id plastics are typically ground

Rigid plastics are typically ground into flakes and cleaned to remove food residues, pulp fibres and adhesives. 1998; Marques & Tenorio 2000)[JH1], FT-NIR or Raman emission spectroscopic detectors to enable flake ejection and using differing electrostatic properties (Park et al. Historically, this has required very significant subsidies because of the low price of petrochemicals in contrast to the high process and plant costs to chemically recycle polymers. There may be other environmental costs or benefits of any such alternative material usage, but these are a distraction to our discussion of the benefits of recycling and would need to be considered on a case-by-case basis. These systems also have the capability to separate polymer by type or grade and can also separate polyolefinic materials such as PP from HDPE. As the quality of recovered plastic is typically lower than that of virgin plastics, the price of virgin plastic sets the ceiling for prices of recovered plastic. These schemes can be effective in boosting collection rates, for example one state of Australia has a container deposit scheme (that includes PET soft-drink bottles), as well as kerbside collection schemes. 2009). 214 0 obj <>/Filter/FlateDecode/ID[<2C4E2DB2FC67FD459C0FDC44F89B5835><5C13EFD526C66F4688C0FD737BF97D5E>]/Index[191 55]/Info 190 0 R/Length 110/Prev 737183/Root 192 0 R/Size 246/Type/XRef/W[1 3 1]>>stream Rates of mechanical recycling and energy recovery as waste-management strategies for plastics waste in European nations (PlasticsEurope 2008b). In the UK, a landfill tax has been applied, which is currently set to escalate each year until 2010 in order to increase the incentive to divert wastes from landfill to recovery actions such as recycling (DEFRA 2007). National Library of Medicine |]}R|O1PpO#\#G93uv^CJohst\YK yWU6@Vnsm^[ h-2] Even within the EU there are a wide range of waste-management prioritizations for the total municipal solid waste stream (MSW), from those heavily weighted towards landfill, to those weighted towards incineration (figure1)recycling performance also varies considerably. Around 4 per cent of world oil and gas production, a non-renewable resource, is used as feedstock for plastics and a further 34% is expended to provide energy for their manufacture. Terminology used in different types of plastics recycling and recovery. These only have slight deterioration in clarity from virgin PET, and are being used at 3050% replacement of virgin PET in many applications and at 100 per cent of the material in some bottles. Designing products to enable reusing, repairing or re-manufacturing will result in fewer products entering the waste stream. Chemical recycling of PET has been more successful, as de-polymerization under milder conditions is possible. The higher eco-efficiency for bottle recycling is because of both the more efficient process for recycling bottles as opposed to mixed plastics and the particularly high emissions profile of virgin PET production. 2005) and these find greater positive environmental benefits for mechanical recycling over landfill and incineration with energy recovery. 2000) and so in order to achieve high overall recycling rates, post-consumer as well as post-industrial waste need to be collected and recycled. Terminology for plastics recycling is complex and sometimes confusing because of the wide range of recycling and recovery activities (table2). The price of virgin plastic is influenced by the price of oil, which is the principle feedstock for plastic production. A study carried out in the UK found that the amount of packaging in a regular shopping basket that, even if collected, cannot be effectively recycled, ranged from 21 to 40% (Local Government Association (UK) 2007). <>/Border[0 0 0]/P 3 0 R>> j`0:D::24j0>aS#5zYTdq5S0hW6W,( 8 d32` yK-lR9{ (9Hg1pE-1p@UM0 j %%EOF Some shift away from single-use plastic carrier bags to reusable bags has also been observed, both because of voluntary behaviour change programmes, as in Australia (Department of Environment and Heritage (Australia) 2008) and as a consequence of legislation, such as the plastic bag levy in Ireland (Department of Environment Heritage and Local Government (Ireland) 2007), or the recent banning of lightweight carrier bags, for example in Bangladesh and China. 2009). 2009b, Fig 1). This indicates a historical growth rate of about 9 per cent p.a. Post-consumer plastic waste generation across the European Union (EU) was 24.6 million tonnes in 2007 (PlasticsEurope 2008b). 