(SCD) RECYCLING IS NOT ENOUGH

Recycling has been touted as a solution to combat the global plastic pollution crisis, but recycling rates of 10% are ineffective against annual plastic production of >460 million tonnes. Solutions beyond recycling, such as capping production, improved product design, alternative materials, phasing out problematic plastics, and reduction and reuse strategies, are needed.

Current rates of plastic production and use, particularly single-use plastic products, are unsustainable. Cumulative primary plastic production has grown 20-fold in the past 50 years and surpassed 10,000 million tonnes by 2020, with more than 460 million tonnes produced in 2019 alone.

Roughly 40% of primary plastic production comprises single-use plastics, which are designed for single use, with limited recyclability. These difficult-to-recycle single-use plastics—or problematic plastics—continue to drive global production and consumption, leading to unprecedented plastic waste generation and widespread plastic pollution.

Increasing plastic pollution in the environment has become a global crisis, driving increased greenhouse gas emissions that accelerate climate change and pose serious risks to human health. This has even been recognized by the international community, although they have yet to reach an agreement on a legally binding Global Plastics Treaty to end plastic pollution.

Of all the plastic that has ever been produced, only 10% has ever been recycled and 14% has been incinerated, while the remaining 76% ends up in landfills, dumps, or the natural environment. Although recycling has been touted as a sustainable solution to curb plastic waste, it is ineffective in the face of rising global plastic production due to low rates of recycling. Roughly 10% of plastics are recycled globally. This is because most plastic products are not designed to be reused or recycled at their end of life. Even if plastic recycling rates were to increase, there are many unintended environmental impacts to consider. For example, the resulting lower-grade polymers produce low-quality, non-durable, downcycled products. These low-quality downcycled products have limited recyclability, restricted to only a few cycles.

At the end of life, these downcycled products then need to be disposed of. Recycled plastics also exhibit higher levels of hazardous chemicals such as brominated flame retardants, posing health risks for recycling workers and end users. Even the washing process during mechanical recycling also releases microplastics into the environment. Combined with all these negative environmental and health impacts, recycled plastic is often mixed with virgin feedstocks to maintain desired properties, undermining the very concept of recycling for a circular economy. More of this article (sciencedirect.com) - link - more like this (plastic recycling) - link - more like this (the future) - link