JM Review | Renewable plastics still not recycled enough

By Jointing.Media, in Shanghai, 2023-07-25

In October 2021, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released its latest assessment report, From Pollution to Solutions: A Global Assessment of Marine Litter and Plastic Pollution. According to the report, there are still approximately 75 to 199 million tons of plastic waste in the ocean, accounting for 85% of the total weight of marine debris. Without effective action, the amount of plastic waste entering aquatic ecosystems each year is expected to nearly triple to 23-37 million tons per year by 2040.

The report shows about 9.2 billion tons of plastic products were produced worldwide between 1950 and 2017, of which about 7 billion tons ended up as plastic waste. The recycling rate of this plastic waste is very low, less than 10%. Millions of tons of plastic waste are discarded into the natural environment or transported thousands of miles to be incinerated or dumped.

According to a study published in Nature Communications, a subsidiary of the journal Nature, 1.15-2.41 million tons of plastic waste are discharged into the world’s oceans through rivers each year, with Asia accounting for 67% of the global total pollution.

Plastic recycling has been the focus of renewable resources research in recent years. Early plastic demand in China is large, and the overall plastic production capacity is insufficient, resulting in waste plastic imports continue to increase, between 2008 and 2012, China’s waste plastic imports have increased by nearly 9 million tons. Up to 45% of the world’s waste plastic exports go to China.

In 2013, China launched the “Green Fence” campaign to ban the import of unclean waste plastic and other “toxic” waste. After the “waste ban” was introduced, the import of plastic waste was completely banned. At the same time, due to the current domestic recycled plastic technology and industrial chain is still immature, compared with the international developed level of the average cost of about 10-20% higher. Recycled plastic imports remain high. Data shows that in 2021, imports of recycled plastic particles were about 3.6 million tons.

China has never sent plastic waste to other countries, and the local treatment rate has reached 100%. According to the estimates of China Materials Recycling Association, in 2021, China’s waste plastic recycling amount will reach 19 million tons, the recovery rate will reach 31%, and the recycling capacity will account for about 70% of the world.

Developed countries and large companies around the world began to pay attention to the use of renewable plastics. In Europe, the recycling rate of plastic packaging waste is required to reach 50% by 2025 and 55% by 2030. According to a report published by the French environmental protection group Veolia, the recycling of recycled plastics can reduce carbon emissions by 30-80% compared to the production of raw plastics.

Edited by Wind and DeepL

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