Its impossible to get permits to do this at scale in any Western country, except maybe the US.
My old boss has a pile of patents on it that he can't use unless he moves to somewhere freer. And he's too old for that.
P.S. "circular economy" is the #1 sign of a scam-coin, always and everywhere. Energy isn't actually free, and it isn't recyclable either.
IMO the trick is to improve efficiency of smaller scale energy production & then just do things without asking. In a lot of cases it seems that there is available tech that just hasn't been applied everywhere that it can be. And often old ideas that worked were phased out for some limitation that has since been overcome without the old idea being properly revisited.
Fuck patents.
There will never be anything that is perfectly or completely circular in terms of all inputs, but there is a ton of waste that can be recovered.
^ A truth you will never hear uttered in the corridors of power.
Aluminium, copper, steel and paper already have good recycling rates, though its always good to re-examine regulatory or structural barriers that prevent rates from being even better.
Glass recycling is a net-negative anywhere with virgin sand available locally, purely on the cost of energy needed for refining recycled product.
And recycling mixed plastics is both environmental and economic vandalism (outside of a few niche feedstocks).
Plastic waste-to-energy is marginal but potentially economically viable, regulations permitting, but I still think we shouldn't for environmental, health & safety and strategic reasons.
Companies used to pay for glass didn't they? There must have been some cost benefit if they were buying it back? Or were they just buying back whole bottles & steam cleaning them or something?
I'd like to zap you but I can't