990 0 obj <> endobj Waste electrical and electronic equipment management and Basel Convention compliance in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) nations, Industrial and Urban Waste Management in India, Economic viability analysis of a construction and demolition recycling plant in Portugal - part I: location, materials, technology and economic analysis, Potential Benefits of Introducing Integrated Solid Waste Management Approach in Developing Countries: A Case Study in Kathmandu City. A major challenge for producing recycled resins from plastic wastes is that most different plastic types are not compatible with each other because of inherent immiscibility at the molecular level, and differences in processing requirements at a macro-scale. Most current material recovery facilities have difficulty handling flexible plastic packaging because of the different handling characteristics of rigid packaging. Even when a plastic item degrades under the influence of weathering, it first breaks down into smaller pieces of plastic debris, but the polymer itself may not necessarily fully degrade in a meaningful timeframe. xXsFf&o+Q8%%igrD!OH Pi;I{}tX#&nT~ 6L:MHF7GeN% The useful energy recovered can vary considerably depending on whether it is used for electricity generation, combined heat and power, or as solid refuse fuel for co-fuelling of blast furnaces or cement kilns. This is not surprising as it is effectively reversing the energy-intensive polymerization previously carried out during plastic manufacture. Learn more Ideally, the plastic waste stream for reprocessing would also consist of a narrow range of polymer grades to reduce the difficulty of replacing virgin resin directly. 2009; Gregory 2009; Oehlmann et al. As a consequence, the production of plastics has increased markedly over the last 60 years. Limitations to the broader application of rigid container re-use are at least partially logistical, where distribution and collection points are distant from centralized product-filling factories and would result in considerable back-haul distances. Japan and some European countries such as Denmark and Sweden are notable exceptions, with extensive incinerator infrastructure in place for dealing with MSW, including plastics. The potential benefits of mixed plastics recycling in terms of resource efficiency, diversion from landfill and emission savings, are very high when one considers the fact that in the UK it is estimated that there is over one million tonne per annum of non-bottle plastic packaging (WRAP 2008a) in comparison with 525 000 tonnes of plastic bottle waste (WRAP 2007). This has led to current recycling schemes for post-consumer waste that concentrate on the most easily separated packages, such as PET soft-drink and water bottles and HDPE milk bottles, which can be positively identified and sorted out of a co-mingled waste stream. 2007). Examples are plastic crates and bins manufactured from HDPE recovered from milk bottles, and PET fibre from recovered PET packaging. These include four categories: primary (mechanical reprocessing into a product with equivalent properties), secondary (mechanical reprocessing into products requiring lower properties), tertiary (recovery of chemical constituents) and quaternary (recovery of energy). For this reason, it is important to develop effective on-the-go and office recycling collection schemes if overall collection rates for plastic packaging are to increase. issues leaf calendar events previous visit read Many plastic recycling facilities use trommels and density-based air-classification systems to remove small amounts of flexibles such as some films and labels. A case study of Kathmandu. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the In terms of energy use, recycling has been shown to save more energy than that produced by energy recovery even when including the energy used to collect, transport and re-process the plastic (Morris 1996). If recycled plastics are used to produce goods that would otherwise have been made from new (virgin) polymer, this will directly reduce oil usage and emissions of greenhouse gases associated with the production of the virgin polymer (less the emissions owing to the recycling activities themselves). Recycling of cross-linked rubber from car tyres back to rubber crumb for re-manufacture into other products does occur and this is expected to grow owing to the EU Directive on Landfill of Waste (1999/31/EC), which bans the landfill of tyres and tyre waste. hbbd``b`QL tH* Hp ;w. ";@g`bdHW jK Energy-recovery processes may be the most suitable way for dealing with highly mixed plastic such as some electronic and electrical wastes and automotive shredder residue. The new PMC design is here! Use of different media can allow separation of PS from PET, but PVC cannot be removed from PET in this manner as their density ranges overlap. Therefore, degradation rates vary considerably between landfills, terrestrial and marine environments (Kyrikou & Briassoulis 2007). endobj Thermoplastics, including PET, PE and PP all have high potential to be mechanically recycled. For example, rigid containers consisting of a single polymer are simpler and more economic to recycle than multi-layer and multi-component packages. 2003). The goals should be to maximize both the volume and quality of recycled resins. While plastics have been recycled since the 1970s, the quantities that are recycled vary geographically, according to plastic type and application. A number of European countries including Germany, Austria, Norway, Italy and Spain are already collecting, in addition to their bottle streams, rigid packaging such as trays, tubs and pots as well as limited amounts of post-consumer flexible packaging such as films and wrappers. 2009b). Bring-schemes tend to result in low collection rates in the absence of either highly committed public behaviour or deposit-refund schemes that impose a direct economic incentive to participate. 