Download or read book Environmental and Economic Implications of Emerging Plastic Recycling Technologies written by and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recycling will play a crucial role in mitigating plastic pollution and promoting a circular economy for polymers. Quantitative analysis can help guide the optimization and implementation of these plastic management strategies, enabling increased circularity while minimizing costs, energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, and other environmental impacts. This talk will outline the Bio-Optimized Technologies to keep Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Environment (BOTTLE) Consortium's approach to analysis-guided plastic recycling research. Stringent process modelling, life cycle assessment, and techno-economic analysis are used to benchmark the technical feasibility, environmental impacts, and costs of chemical and biological recycling technologies in comparison to conventional fossil fuel-based plastic manufacturing. Across emerging recycling strategies, several key challenges become apparent - including plastic feedstock pretreatment requirements, high energy or chemical use, and recycled plastic yields and quality - highlighting opportunities for future innovation. Through this consistent and in-depth analysis approach, BOTTLE aims to provide the plastics community with key metrics and insights to drive plastic recycling innovation towards a more sustainable and circular economy.

Download or read book Global Plastics Outlook Economic Drivers Environmental Impacts and Policy Options written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While plastics are extremely useful materials for modern society, plastics production and waste generation continue to increase with worsening environmental impacts despite international, national and local policy responses, as well as industry commitments. The first of two reports, this Outlook intends to inform and support policy efforts to combat plastic leakage.

Download or read book Circular Plastics Technologies written by Katrina Knauer and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2024-01-29 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Comparing Polymer Recycling Technologies for a Circular Plastic Economy written by and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This presentation summarizes the research article "Technical, Economic, and Environmental Comparison of Closed-Loop Recycling Technologies for Common Plastics" by Uekert et al. (ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng., 2023) for a carpet industry audience. It covers the technical performance, environmental impacts, and costs of existing and emerging plastic recycling technologies, with a focus on those that are applicable to carpet materials such as polypropylene and polyester.

Download or read book Life Cycle Engineering of Plastics written by L. Lundquist and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2001-01-23 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book adds much to the already evolving field of Design for Environment; but it goes far beyond most works on this subject by surrounding the central notions of life cycle assessment with a scientific body of knowledge and with a more practical slant reflecting the reality of the organizations in which product development occurs. Through a focus on plastic products, the authors show the importance of making ties between basic technical knowledge and the process of life cycle engineering. Their approach offers a practical, deliberate way to make ecologically and economically sensible decisions about product reuse and recycling and other critical dimensions of product life behavior. They demonstrate a positive approach to designing products that fits into a sustainable economy through down-to-earth cases. While the book focuses on the life cycle engineering of plastics, it is only a short step to other materials and products. Beyond contributing to the technology of life cycle engineering, this text adds to the growing body of knowledge that argues for an fundamentally new way of thinking about economic and social activity--a new paradigm for sustainable social and industrial problem solving. Industrial ecology is such a new system for thinking about and implementing sustainability that draws its core set of ideas from the ecological world. Industrial ecology brings to the surface the idea of interdependence among members of a community-- natural or economic, and notes the material cycles that are central to a stable ecosystem. The life cycle engineering framework, coupled with sound scientific knowledge of materials behavior as articulated in this book, makes a giant step towards bringing the model of industrial ecology into everyday practice." From the Preface by John R. Ehrenfeld Director, MIT Technology, Business and Environment Program Center for Technology, Policy, and Industrial Development

Download or read book Plastic Waste and Recycling written by Trevor M. Letcher and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 686 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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

Download or read book Waste Management and Environmental Impact XI written by J.J. Casares and published by WIT Press. This book was released on 2022-08-10 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Resulting from a merger of two successful events, this book contains papers presented at the 11th International Conference on Waste Management and Environmental and Economic Impact on Sustainable Development. To prevent emerging threats to environmental and ecological systems we must learn from past failures to avoid repeating similar mistakes. Waste management is one of the key problems of modern society due to the ever-expanding volume and complexity of discarded domestic and industrial waste and its implications on health and the environment. Society is increasingly aware of the need to establish better practices and safer solutions for waste disposal. This creates a need for more research on current disposal methods such as landfills, incineration, chemical and effluent treatment, as well as recycling, clean technologies, waste monitoring, public and corporate awareness and general education. The desired direction of waste management is towards sustainable strategies that avoid the short-term solutions applied in the past. The approach, which has emerged as the most promising, has been called 4Rs, where reduction, reuse, recycling and recovery are seen as the best actions. More recently, these concepts have given rise to the new model of the ‘Circular Economy’, which is based on the reuse of what up to now has been considered waste, reintroducing them into the production cycle. Further steps are required towards the improvement of current technologies, increased collaboration between the public, government and private sectors and increased involvement of all stakeholders. The included research works put a focus on the impact of economic constraints on the environment, taking into account the social aspects as well as the over-use of natural resources, contamination and toxicity. Problems of great importance are addressed, with the goal of finding constructive and progressive approaches to ensure sustainability.

