The act prohibits the overboard discharge of shipboard plastic waste. Navy surface ships are required to complying with this act by Dec. 31, 1998. Through a massive effort, the Navy will have plastics waste processors installed aboard all surface ships by that date. The CMU plastic processor is revolutionary in its design because of its simplicity. The CMU heats the plastics to the melting point while compressing them into a smaller volume.
Any water contained in the plastics is cooked off.
The temperature of the melted plastics is high enough that most odor-causing bacteria are eliminated. When cooled under pressure, the plastics waste form a dense disk, slightly smaller than a manhole cover. That means five to six large garbage bags make one disk. We're looking at ways to recycle the plastic disks, so in the long run the Navy may even make money selling the disks. The result is a 98 percent liquid solution which is returned to the sea at a rate of 180 gallons per minute.