Plastic Waste in America Could Help Power Transportation and Industry
 With funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) were able to calculate that America’s landfills hold nearly 44 million metric tons—or 97 billion pounds—of discarded plastic, a staggering amount of material that could be harnessed to create energy. NREL researchers calculated that the energy value of landfilled plastic waste in 2019 was enough to supply 5% of the power used by the country’s transportation sector or 5.5% of the industrial sector’s energy needs. Every bit of wasted plastic is also a wasted energy opportunity for America.
“This is an opportunity for the U.S. Department of Energy to educate communities on the value of plastic waste in their landfills,” said BETO Director Valerie Sarisky-Reed. A partnership between BETO and NREL has produced the Waste-to-Energy Technical Assistance for Local Governments program, which helps communities develop solutions for waste.
Learn more about NREL’s analysis, economic opportunities that could arise by recovering the value of plastic waste through different processes, and possible solutions for plastics that are not currently recycled.
BETO supports research, development, and demonstration to enable the sustainable use of domestic biomass and waste resources for the production of biofuels and bioproducts. BETO is part of DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
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