1. Recovery from Pizza Boxes
Energy
Recovery from Pizza Boxes
The Bots:
Adrian Chan
Kevin Pramojaney
Jonathan Song

2. Problem Statement Problem Statement:
America is a pizza-loving country. In 2014, They ate 3 billion pizzas! That’s more pizzas than people on Earth when Kennedy was president. Pizza is a $30 billion per year industry.
Many of these 3 billion pizzas come in pizza boxes! In fact, the average pizzeria uses over 60 pizza boxes every single day!
The problem with our mass use of pizza boxes is that pizza boxes are not recyclable.
Why? Pizzas create a lot of grease. Grease is a form of oil. When paper products, like pizza boxes, are recycled, they are mixed with water. The oil in the pizza boxes does not mix with the water, contaminating the whole batch of paper.
This is a very big problem. It is estimated that recycling contamination causes $700 million of damage each year.
Therefore, we must throw the boxes away. The boxes go into waste, which means that many boxes end up in landfills every year, threatening our environment even more!
This is a problem to solve. But as shown in the next slide, there are not many good solutions...

3. Existing Solutions EXISTING SOLUTIONS THAT DO NOT WORK:
Composting the pizza boxes: Composting pizza boxes causes the cardboard to rot. Rotting cardboard creates methane which contributes to global warming. Also, rotting greasy cardboard smells bad and is simply harmful for your plants.
Cut off the greasy sections: With those large, meaty pizzas, you may end up cutting over half of the box off and throwing it away. Plus, there is also a chance you may have missed a patch of grease.
Wash the grease out using shampoo: It’s hard, if not impossible, to convince people to use their precious shampoo to wash pizza boxes, when it is simpler to throw it away. Some shampoos contain oil, which will cause the same problem.
Use grease-eating bacteria developed by scientists: This bacteria is expensive and in testing. There is not much chance that the general public can access this fruit of hard labour just to clean a pizza box.
Make your own pizza: While this is a good idea, some people to not have the time or talents required to make pizza. Even when you make your own pizza, there are still people who are throwing away their pizza boxes.

4. Awesome Bots’ Solution
Imagine if pizza boxes could be recycled and turned into something useful!
Our project is to recycle used pizza boxes to recover energy for generating electricity.
How?
When burning greasy cardboard pizza boxes in the incinerator, a huge amount of heat energy is released.
The heat energy is pumped into the boiler where water is boiled into pressurized steam.
Steam turns the turbine which operates the generator. The generator creates electrical output.
Leftover water/steam is cooled, fuel is feeded in, and the process begins again!

5. How Much Electricity can be Generated?
Calorific value of cardboard
2.024 kWh/ lb
Average pizza box weight
0.374 lb
Energy recovered per pizza box
0.759 kWh
The average U.S. home used 11,000 kWh, which is equivalent to 15,000 Pizza Boxes.
Pizza boxes recycled in NY state can power 5,260 homes per year.
Appliance
Wattage Consumption
Pizza Boxes (needed to operate for one hour)
Conventional Oven
3,000 W 4
Toaster Oven
1,200 W
1.5
Microwave Oven
1,500 W 2
Home Desktop
100 W .1
Laptop
150 W
1/5
Clothes Dryer
3,400 W
4-5
Dishwasher
1,400 W
Standard CFL Bulb
60 W
1 pizza box will power for 5 days

6. How Much Money can be Made?
BTU/lb for cardboard
6907 BTU
Average pizza box weight
0.374 lb
Pizzas sold in US each year
3 billion
NY State Population
2.63% of US
Pizza boxes used in NY State
78.9 million
Weight of pizza boxes in NY
~29.5 million lb
BTU/lb recovered from NY pizza boxes
~203.8 trillion BTU
BTU recovered from NY to kWh recovered from NY
~59.7 million kWh
NJ rate of profit per kWh
$0.265/kWh
Revenue generated from NY State per year
~$15.8 million
Total kWh generated per year
~59.7 million kW
kWh per day
6815 kW
MWh per day
~7 MW
Power Plant Cost Statistics
$3,246 per kW
Total building cost
$22.7 million
40-year payment
~$1.1 million per yr
Fixed Operation Statistics
$37.80 per kW-yr
Fixed Operation Cost
$264,600
Variable Operation Statistics
$4.47 per MWh
Variable Operation Cost
$274,100
Total Operation Cost per year
$538,700
Total Expense per Year
~$1.6 million
NET INCOME PER YEAR: ~$14.2 MILLION

7. Research/Bibliography
Aysen Ucuncu and P. Aarne Vesilind, “Energy Recovery from mixed-paper Waste”, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Duke University, (
“The Pizza Box Mystery”, Earth 911, (
Natha Dempsey, “Pizza Boxes: Too Valuable to Trash”, Foodservice Packaging Institute (
Samantha M. Botros, Patrick M. Botros, “Pizza Delivery Re-engineered”, American Association for the Advancement of Science, (
“Pizza Statistics”, Statistic Brain Research Institute, (
“Updated Capital Cost Estimates for Utility Scale Electricity Generating Plants”, U.S. Energy Information Administration, (
“How do I sell Solar Power to a Utility Company”, Residential Solar Power,
“How Much Power do your Appliances Use?”, Wholesale Solar, (
“Household Energy Consumption”, Point.Click.Switch,
“Clinton turkey plant to create power”, Prestage Farms, (