by Brianna Crandall — July 18, 2014—Many industrialized regions around the world are getting an environmental wake-up call and a major incentive to increase recycling effectiveness for plastics with the message that China no longer wants to be the world’s dumping ground for plastic waste, according to research from IHS, a global source of critical information and insight.
As a result, says IHS, recyclers in Europe, the United States, Canada, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Australia and other countries must improve their recycling technology processes as China, once the final destination for more than 70% of the world’s plastic waste, strengthens its “green fencing” regulations to restrict types of plastic waste materials it will accept. China is the world’s largest consumer of recycled plastics, but relies heavily on imports—it imported 10.3 billion metric tons in 2012, according to IHS.
“China is increasingly concerned over degradation to its environment,” said Jim Glauser, specialty chemicals analyst at IHS Chemical and author of a report on plastics recycling. “The country has rejected shipments of waste deemed contaminated or unsuitable and officials are cracking down on hazardous materials that eventually go to Chinese landfills,” he said. Exporters of plastic waste have to improve their recycling processes, since fewer alternative markets exist to accept this waste, and frankly, much of the plastic still has significant value through reuse or energy recovery.”
China’s Green Fencing initiative, Glauser said, has turned the global recycling industry on its head. “Much of the plastic scraps once destined for China are now being exported elsewhere, and the global recycling equipment industry is working to expand its automation to improve waste sorting. Plastic manufacturers and producers of plastic goods are evaluating design guidelines to increase recyclability. One idea is the concept of resin markers, which would help recyclers assess contents of plastic waste to make sorting easier. China also has an opportunity to grow its domestic recycling.”
“The U.S. relies heavily on landfill,” added Glauser. “Approximately 75 to 80% of its plastic waste goes into landfills, while Japan disposes of more than half of its plastics waste by incineration. Western Europe uses a combination of both, including making the consumer pay for rubbish, as an incentive to recycle. Much of Western Europe and Japan view incineration as a valid recycling option.”
PlasticsEurope, an association of plastics manufacturers, is advocating for a ban on the landfilling of high-calorific plastic waste by 2020, which would prevent nearly 10 MMT of plastic waste from going into a landfill each year (equates to about 9 billion euros per year). Initially, the countries of key focus for the project would be the U.K., Italy, Spain, France and Poland. The European goal is to have zero plastics going into a landfill, which “is an ambitious goal,” Glauser said, “but many policymakers are realizing that plastics and other calorific waste are too valuable to send to a landfill.”
Since the increasing global substitution of plastics for other types of materials will keep plastic waste in the public spotlight for many years to come, Glauser said, what will likely have to happen “is that incentives must be made or more laws must be passed to stimulate higher quality recycling by extending collection and sorting services, and by keeping both recycling and energy recovery as viable alternatives to landfill.” For this to happen, he said, “recycling processes must improve—we have to improve the collection, sorting and processing of these plastic wastes from a cost and quality point of view. Plastics that cannot be sustainably recycled should be used for energy recovery rather than sent to a landfill.”
Part of the challenge for recyclers, Glauser said, is that there is an unrelenting introduction of new plastic packaging materials with unique compositions tailored to provide superior performance characteristics for specific applications, which contributes to the increasing technical complexity of plastics recycling. Cost is also a big issue, he said. “A big part of what facilitates recycling programs is the cost of producing of new materials versus recycled material costs. According to our Competitive Cost and Margin Analysis Service at IHS Chemical, in Europe, producers face some of the highest linear low-density polyethylene product costs, so the cost analysis of recycled plastic versus virgin chemical is comparable if not in favor of recycling.”
