxic profusion.  These plastic bits and pieces, slowly photodegrading into smaller and smaller pieces, also choke the fish and birds that feed on or in the water.  It’s a huge problem that invites grand visions for solutions In what may at first glance seem a very small attempt to help,”Campaigning Pilot Jeremy Rowsell has made history by flying a light aircraft more than 500 miles from Sydney to Melbourne, Australia, using conventional fuel blended with 10% fuel manufactured by the UK’s Plastic Energy, from plastic waste.” Jeremy flies a Vans Aircraft RV-9A, which uses a blend of “end-of-life” plastic waste, transformed from a pollutant into a viable jet A1 fuel by a process developed by Cynar PLC, an Irish firm.  That process has been picked up by Plastic Energy SL, a Spanish company. “On Wings of Waste” (OWOW) uses a “’10 per …

A Flight to Counter Plastic Pollution

Dean Sigler Biofuels, Diesel Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

Jeremy Rowsell, an Australian pilot and concerned environmentalist, has seen plastic littering beaches around the world, and knows of the micro-plastic particles ingested by fish and sea birds.  His hope four years ago was to fly a Cessna from Australia to London and back – powered by fuel made from that waste plastic. That event never came, and Rowsell is back with a still ambitious plan to fly an RV-9A from San Francisco, California (the world’s innovation hub, according to the project’s web site) to Anchorage, Alaska (the world’s climate change frontier), following a safer route than the originally planned oceanic journey. The Problem and One Solution Partnering with Plasticenergy, a Spanish company that uses “end-of-life” plastic to make commercially viable fuel “suitable for all diesel engines,” Rowsell’s flight would demonstrate that keeping plastic waste out of the world’s oceans could have economic, as well as environmental, benefits. In the oceans, plastic photodegrades over time, turning into smaller and smaller …

On Wings of Waste

Dean Sigler Diesel Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is just one of several gyres that swirl in the world’s oceans, holding tiny bits of degraded plastic that threaten fish and sea birds. According to a new and ambitious project’s web site, there is hope for cleaning up the debris and turning it into a highly useful and prized commodity. The @Altitude project’s web site says, “Wings of Waste is the world’s 1st 100% recyclable plastic fuelled flight, piloted by Jeremy Rowsell. The flight route is Sydney to London, Spring/Summer 2012 (ETD October – now changed to early 2013), along the old barnstorming routes of the original United Kingdom/Australian air pioneers: Charles Kingsford-Smith, Amy Johnson and Bert Hinkler. Rowsell will fly a Diesel-powered Cessna 172, according to modified plans for the flight and is also “attempting to break two records: “1. To be the first to fly via plastic waste fuel at 100% treatment; and “2. To break a flight time from Sydney to …