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PET bottle collection, recycling, and recycling capacity incl. utilization (in %) for 2014 to 2018 in the EU as well as forecasted and targeted volumes for 2025. Data for the EU incl. the UK. Values for 2014 -2018 are based on Petcore industry surveys, while forecasts are based on the annual growth rates from these surveys from 2014 to 2018 of 3.6%, 3.1%, and 1.2% for collection, recycling volume, and recycling capacity, respectively (Eunomia, 2020, Petcore Europe, 2016, Petcore Europe, 2017, Petcore Europe and ICIS, 2018). The required targets are calculated as required annual growth rates to reach the pledged volume of 2.066 m tons in 2025, assuming a 95% utilization of recycling plants and the current average recycling efficiency of 69%.
Source publication
Scientific analysis and media coverage of rampant plastic pollution has taken a toll on the material's reputation in recent years, fueling talk of a “plastic crisis”. Brand owners have made ambitious pledges to overcome this crisis—but can voluntary commitments turn the tide? In this paper, we analyze the current flow of polyethylene terephthalate...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... 2014, the EU PET recycling industry has seen very little growth, with an installed capacity of 2.2m tons of input material in 2018 (see Fig. 2) (Eunomia, 2020). Extrapolating past growth rates for collection, recycling capacity, and actual recycling volume to 2025 reveal a deficit in all three areas to reach the volumes pledged by industry. This yields four levers to increase the recycling rate: 1) increasing the utilization of existing capacity, 2) expanding the capacity, 3) ...
Citations
... In recent years, many well-known brands have made public commitments on plastic packaging recycling and taken action to improve the design of plastic packaging [75,76]. For example, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Nestle promised to achieve 100% recyclability or reuse of their packaging by 2025. ...
Confronted with serious environmental problems caused by the growing mountains of plastic packaging waste, the prevention and control of plastic waste has become a major concern for most countries. In addition to the recycling of plastic wastes, design for recycling can effectively prevent plastic packaging from turning into solid waste at the source. The reasons are that the design for recycling can extend the life cycle of plastic packaging and increase the recycling values of plastic waste; moreover, recycling technologies are helpful for improving the properties of recycled plastics and expanding the application market for recycled materials. This review systematically discussed the present theory, practice, strategies, and methods of design for recycling plastic packaging and extracted valuable advanced design ideas and successful cases. Furthermore, the development status of automatic sorting methods, mechanical recycling of individual and mixed plastic waste, as well as chemical recycling of thermoplastic and thermosetting plastic waste, were comprehensively summarized. The combination of the front-end design for recycling and the back-end recycling technologies can accelerate the transformation of the plastic packaging industry from an unsustainable model to an economic cycle model and then achieve the unity of economic, ecological, and social benefits.
... 4 Approximately, 73 million tons of PET were produced globally in 2020, whereas only 9% of PET was recycled. 5 Most of these disposable plastics ended up as trash accumulated in landfills or in the oceans, causing significant harm to the environment in terms of water, air, and land pollution. The decomposition of PET can take several decades; so, it is not surprising that biomagnification and bioaccumulation in oceans and other water bodies have transferred these materials to humans. ...
Plastic production has steadily increased worldwide at a staggering pace. The polymer industry is, unfortunately, C-intensive, and accumulation of plastics in the environment has become a major issue. Plastic waste valorization into fresh monomers for production of virgin plastics can reduce both the consumption of fossil feedstocks and the environmental pollution, making the plastic economy more sustainable. Recently, the chemical recycling of plastics has been studied as an innovative solution to achieve a fully sustainable cycle. In this way, plastics are depolymerized to their monomers or/and oligomers appropriate for repolymerization, closing the loop. In this work, PET was depolymerized to its bis(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (BHET) monomer via glycolysis, using ethylene glycol (EG) in the presence of niobia-based catalysts. Using a sulfated niobia catalyst treated at 573 K, we obtained 100% conversion of PET and 85% yield toward BHET at 195 °C in 220 min. This approach allows recycling of the PET at reasonable conditions using an inexpensive and nontoxic material as a catalyst.
Due to the increasing production of plastic soft drink bottles, accompanied by the accumulation of plastic waste in landfills, our society is encouraging the development of recycling industries around the world, with a special focus on recycling post-consumer PET (polyethylene terephthalate, the world's third most dominant plastic) for food contact applications (i.e., for single-use items). Plastics have indeed become a threat to the environment because of the lack of recycling technologies, which could instead enable the production of high-quality polymers from scrap materials, at an equal or lower cost compared to the production of the corresponding virgin polymer from crude oil.
PET has a great recycling potential if compared to the other most diffused plastics, and it can be treated in many different ways. In this chapter, the very broad spectrum of all the available technologies for PET recycling is presented (from the zero-order to the fourth-order recycling) with particular attention to mechanical and chemical recycling. Indeed, the former is currently the best available technology for PET recycling at the industrial level, while the latter represents the best perspective for PET recycling in terms of circular economy, allowing to get back the monomer building blocks from complex waste materials and using the monomers to produce a new recycled polymer. Advantages and disadvantages of the current state of the art are highlighted, aiming to identify the viability of every process at the industrial scale.
To achieve a sustainable circular economy, polymers need to start transitioning to recycled and biobased feedstock and accomplish CO2 emission neutrality. This is not only true for structural polymers, such as in packaging or engineering applications, but also for functional polymers in liquid formulations, such as adhesives, lubricants, thickeners or dispersants. At their end of life, polymers need to be either collected and recycled via a technical pathway, or be biodegradable if they are not collectable. Advances in polymer chemistry and applications, aided by computational material science, open the way to addressing these issues comprehensively by designing for recyclability and biodegradability. This review explores how scientific advances, together with emerging regulatory frameworks, societal expectations and economic boundary conditions, paint pathways for the transformation towards a circular economy of polymers.
To achieve a sustainable circular economy, polymers need to start transitioning to recycled and biobased feedstock and accomplish CO2 emission neutrality. This is not only true for structural polymers, such as in packaging or engineering applications, but also for functional polymers in liquid formulations, such as adhesives, lubricants, thickeners or dispersants. At their end of life, polymers need to be either collected and recycled via a technical pathway, or be biodegradable if they are not collectable. Advances in polymer chemistry and applications, aided by computational material science, open the way to addressing these issues comprehensively by designing for recyclability and biodegradability. This review explores how scientific advances, together with emerging regulatory frameworks, societal expectations and economic boundary conditions, paint pathways for the transformation towards a circular economy of polymers.
The challenge for a circular plastics economy transition is to focus policies on key leverage points that initiate actual system transitions. This requires a systemic perspective on the plastics industries. This study takes such a systemic perspective by employing a network approach to examine the often-underestimated complexity of interrelating markets in a circular plastics economy, and their structural sensitivity to governance interventions. Based on the case of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) markets in Germany, we investigate the structures and underlying dynamics of increasing circularity in the PET industry. Concerns about plastic litter accumulating in the natural environment have facilitated the development of niche markets for the recycling of plastic litter recovered from the environment. We systematically reveal that recycling markets connecting diverse waste sources with a broad range of new applications are key areas of intervention in the structural transitions towards circular industries. By connecting otherwise disconnected parts of the system, the recycling of recovered plastic litter is a key leverage point for the circular economy transition. We recommend to focus governance efforts on such key leverage markets as powerful venues to initiate systemic change.
