Technical and market substitutability of recycled materials: Calculating the environmental benefits of mechanical and chemical recycling of plastic packaging waste

Microbial Enzyme Biotechnology to Reach Plastic Waste Circularity: Current Status, Problems and Perspectives

“…Secondary recycling (also named mechanical recycling or plastic reprocessing) is the most used method for thermoplastic waste recycling [ 47 ], although it often lowers the polymer quality [ 25 , 56 ]. The typical procedure for the secondary recycling process includes six main steps, which can be repeated and reordered: shredding of the collected plastic waste, washing, milling, separation and sorting (based on shape, density, size, color, and chemical composition), drying, and extrusion [ 47 , 57 ].…”

“…Among such activities, recycling is implemented mainly in high-tech infrastructure demanding considerable resource, time, and financial investments. In recent years, plastic recycling has been characterized by a decrease in costs [ 23 , 24 ] and an increase in efficiency; mechanical recycling is the most utilized approach [ 25 ]. However, it is a downcycling process that is suitable to recycle few plastic fractions and leads to products of lower quality than those from feedstock materials [ 26 , 27 ].…”

How Much Can Chemical Recycling Contribute to Plastic Waste Recycling in Europe? An Assessment Using Material Flow Analysis Modeling

“…From the MFA model results, the potential use of recycled plastic in different markets and applications is investigated. However, it is challenging to project future market uptake of recycled plastic production because of i) different quality of recycled plastic, ii) a breadth of technical requirements of various applications, and ii) market saturation of some applications (Demets et al, 2020;Huysveld et al, 2022;Tonini et al, 2022). In this study, two assumptions are considered to quantify the potential recycled plastic (in kt) and recycled content (in%) availability in 2030.…”

“…because of the difficulty to predict future market uptake (incl. potential market share of the intended applications) and the quality of recycling (Huysveld et al, 2022;Tonini et al, 2022;Hestin et al, 2017) at the time of writing the manuscript. Thus, it should be seen as a maximum uptake under optimal conditions and it is likely that the actual uptake will be lower.…”

“…3,4,and 5) might not be used in the EU 27+3. According to the current perception, potential market applications that can use recycled plastic might be less of a concern for chemically-recycled plastic because of a higher quality (Manžuch et al, 2021;Huysveld et al, 2022).…”