HS PF
DE

Motivation

What happens to our packaging waste?

Over the past decades, the amount of waste from plastic packaging in Germany has increased significantly: 1.6 million tons were generated in 1991, and by 2013 this figure has already risen to 2.8 million tons - an increase of 77 percent [Schüler, 2015]. The World Bank assumes that worldwide plastic waste generation will continue to grow and triple by the year 2100 [Hoornweg et al., 2013, Nature]. But what happens at the end of life of plastics and plastic packaging? How much plastic ends up in the environment depends, among other things, on the level of development of the country under consideration. By 2025, around 250 million tons of waste will accumulate in the environment that have not been properly collected and treated [Jambeck et al., 2015, Science].

Globally, only 10% of all packaging waste is recycled, and only 2% enters a closed loop [Ellen MacArthur Foundation and McKinsey & Company, 2016]. In many areas, it is very common to deposit packaging in landfills, or even to dispose it uncontrolled in the environment. This, combined with the fact that the price of recycled plastics is higher than the cost of virgin plastics, massively hinders a circular economy for plastics: Although there are about 3000 companies in Europe working in the recycling sector, secondary plastics cover only 6% of the total plastics demand in Europe.

Even in Germany, according to the Federal Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt), the mechanical recycling rate for plastic packaging is only 48% [UBA-Texte 139/2019; p. 137]. According to other sources and under other premises (e.g. output-based instead of input-based calculation), the actual recycling rate for plastic packaging waste is only about 20%. The regulations of the German Packaging Act, which came into force on 1.1.2019, require, among other things, an increase in the mechanical recycling rate of plastic packaging from 36% to 63% (by weight) by 2022. This requires new recycling routes and also new, better recyclate qualities in order to practically close material cycles for polymers. Currently, too much plastic is lost due to sorting problems and the quality of the recycled plastics is insufficient due to the low sorting quality.

These challenges are the motivation for the funded research project MaReK. The Tracer-Based-Sorting (TBS) approach is intended to solve current sorting problems, reduce costs, increase the quality of the recycled materials and thus ultimately implement a circular economy for plastics instead of a recycling cascade for plastics.

In the course of sorting packaging waste from private households, different fractions of recyclable materials are separated and pressed into bales. (Photo: HS Pforzheim)

Current challenges in packaging waste recycling

High-quality recycling of plastic packaging does not work well for technical and economic reasons: Non-hazardous plastic waste may be shipped to non-OECD countries, so there is a considerable outflow, especially to Asia [European Commission, 2013]. The currently proven sorting techniques are reaching their limits in view of the further development of packaging and materials technology. Currently, there are practice-relevant separation tasks in the sorting of packaging waste that even spectroscopic sorting technology cannot solve. Such separation tasks consist in the detection of black packaging, the separation of different types of the same type of plastic or the separation of material flows with circulation restricting features such as multi-layer systems. Within the scope of the project it is investigated to what extent TBS can act as a supplement or even as an alternative to the existing system of packaging sorting.

References:

  • Ellen MacArthur Foundation and McKinsey & Company (2016): The New Plastics Economy – Rethinking the future of plastics. URL: https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/EllenMacArthurFoundation_TheNewPlasticsEconomy_Pages.pdf.
  • European Commission (2013): Grünbuch zu einer europäischen Strategie für Kunststoffabfälle in der Umwelt. Brüssel, March 7th 2013; COM (2013) 123 final; p. 10.
  • Gesetz zur Fortentwicklung der haushaltsnahen Getrennterfassung von wertstoffhaltigen Abfällen (2017): BGBl. Jg. 2017, Teil I Nr. 45. Bonn, 12. Juli 2017.
  • Hoornweg, D., Bhada-Tata, P., Kennedy, C. (2013): Environment: Waste production must peak this century. Nature 502, 615–617.
  • Jambeck, J.R.; Geyer, R.; Wilcox, C. ; Siegler, T.R. ; Perryman, M. ; Andrady, A.; Narayan, R.; Law, K.L. (2015): Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean. Science 347, 768-771.
  • Schüler, K. (2015): Aufkommen und Verwertung von Verpackungsabfällen in Deutschland im Jahr 2013. Umweltbundesamt, Dessau-Roßlau.
  • University of Georgia (2015): Stunning amount of plastic waste in the oceans || University of Georgia. URL:http://www.uga.edu/about_uga/profile/study-stunning-amount-of-plastic-waste-in-ocean.