Plastic Waste and Recycling

Environmental Impact, Societal Issues, Prevention, and Solutions

Trevor Letcher, Trevor M. Letcher

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780128178812
• Topic: Sciences biologiques
• Subtopic: Science environnementale

Plastic Waste and Recycling: Environmental Impact, Societal Issues, Prevention, and Solutions begins with an introduction to the different types of plastic materials, their uses, and the concepts of reduce, reuse and recycle before examining plastic types, chemistry and degradation patterns that are organized by non-degradable plastic, degradable and biodegradable plastics, biopolymers and bioplastics. Other sections cover current challenges relating to plastic waste, explain the sources of waste and their routes into the environment, and provide systematic coverage of plastic waste treatment methods, including mechanical processing, monomerization, blast furnace feedstocks, gasification, thermal recycling, and conversion to fuel.

This is an essential guide for anyone involved in plastic waste or recycling, including researchers and advanced students across plastics engineering, polymer science, polymer chemistry, environmental science, and sustainable materials.

• Presents actionable solutions for reducing plastic waste, with a focus on the concepts of collection, re-use, recycling and replacement
• Considers major societal and environmental issues, providing the reader with a broader understanding and supporting effective implementation
• Includes detailed case studies from across the globe, offering unique insights into different solutions and approaches

Part 1

Introduction

Outline

Chapter 1. Introduction to plastic waste and recycling

Chapter 2. Production, use, and fate of synthetic polymers

Chapter 3. The geography and geology of plastics: their environmental distribution and fate

Chapter 1: Introduction to plastic waste and recycling

Trevor M. Letcher ^{1 , 2 1} School of Chemistry, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa ² Laurel House, Stratton on the Fosse, United Kingdom

Abstract

The chapter serves as an introduction to the book as a whole. It considers the historical aspect of plastic and plastic waste and our dependence on things plastic. It introduces the types of plastic used today and the issue of plastic waste on land and in the oceans. It poses the question, “what can we do about it?”

Keywords

Dependence on plastic; Helpful hints; History of plastic; Plastic waste; Recycling of plastic

1. 1.1 Introduction
2. 1.2 Our dependence on things plastic
3. 1.3 Recycling
4. 1.4 What to do?
5. 1.5 The book
6. References

1.1. Introduction

Over the past decade, plastic waste has become a major issue, both on land and at sea. In a little over a century, plastic has gone from being hailed as a scientific wonder to being reviled as an environmental scourge. Ocean and river plastics have been highlighted in the media over the past year with a special focus on the serious problems in Asia and the mass of floating plastic found in mid-oceans. Furthermore, the media regularly presents us with marine life being smothered by plastic and plastic bags. Plastic items and plastic packaging are found in every ocean, in every part of every oceans, and indeed, a recent report has highlighted the finding of a plastic bag at the bottom of the deepest part of the Pacific ocean (Mariana Trench at 11 km below the ocean surface) [1]. Any amount of coastal beach cleaning of plastic waste appears to have little effect. Furthermore, little plastic (less than 20% worldwide) is being recycled worldwide today, and it is hoped that this book will encourage new developments in both recycling and disposing of waste plastic.

The first plastic material was produced in 1850 followed by the invention of Bakelite in 1907. The beginning of the plastic revolution came during WWII with the invention of nylon, which was used as a substitute for silk in parachutes and for ropes. The real development of new plastics and manufactured goods came during the 1950s and 60s. At that time, as with many new innovative inventions, little thought went into the problems related to plastic waste, in spite of the public being aware of environmental problems as early as the 1960s (Silent Spring, Rachel Carson in 1962). Today over 300 million tonnes of plastic are produced each year, of which 8 million end up in the oceans [2,3]. If we continue polluting the seas in this way, it has been estimated that by 2050, the mass of plastic in the oceans will exceed the mass of fish [4].

It has also been reported that one in three species of marine life have been found entangled in marine litter, and 90% of all seabirds have plastic in their stomachs. Plastic packaging is the largest end-use market segment accounting for almost 40% of the total worldwide plastic usage. Over 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide annually, and the average working life of a plastic bag is 15 min [3].

1.2. Our dependence on things plastic

We have come to depend on things made of plastic, and plastic has in many ways made modern life.

Plastic has raised our standard of living with

1. • computers, smart phones, and electronic equipment that are all dependent on plastic for their frames and housing,
2. • insulation for our houses,
3. • textiles and clothing,
4. • fresher products wrapped in plastic and from all over the world in our supermarkets,
5. • plastic syringes and tubing that have revolutionized medicine,
6. • plastic bags and pots that, in turn, have revolutionized farming and horticulture,
7. • toys, two-thirds of all toys are made of plastic and most are played with for a few minutes and discarded,
8. • a vehicular industry that is totally dependent on plastic for dashboards, seat covers, interior surfaces, electric insulation, and bumpers,
9. • water pipes and conduit piping for gas, electricity, and telephone cables, to name a few.
10. Many of the plastic items are used only once and then discarded—plastic bags, coffee and beverage cups, toys, cutlery, drinking straws, and wet wipes, etc.
11. “Give-away” toys handed out as incentives at food outlets and retail shops are becoming a real problem for landfill operators as the mountains of unwanted plastic toys mount up. In most cases, the many millions of these toys produced annually are played with for only a few minutes before being discarded. It has been estimated that two-thirds of all toys are made of plastic.

1.3. Recycling

It has been estimated that only 9% of all the plastic ever made has been recycled, with 12% having been burnt and the remainder ending up in soils, oceans, and landfill [5]. The plastic industry is a rapidly growing industry, and it has been estimated that almost half of all the plastic ever made has been made since 2000. Today, the global average for recycling is less than 20% with the United States recycling less that 9% of its plastic production [5].

We have used the word “recycle” to refer to all types of useful ways of dealing with plastic. It really should only be used for plastic waste items that are reused or reprocessed into similar or other types of products. Indeed, some of solutions to the plastic waste problem involve the destruction of the polymeric material. True recycling rarely happens, and even the plastic bottles that we, in the United Kingdom, separate for collection every week may not end up as plastic bottles but could be hydrolyzed and turned into monomers before being repolymerized into polyethylene terephthalate (PET) for making many things including carpet material. PET is the most successfully recycled plastic. One of the problems of recycling plastic waste is the difficulty in separating the different types of plastic. To assist in the separation, symbols are often...