Plastic waste, a factor that has long been polluting the environment, need not be waste and damage our surroundings anymore.

Believe it or not, used plastic will soon be turned into crude oil.

In a project kicked off in the middle of last year, Rayong municipality expects to be producing crude oil from plastic waste by October.

"It's expected the depolymerisation machine will be able to produce crude oil of 4,5007,000 litres per day, from six to ten tonnes of plastic waste, using polymer energy technology," said Napan Narischat, technical manager at Single Point Energy and Environment, the company supporting the technology for the municipality.

"Moreover, the crude oil produced by the depolymerisation process is identified as premium grade... consisting of up to 50percent diesel," Napan said. "The more diesel or gasoline it has, the higher grade it is."

Materials are used plastic, such as plastic bags and bottles or other plastic used in daily life made from four types of plastic - linear low density polyethylene, low density polyethylene, high density polyethylene and polypropylene.

"Our municipality has two landfills - one of them is full and the other will be full in three years. Most rubbish is plastic which can't be recycled," said Vilawan Nathabumroung, the municipality's sanitary officer.

"So, when the Energy Ministry and the company proposed the project, we immediately accepted it," she added.

The municipality will dig in the full landfill to collect buried plastic and use it as material for the depolymerisation process to produce crude oil, and launch a campaign to encourage local people to separate plastic from other rubbish.

"Crude oil then will be sold to the IRPC Refinery in Rayong," Vilawan added.

"We aim at running 'zero waste management'- trying not to leave any waste, but to make use of waste as much as possible, and hire a company to clean out only hazardous waste," Vilawan said.

Since 2004, the municipality has run a project to get rid of household waste by turning it into organic fertiliser. It will run this with the polymer energy project to achieve zero waste management.

Wiriyakorn Sripratum, the company's environment engineer said the same polymer energy project had been adopted by Hua Hin municipality and the process would be complete in two months.

The municipality yesterday presented its rubbish management, together with environmental conservation and management projects of 35 other municipalities, following His Majesty the King's ideas.

The exhibition marked World Environment Day, which falls today part of the National Municipal League of Thailand's conference at Bitec Bang Na.