Chemical Recycling makes useful product from waste

WHAT IS CHEMICAL RECYCLING?

Chemical recycling is an advanced form of recycling technology.

Chemical recycling could reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in landfills, thereby potentially reducing the release of harmful chemicals into the environment. Chemical recycling can also produce high-quality raw materials, thereby decreasing demand for fossil fuels and other natural resources. And as this technology develops, chemical recycling could promote domestic businesses and employment, creating create a market for plastic waste and a new way to reuse some plastics.

Further, unlike the recycled plastic products you might be familiar with, chemical recycling has the potential to produce a very high-quality recycled plastic, which can be indistinguishable from new plastic.

 TYPES OF PLASTIC MATERIALS

Polyolefin based plastic materials, such as those based on linear density polyethylene (LDPE), high density polyethylene (HDPE), linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE), polystyrene based, acrylate based-such as PMMA, polyurethane, and polyester are considered for chemical recycling.

METHODS FOR CHEMICAL RECYCLING

Various types of chemical recycling methods are available, based on the type of plastic waste material used. These include methods such as gasification, pyrolysis, solvolysis, supercritical fluid, depolymerization and microbial, wherein the plastic waste is broken down into monomers, the chemical building blocks, for the production of new plastic materials. However, problems exist with plastic materials such as single use plastics, multi-layer laminated plastics etc. which are difficult-to-recycle. This paper brings out the successful research efforts of select leading companies. 

HOW DOES CHEMICAL RECYCLING WORK?

Chemical recycling breaks down the plastic to molecular levels, thus facilitating the build-up of new materials based on the molecules that have the potential for a wide range of applications. The plastics are depolymerized to their respective monomers or oligomers. Several types of chemical treatment methods have been developed to deal with different types of commercial plastics.

Chemical recycling technologies can break down plastics into its building blocks and transform them into valuable secondary raw materials. These materials can then be used to produce new chemicals and plastics. There are various chemical recycling technologies available that follow three new recycling routes to treat plastic waste:

• Dissolution: extracting plastic
• Depolymerisation: breaking it down to basic building blocks
• Conversion: turning it into raw materials

ACHIEVING A CIRCULAR ECONOMY FOR PLASTIC: FROM A ‘WASTE-ORIENTATED’ TO A ‘RESOURCE-ORIENTATED’ ECONOMY

By implementing chemical recycling technologies at scale in Europe, the chemical industry can increase resource efficiency and help to close the loop in the transition to a circular economy for plastics. Today’s worthless plastic waste would become economically attractive to recycle, thanks to the ways chemical recycling can turn it into valuable secondary raw materials. We believe this will accelerate the shift from a ‘waste-orientated’ to a ‘resource-orientated’ economy helping to create a true single market for secondary raw materials. It will make Europe less dependent on carbon imports, as carbon-rich waste streams can be used as a readily available resource.

Chemical recycling helps us overcome the limitations of traditional mechanical recycling and it helps industry to push the boundaries of how and where recycled plastics can be used.

SOME OF THE BENEFITS INCLUDE:

• Enabling the production of high-value end and industrial products that can be used as fossil-based alternatives.
• Decreasing the dependency on crude oil.
• Lowering the carbon footprint of products.
• Reduces plastic waste and helps decrease landfilling and incineration.
• Accelerates a circular economy and provides new means to increase recycling rates by utilising a wider range of waste plastics.
• Creates new jobs and therefore stimulates the global economy.
• All this while enjoying a higher profit – companies who decide to switch to an alternative, green way of recycling enjoy higher profit levels. This is reached for reasons such as long-term fixed costs on raw materials rather than relying on volatile oil prices, a company’s waste may now become their raw materials, and these companies are able to charge premium prices for the sustainability of their products.

Traditional physical or mechanical recycling typically grinds down plastic into smaller components that are then mixed and moulded to create low-grade plastic products. Even though the concept of chemical recycling of plastic waste has been known since decades, it has started to receive much attention only recently.

CONCLUSION

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. This is the way we will lessen our impact on the environment. Recycling contributes to reducing the emission of gases that cause global warming, which is real and exists and, above all, if we recycle waste, not only will we obtain direct benefits but also indirect ones, that is, we will avoid the inconveniences caused by landfills and incinerators.

While chemical recycling has great potential to improve plastic recycling rates, reduce our reliance on fossil-based feedstock, and promote a circular economy, feedstock technologies are still in the early stages. Major investments are needed to accelerate the development of technologies to mark and trace the origin of the different plastic waste types, automate sorting and processing, and chemically recycle plastics.

 

Source: https://cefic.org/a-solution-provider-for-sustainability/chemical-recycling-making-plastics-circular/