Cracking The Plastic Crisis
As it’s known over the world, the plastic crisis is one that’s been increasing over time. One of the 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic has ended up as waste with only 9% being recycled. This is extremely bad for the environment since it takes plastics over 400 years to degrade with the rest still existing. Most of the plastics is either buried, burned, sent to low- and middle-income countries or lost to pollute land and the sea. This is extremely damaging to the environment and human life which is why a new strategy is needed to eliminate plastic waste.
A new industry has been emerging which has the potential to turn plastic waste into a valuable resource. This industry is based on a process called chemical recycling which is when plastics are broken down into base chemicals which are then used to create new products. This endless cycle of processing and reuse is what’s known as a circular economy which can be sustainable.
The issue with plastic waste is the overproduction of plastic goods. Therefore, it’s imperative that consumer behaviour is changed so that we use less and re-use more plastics. These changes have been said to happen slowly which is why we cannot rely on the shift in consumer demand to solve the problem. Hence, increasing the amount of plastic we recycle is vital to solving the plastic emergency, but some plastics cannot be easily recycled which is where processes such as chemical recycling come into play.
However, even though chemical recycling sounds like it has a lot of benefits, like most technologies it has its limitations. Chemical recycling is a young technology that requires a lot of energy, and we aren’t in the position right now to fully understand its potential contributions and impacts (both positive and negative). But ultimately chemical recycling can produce higher-quality materials than conventional recovery methods.
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