13 0 obj However, plastic films are currently recycled from sources including secondary packaging such as shrink-wrap of pallets and boxes and some agricultural films, so this is feasible under the right conditions. Automatic sorting of containers is now widely used by material recovery facility operators and also by many plastic recycling facilities. High disposal costs are an economic incentive towards either recycling or energy recovery. Recycling is one of the most important actions currently available to reduce these impacts and represents one of the most dynamic areas in the plastics industry today. substitution of heavy packaging formats with lighter ones, or downgauging of packaging). 15 0 obj 2009b). endstream endobj startxref Post-consumer recycling therefore comprises of several key steps: collection, sorting, cleaning, size reduction and separation, and/or compatibilization to reduce contamination by incompatible polymers. In some instances recovered plastic that is not suitable for recycling into the prior application is used to make a new plastic product displacing all, or a proportion of virgin polymer resinthis can also be considered as primary recycling. M7nBx%i. <>/Border[0 0 0]/P 3 0 R>> Although, it should be noted that the ability to maintain whatever residual level of material input, plus the energy inputs and the effects of external impacts on ecosystems will decide the ultimate sustainability of the overall system. considerable variability in energy, water and emissions from recycling processes as it is a developing industry and affected by efficiency of collection, process type and product mix, etc. Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. Technological advances in recycling can improve the economics in two main waysby decreasing the cost of recycling (productivity/efficiency improvements) and by closing the gap between the value of recycled resin and virgin resin. In addition, it is clear that there could be significant issues in sourcing sufficient biomass to replace a large proportion of the current consumption of polymers, as only 5 per cent of current European chemical production uses biomass as feedstock (Soetaert & Vandamme 2006). This technology has been proven for rPET from clear bottles (WRAP 2008b), and more recently rHDPE from milk bottles (WRAP 2006). Recycling of packaging materials has seen rapid expansion over the last decades in a number of countries. Recycling of a wider range of post-consumer plastic packaging, together with waste plastics from consumer goods and ELVs will further enable improvement in recovery rates of plastic waste and diversion from landfills. sharing sensitive information, make sure youre on a federal BqD?S. Chemical or feedstock recycling has the advantage of recovering the petrochemical constituents of the polymer, which can then be used to re-manufacture plastic or to make other synthetic chemicals. endstream endobj startxref Most post-consumer flexible packaging not recovered, not widely recycled yet from post-consumer, but has potential. <>/Border[0 0 0]/P 3 0 R>> <>/Border[0 0 0]/P 3 0 R>> In the UK, total use of plastics in both domestic and commercial packaging is about 40 kg per person per year, hence it forms approximately 78% by weight, but a larger proportion by volume of the MSW stream (Waste Watch 2003). The amount of material going into the waste-management system can, in the first case, be reduced by actions that decrease the use of materials in products (e.g. Forty years ago, re-use of post-consumer packaging in the form of glass bottles and jars was common. manufacture into a re-usable container, which once entering the waste stream is collected and recycled into a durable application that when becoming waste in its turn, is recovered for energy. For example, PVC and halogenated additives are typically present in mixed plastic waste leading to the risk of dioxins, other polychlorinated biphenyls and furans being released into the environment (Gilpin et al. 0 Approaches to increasing the recycling of films and flexible packaging could include separate collection, or investment in extra sorting and processing facilities at recovery facilities for handling mixed plastic wastes. This principle is, however, offset against aesthetics, convenience and marketing benefits that can lead to over-use of packaging, as well as the effect of existing investment in tooling and production process, which can also result in excessive packaging of some products. Even degradable plastics may persist for a considerable time depending on local environmental factors, as rates of degradation depend on physical factors, such as levels of ultraviolet light exposure, oxygen and temperature (Swift & Wiles 2004), while biodegradable plastics require the presence of suitable micro-organisms. The plastics industry has developed considerably since the invention of various routes for the production of polymers from petrochemical sources. globally (Andrady 2003). They have the advantage that they can be used to sort different plastics that are blacka problem with traditional automatic systems. 