With the right plan, you can and will help people recycle better. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
This website uses cookies. Cookies are used to collect information about how you interact with the Recycle Coach website. They help to provide a more personalized experience for you, and web analytics for us. To learn more, view our Software Privacy Policy. From Name:. From Email:. Send to:. Share Close. Here are some plastic pollution statistics that matter: Globally to date, there is about 8.
In , we created 2 million tons a year, which increased fold by Only 8. Many recycling programs only accept limited plastics 1 and 2. Only plastic bottles are regularly recycled. Not all plastic is easily recyclable and the number system matters. Next it is fed into the pyrolysis reactor where it is heated to extreme temperatures.
This process turns the plastic into a gas which is then cooled to condense into an oil-like liquid , and finally distilled into fractions that can be put to different purposes.
Chemical recycling begins the same way as ordinary mechanical recycling, with collecting and crushing plastics and taking them to a plant Credit: Alamy.
Chemical recycling techniques are being trialled across the world. UK-based Recycling Technologies has developed a pyrolysis machine that turns hard-to-recycle plastic such as films, bags and laminated plastics into Plaxx. This liquid hydrocarbon feedstock can be used to make new virgin quality plastic.
The first commercial-scale unit was installed in Perth in Scotland in The firm Plastic Energy has two commercial-scale pyrolysis plants in Spain and plans to expand into France, the Netherlands and the UK.
These plants transform hard-to-recycle plastic waste, such as confectionery wrappers, dry pet food pouches and breakfast cereal bags into substances called "tacoil". This feedstock can be used to make food-grade plastics. In the US, the chemical company Ineos has become the first to use a technique called depolymerisation on a commercial scale to produce recycled polyethylene, which goes into carrier bags and shrink film.
Ineos also has plans to build several new pyrolysis recycling plants. In the UK, Mura Technology has begun construction of the world's first commercial-scale plant able to recycle all kinds of plastic. The plant can handle mixed plastic, coloured plastic, plastic of all composites, all stages of decay, even plastic contaminated with food or other kinds of waste. Mura's "hydrothermal" technique is a type of feedstock recycling using water inside the reactor chamber to spread heat evenly throughout.
Heated to extreme temperatures but pressurised to prevent evaporation, water becomes "supercritical" — not a solid, liquid, nor gas. It is this use of supercritical water, avoiding the need to heat the chambers from the outside, that Mura says makes the technique inherently scalable.
The bigger you go the harder it gets. It's a bit like cooking," explained Mura's chief executive, Steve Mahon. A pilot plant has shown that the use of very hot, supercritical water can help chemical recycling scale-up to useful levels Credit: Licella.
The plastic waste arrives on site in bales — contaminated, multi-layer plastic such as flexible films and rigid trays that would otherwise have gone to incineration or energy-from-waste plants. The bales are fed into the front-end sorting facility to remove any inorganic contaminants such as glass, metal or grit.
Organic contaminants such as food residue or soil are able to pass through the process. The plastic is then shredded and cleaned, before being mixed with supercritical water. Once this high-pressure system is depressurised and the waste exits the reactors, the majority of liquid flashes off as vapour.
This vapour is cooled in a distillation column and the condensed liquids are separated on a boiling range to produce four hydrocarbon liquids and oils: naphtha, distillate gas oil, heavy gas oil and heavy wax residue, akin to bitumen. These products are then shipped to the petrochemical industry.
As with other feedstock techniques, there is no down-cycling as the polymer bonds can be formed anew, meaning the plastics can be infinitely recycled. Mahon said: "The hydrocarbon element of the feedstock will be converted into new, stable hydrocarbon products for use in the manufacture of new plastics and other chemicals.
Mura's Teesside plant, due for completion in , aims to process 80, tonnes of previously unrecyclable plastic waste every year, as a blueprint for a global rollout, with sites planned in Germany and the US.
By , the company plans to provide one million tonnes of recycling capacity in operation or development globally. Scientists such as Sharon George, senior lecturer in environmental science at Keele University, have welcomed Mura's development. There is the mobius loop three twisted arrows , which indicates a product can technically be recycled; sometimes that symbol contains a number between one and seven, indicating the plastic resin from which the object is made.
There is the green dot two green arrows embracing , which indicates that the producer has contributed to a European recycling scheme. Since National Sword, sorting has become even more crucial, as overseas markets demand higher-quality material. About halfway, four women in hi-vis and caps pull out large chunks of cardboard and plastic films, which machines struggle with.
There is a low rumble in the air and a thick layer of dust on the gangway. Green Recycling is a commercial MRF: it takes waste from schools, colleges and local businesses. That means lower volume, but better margins, as the company can charge clients directly and maintain control over what it collects. Towards the end of the line is the machine that Smith hopes will change that.
Inside a large clear box over the conveyor, a robotic suction arm marked FlexPickerTM is zipping back and forth over the belt, picking tirelessly. Humans will pick between 20 and 40, on a good day. The machine is intended not to replace humans, but to augment them. The benefits of automation, Smith says, are twofold: more material to sell and less waste that the company needs to pay to have burned afterwards. S mith is not alone in putting his faith in technology. With consumers and the government outraged at the plastics crisis, the waste industry is scrambling to solve the problem.
One great hope is chemical recycling: turning problem plastics into oil or gas through industrial processes. The idea found its way to Griffiths, a former management consultant, by accident, after a mistake in a Warwick University press release. Intrigued, Griffiths got in touch. He ended up partnering with the researchers to launch a company that could do this.
While the global mood has turned against plastic, Griffiths is a rare defender of it. If you use more glass, more metal, those materials have a much higher carbon footprint. Eventually, Griffiths hopes to sell the machines to recycling facilities worldwide.
There is cause for optimism: in December , the UK government published a comprehensive new waste strategy , partly in response to National Sword. They hope to force the industry to invest in recycling infrastructure at home. Meanwhile, the industry is being forced to adapt: in May, countries passed measures to track and control the export of plastic waste to developing countries, while more than companies have signed a global commitment to eliminate the use of single-use plastics by Recycling rates in the west are stalling and packaging use is set to soar in developing countries, where recycling rates are low.
P erhaps there is an alternative. Since Blue Planet II brought the plastic crisis to our attention, a dying trade is having a resurgence in Britain: the milkman. More of us are choosing to have milk bottles delivered, collected and re-used. Similar models are springing up: zero-waste shops that require you to bring your own containers ; the boom in refillable cups and bottles. Tom Szaky wants to apply the milkman model to almost everything you buy.
The bearded, shaggy-haired Hungarian-Canadian is a veteran of the waste industry: he founded his first recycling startup as a student at Princeton, selling worm-based fertiliser out of re-used bottles.
That company, TerraCycle, is now a recycling giant, with operations in 21 countries. The product launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos and was an immediate hit. The result is Loop , which launched trials in France and the US this spring and will arrive in Britain this winter. The items are available online or through exclusive retailers.
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