Why most plastic can’t be recycled?
Context- With only 9% of annual plastic waste recycled, the myth that we can recycle our way out of a mounting plastic pollution crisis doesn’t add up. Around 85% of plastic packaging worldwide ends up in landfills.
In the United States, which is by far the world’s biggest plastics polluter, only around 5% of over 50 million tons of plastic waste produced by households in 2021 was recycled, according to Greenpeace.
(Credits- Our World in Data)
With plastic production set to triple globally by 2060, plastics made primarily from oil or gas are a growing source of the carbon pollution fuelling climate change. Much is also ending up in oceans and severely impacting marine life.
New universal plastic regulations are currently being negotiated as part of a global plastics treaty aiming to streamline the production, use and reuse of plastic using a circular economy model.
Still, circular product design also relies on the myth of recycling, which in its current guise is doing little to ease a mounting plastics crisis.
Separating seven types of plastic doesn’t add up
- Most plastic packaging is produced from seven grades of plastic that are largely incompatible with each other, and are costly to sort for recycling.
- Apart from PET, or Polyethylene terephthalate, the world’s most common plastic labelled with a #1, and high-density Polyethylene (HDPE), which carries the #2 symbol, five other plastic types might be collected but are rarely recycled, say Greenpeace.
- PET is the most recyclable plastic and there is a strong market for its byproduct used to make drink bottles, food containers or fibers for clothes.
- But the harder plastics numbered 3-7 have a very small market since the value of the raw material is lower than the cost of recycling.
- With new virgin plastic often cheaper than recycled material, plastic recycling is not economical
Virgin plastic is too cheap
- The post-consumer plastic resin created from recycled material is being undercut by cheaper prime material, limiting the market for recycled plastics.
- Reporting by New York-based market analysts S&P Global, shows demand for raw recycled plastic slowing due, among other factors, to rising transport costs for recycling businesses in Asia and a slowdown in the construction sector that creates plastic building materials.
- Ironically, plastic bag bans in Africa and Asia have limited the amount of feed material, which, in addition to low recycling rates globally, is also raising the price of recycled material.
- While the price of virgin plastic is at the whim of fluctuating oil and gas prices, these fossil fuels are often subsidized.
- But companies that produce waste could help undercut low virgin plastic costs by subsiziding plastic recycling schemes under the principle of extended producer responsibility. Such corporate subsidies have been key to the success of waste recycling schemes in EU countries like Germany and France, he added.
Lightweight ‘flexible’ packaging booming but non-recyclable
- The lightweight packets that keep food and snacks likes chips or chocolate bars fresh, constitute around 40% of the world’s plastic packaging
- When not ending up in landfill or burnt, the packaging is easily lost or discarded in the environment.
- Part of the problem is their multi-layered composition that is sometimes lined with foil, making it very expensive to separate into recyclable parts. Flexible packaging is also often “super-contaminated” with food waste, which also makes it impossible to recycle.
- The packaging industry claims that flexible packaging has environmental benefits as it’s lighter than more rigid plastics and causes less transport emissions while also keeping food fresher for longer.
Bans a part of the solution?
- In a 2022 survey of over 23,000 people across 34 countries, nearly 80% would support banning types of plastic that cannot be easily recycled.
- The EU has made some steps in this direction, having banned 10 single-use plastics products that not only blight Europe’s beaches but contravene a circular economy model via which all disposable plastics in the EU will be reusable or recyclable by 2030.
- Meanwhile, more than 30 African countries have either completely or partially banned lightweight plastic bags.
Way Forward- One goal of a global plastics treaty will be to harmonize these piecemeal bans into a coherent worldwide regulation. Only concerted global efforts can bring a meaningful change at the ground level.
Source- Indian Express
NEWS- Why most plastic can’t be recycled?
Syllabus- GS-3; Environment
