Modern societies have to change the way they deal with plastics
Over the past 50 years, the annual production of plastics has increased from 15 to 335 million tonnes. Consumers have benefited enormously from plastic’s numerous functionalities. It provides us with light- weight housings for consumer electronics, a multitude of containers for preserving food, car interiors, insulating materials, and a seemingly endless variety of attractive bottles for drinks and detergents. The need to reduce the quantities of materials used has compelled the plastics industry to be continuously inventive and create multi-layer applications, modify polymer chemistries, and develop highly functional additives. Unfortunately, this tremendous diversity has a huge downside in the later stages of the product’s life cycle.
Recycling plastics is a complex challenge
Because of the diversity of plastics, there are many difficulties associated with recycling process itself as well as the challenge of source-separation by consumers. Even if waste plastics are collected in the correct pathway, the huge variety of chemical compositions makes closed-loop recycling extremely difficult. As a result, the numbers for recycling are still up for improvement. In Europe, the annual demand for plastics is around 50 million tonnes, of which 25.8 million tonnes end up as waste each year, of which less than 30% is collected for recycling [1] and only 1% is reused as a secondary raw material in new high-end applications.
Plastic waste creates huge environmental damage
Far too much waste plastic ends up in the environment. The general public is aware of this, as well as of the associated economic and environmental problems. An estimated 5 to 13 million tonnes of plastic end up in the oceans every year [2]. In a business-as-usual scenario, the ocean will contain 1 tonne of plastic for every 3 tonnes of fish by 2025, and by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish [3]. Less obvious is the problem of microplastics, generated by plastic bottles and the like as they degrade and accumulate in the seas and oceans.
[1] RDC Environment, 2017: https://outofuse.com/websites/1/uploads/ files/2665_MinistrieIM_2017-08-03_Ecodesign_Final%20report%20_vF.pdf
[2] Jambeck et al, Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean. Science, 2015.
[3] New Plastics Economy, Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2016