8600 Rockville Pike These are the price of the recycled polymer compared with virgin polymer and the cost of recycling compared with alternative forms of acceptable disposal. The latest generation of wash plants use only 23 m3 of water per tonne of material, about one-half of that of previous equipment. Hence, it is often not technically feasible to add recovered plastic to virgin polymer without decreasing at least some quality attributes of the virgin plastic such as colour, clarity or mechanical properties such as impact strength. Most types of plastics are not biodegradable (Andrady 1994), and are in fact extremely durable, and therefore the majority of polymers manufactured today will persist for at least decades, and probably for centuries if not millennia. Once material enters the waste stream, recycling is the process of using recovered material to manufacture a new product. The losses of rejected material and the value of the recycled resins would be enhanced. Garforth A., Ali S., Hernandez-Martinez J., Akah A.2004, Production, distribution, and fate of polycholorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins, dibenzofurans, and related organohalogens in the environment, Environmental implications of plastic debris in marine settingsentanglement, ingestion, smothering, hangers-on, hitch-hiking and alien invasions, Western Europe's experience with refillable beverage containers, Biodegradation of agricultural plastic films: a critical review, Use of froth flotation to separate PVC/PET mixtures, Cradle to cradle: remaking the way we make things, Recycling versus incineration: an energy conservation analysis, Report to the NEPC on the implementation of the National Environment Protection (used packaging materials) measure for New South Wales, A critical analysis of the biological impacts of plasticizers on wildlife, PVC removal from mixed plastics by triboelectrostatic separation, Patel M., von Thienen N., Jochem E., Worrell E.2000, A life cycle assessment of mechanical and feedstock recycling options for management of plastic packaging wastes, Eco-profiles of the European Plastics Industry, The compelling facts about Plastics 2007: an analysis of plastics production, demand and recovery for 2007 in Europe, Plastic waste management in construction: technological and institutional issues, Ryan P. G., Moore C. J., van Franeker J. plastic lumber as an alternative to higher cost/shorter lifetime timber, this is secondary recycling (ASTM Standard D5033). Around 4 per cent of annual petroleum production is converted directly into plastics from petrochemical feedstock (British Plastics Federation 2008). jones constantine martin europe arnold hugh conversion bo1 books As a result, the only parts of the post-consumer plastic waste stream that have routinely been recycled in a strictly closed-loop fashion are clear PET bottles and recently in the UK, HDPE milk bottles. Biodegradable plastics can also be composted, and this is a further example of tertiary recycling, and is also described as organic or biological recycling (see Song et al. Table1 presents a breakdown of plastics consumption in the UK during the year 2000, and contributions to waste generation (Waste Watch 2003). This trend for both rates of mechanical recycling and energy recovery to increase is continuing, although so is the trend for increasing waste generation. can be used to reduce landfill volumes, but does not reduce the demand for fossil fuels (as the waste plastic was made from petrochemicals; Garforth et al. Plastic packaging is particularly noticeable as litter because of the lightweight nature of both flexible and rigid plastics. 6 0 obj However, the latter plant was closed in 1999 (Aguado et al. Feedstock (chemical) recycling technologies satisfy the general principle of material recovery, but are more costly than mechanical recycling, and less energetically favourable as the polymer has to be depolymerized and then re-polymerized. The Life-cycle analyses has also been used for plastic-recycling systems to evaluate the net environmental impacts (Arena et al. Recycling provides opportunities to reduce oil usage, carbon dioxide emissions and the quantities of waste requiring disposal. Before We will focus on production and disposal of packaging as this is the largest single source of waste plastics in Europe and represents an area of considerable recent expansion in recycling initiatives. All LCI data are specific to European industry and covers the production process of the raw materials, intermediates and final polymer, but not further processing and logistics (PlasticsEurope 2008a). 12 0 obj %%EOF endobj 4 0 obj These two observations alone indicate that our current use of plastics is not sustainable. Automated pre-sorting is usually sufficient to result in a plastics stream separate from glass, metals and paper (other than when attached, e.g. government site. In the UK, dramatic increases in collection of the plastic bottle waste stream was only apparent after the relatively recent implementation of kerbside recycling (figure2). Hence, the general trend is for collection of recyclable materials through kerbside collection alongside MSW. 1Eco Products Agency, 166 Park Street, Fitzroy North 3068, Australia, 2Nextek Ltd, Level 3, 1 Quality Court, Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1HR, UK. Some governments use policy to encourage post-consumer recycling, such as the EU Directive on packaging and packaging waste (94/62/EC). Thermoplastic resins constitute around two-thirds of this production and their usage is growing at about 5 per cent p.a. 2005). 