Toyota wants to turn your garbage into electricity

A division of Toyota has announced a new recycling method which can turn ‘green waste’ into energy without the need for a burning process which currently contributes to its CO2 emissions.

According to Toyota’s in-house magazine Toyota Times, the process combines ‘green waste’, water, sawdust and shredded paper in a high-pressure machine.

The materials are liquified and placed into a “methane fermentation vessel” where microorganisms ferment the product and convert it to methane gas, which is used as fuel that powers the chemical plant.

While Toyota’s engineers claimed the safe waste disposal process still requires some form of incineration, the company previously said it captures the CO2 emitted from this process to power its facilities and reduce its carbon emissions output.

And the Japanese car giant claims the heat from burning industrial waste can generate electricity “equivalent to the annual consumption of approximately 3000 households.”

Toyota is also working on a new battery recycling process which it claims can further reduce its carbon emissions.

According to Toyota Times, the Japanese car giant has previously used conventional incineration techniques to recycle batteries, however it claims it has found a work-around which does not add CO2 to the atmosphere.

Electrolytic fluid – a solution needed for the charging and discharging of electricity – found in batteries is highly flammable, and incineration has long been the only safe way to collect the recyclable materials without handling the fluid, Toyota says.

However, through distillation, the company claims it could make the electrolytic solution safer to handle by making it less flammable – allowing it to recover the recyclable materials more thoroughly, and shred the battery cells once the main part of the process has been completed.

Toyota says this distillation process makes gathering large pieces of aluminium and iron – along with black powder dubbed “black mass” which contains an abundance of rare metals – easier.