2009). Other sorting technologies include X-ray detection, which is used for separation of PVC containers, which are 59 per cent chlorine by weight and so can be easily distinguished (Arvanitoyannis & Bosnea 2001; Fisher 2003). The volumes of post-consumer waste are, however, up to five times larger than those generated in commerce and industry (Patel et al. Here, we briefly set recycling into context against other waste-reduction strategies, namely reduction in material use through downgauging or product reuse, the use of alternative biodegradable materials and energy recovery as fuel. as labels and closures). <>/Border[0 0 0]/P 3 0 R>> The same logic applies to durable consumer goods designing for disassembly, recycling and specifications for use of recycled resins are key actions to increase recycling. hb```@(1u,3ZH0)rqjM mlaQlaNYkh You can download the paper by clicking the button above. endstream endobj 192 0 obj <>>> endobj 193 0 obj <>/ExtGState<>/Font<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageC/ImageI]/Properties<>/Shading<>/XObject<>>>/Rotate 0/Thumb 107 0 R/TrimBox[0.0 0.0 612.0 792.0]/Type/Page>> endobj 194 0 obj <>stream A model of plastics recycling: does recycling reduce the amount of waste? in removing labels from PET flakes. In addition, because of the durability of the polymers involved, substantial quantities of discarded end-of-life plastics are accumulating as debris in landfills and in natural habitats worldwide. This is evident in an industrial scale with re-use of containers and pallets in haulage (see Thompson et al. As a consequence of all the above trends, the market value of recycled polymer and hence the viability of recycling have increased markedly over the last few years. Take-back and refilling schemes do exist in several European countries (Institute for Local Self-Reliance 2002), including PET bottles as well as glass, but they are elsewhere generally considered a niche activity for local businesses rather than a realistic large-scale strategy to reduce packaging waste. 2009). These trends are likely to continue, but some significant challenges still exist from both technological factors and from economic or social behaviour issues relating to the collection of recyclable wastes, and substitution for virgin material. endobj There are also environmental and health concerns associated with their emissions. Sorting of co-mingled rigid recyclables occurs by both automatic and manual methods. 9 0 obj Together with feedstock recycling (1.7 per cent) and energy recovery (22.5 per cent), this amounted to a total recovery rate of approximately 39 per cent from the 21.1 million tonnes of plastic waste generated in 2003 (figure3). endstream endobj 991 0 obj <>>>/Filter/Standard/Length 128/O(*T7*yKfGEq)/P -1052/R 4/StmF/StdCF/StrF/StdCF/U(\nd`*y^! )/V 4>> endobj 992 0 obj <>/Metadata 128 0 R/Outlines 234 0 R/PageLayout/OneColumn/Pages 985 0 R/StructTreeRoot 265 0 R/Type/Catalog>> endobj 993 0 obj <>/ExtGState<>/Font<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageC]/XObject<>>>/Rotate 0/TrimBox[0.0 0.0 595.28 841.89]/Type/Page>> endobj 994 0 obj <>stream 1008 0 obj <>/Encrypt 991 0 R/Filter/FlateDecode/ID[<2ADF241C2E50114BA97F2503BDD567FF><8F34726882A9AF4498C99F044DCD3665>]/Index[990 32]/Info 989 0 R/Length 91/Prev 824163/Root 992 0 R/Size 1022/Type/XRef/W[1 2 1]>>stream However, the mixed plastics recycling scenario still has a positive net benefit, which was considered superior to the other options studied, of both landfills and energy recovery as solid refuse fuel, so long as there is substitution of virgin polymer. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. Recycling of this non-bottle packaging has become possible because of improvements in sorting and washing technologies and emerging markets for the recyclates. One of the key benefits of recycling plastics is to reduce the requirement for plastics production. endobj Hence, wider implementation of policies to promote the use of environmental design principles by industry could have a large impact on recycling performance, increasing the proportion of packaging that can economically be collected and diverted from landfill (see Shaxson et al. Oil consumption. Most post-consumer collection schemes are for rigid packaging as flexible packaging tends to be problematic during the collection and sorting stages. Historically, the primary methods of waste disposal have been by landfill or incineration. endobj In order to have successful recycling of mixed plastics, high-performance sorting of the input materials needs to be performed to ensure that plastic types are separated to high levels of purity; there is, however, a need for the further development of endmarkets for each polymer recyclate stream.

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