Download or read book Life Cycle Impact Assessment written by Michael Z. Hauschild and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-03-24 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a detailed presentation of the principles and practice of life cycle impact assessment. As a volume of the LCA compendium, the book is structured according to the LCIA framework developed by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO)passing through the phases of definition or selection of impact categories, category indicators and characterisation models (Classification): calculation of category indicator results (Characterisation); calculating the magnitude of category indicator results relative to reference information (Normalisation); and converting indicator results of different impact categories by using numerical factors based on value-choices (Weighting). Chapter one offers a historical overview of the development of life cycle impact assessment and presents the boundary conditions and the general principles and constraints of characterisation modelling in LCA. The second chapter outlines the considerations underlying the selection of impact categories and the classification or assignment of inventory flows into these categories. Chapters three through thirteen exploreall the impact categories that are commonly included in LCIA, discussing the characteristics of each followed by a review of midpoint and endpoint characterisation methods, metrics, uncertainties and new developments, and a discussion of research needs. Chapter-length treatment is accorded to Climate Change; Stratospheric Ozone Depletion; Human Toxicity; Particulate Matter Formation; Photochemical Ozone Formation; Ecotoxicity; Acidification; Eutrophication; Land Use; Water Use; and Abiotic Resource Use. The final two chapters map out the optional LCIA steps of Normalisation and Weighting.

Download or read book Understanding Plastics Recycling written by Natalie Rudolph and published by Hanser Publications. This book was released on 2017 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows the true and often-underestimated market potential of plastics recycling, with analysis from economic, ecological, and technical perspectives. It is aimed at both technical and non-technical readers, including decision makers in material suppliers, plastic product manufacturers, governmental agencies, educators, and anyone with a general interest in plastics recycling. An overview of waste handling systems with a focus on the U.S. market is provided. Different methods of waste handling are compared from both economic and ecological perspectives. Because plastic waste recycling is essential from an ecological point of view, common strategies and new approaches to both increase the recycling rate and improve recycling economically and technically are presented. This includes processing and material properties of recycled plastics. Finally, a worldwide outlook of plastic recycling is provided with analysis of additional worldwide markets, encompassing highly developed, fast-developing, and less developed countries. Bonus: All the data and calculations presented in the book are provided as downloadable spreadsheets for the reader's own analysis and updates.

Download or read book Improving Markets for Recycled Plastics Trends Prospects and Policy Responses written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2018-05-24 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plastics have become one of the most prolific materials on the planet: in 2015 we produced about 380 million tonnes of plastics globally, up from 2 million tonnes in the 1950s. Yet today only 15% of this plastic waste is collected and recycled into secondary plastics globally each year. This ...

Download or read book Economic Policy Instruments for Plastic Waste written by Magnus Hennlock and published by Nordic Council of Ministers. This book was released on 2015-03-18 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Achieving a high quality of waste plastic materials and recycling processes is a key challenge in closing the resource loops for plastics. This report reviews the status and trends for plastic waste flows and treatment in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Furthermore, it gives an overview of existing policy instruments and the main challenges for designing policy instruments for improved recycling of plastic waste in these Nordic countries. The report identifies potential market failures associated with closing the resource loops for plastics. It reviews the economics research literature on policy instrument design for achieving optimal recycling rates and makes policy recommendations from the Nordic perspective. Finally, it presents results from a survey on market conditions to managers in the recycling and plastic manufacturing industry in Sweden.

Download or read book Environmental and Economic Assessment of Plastic Waste Recycling written by and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present study provides a comparative environmental and economic assessment of plastic waste recycling and energy recovery (incineration) technologies, using actual plant data complemented with external information. The recycling technologies include mechanical, physical and chemical recycling. The study concludes that the choice of the preferred management option for plastic waste should be based on three main criteria: i) the maximisation of material recovery while minimising processing impacts, principally related to energy consumption (reflecting environmental performance), in line with the waste hierarchy, ii) the specificity of the plastic waste stream and the treatment thereby required (technical feasibility), and iii) the economic feasibility. A key limitation to the study has been the lack of data available on the characteristics of the waste inputs to recycling, which is needed to understand in which cases physical or chemical recycling and mechanical recycling may compete for similar waste feedstock and in which cases physical or chemical recycling provides an alternative option for processing waste otherwise sent to energy recovery or landfill. Preliminary economic data suggests that some physical and chemical recycling technologies may be already economically viable without financial support, whereas others might become so in the medium to long term. As the sectors of physical recycling and chemical recycling are currently experiencing rapid technological developments, the analysis presented in this study should be updated as technologies become more mature, also in view of formulating appropriate and possible policy interventions.

Download or read book Plastics to Energy written by Sultan Al-Salem and published by William Andrew. This book was released on 2018-11-05 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plastics to Energy: Fuel, Chemicals, and Sustainability Implications covers important trends in the science and technology of polymer recovery, such as the thermo-chemical treatment of plastics, the impact of environmental degradation on mechanical recycling, incineration and thermal unit design, and new options in biodegradable plastics. The book also introduces product development opportunities from waste materials and discusses the main processes and pathways of the conversion of polymeric materials to energy, fuel and chemicals. A particular focus is placed on industrial case studies and academic reviews, providing a practical emphasis that enables plastics practitioners involved in end-of-life aspects to employ these processes. Final sections examine lifecycle and cost analysis of different plastic waste management processes, exploring the potential of various techniques in modelling, optimization and simulation of waste management options. Introduces new pathways for the end-of-life treatment of plastics and polymers, including conversion to energy, fuel and other chemicals Compares different options to assist materials scientists, engineers and waste management practitioners to choose the most effective and sustainable option Covers the latest trends in the science and technology of polymer energy recovery

Download or read book Handbook of Recycling written by Ernst Worrell and published by Newnes. This book was released on 2014-04-28 with total page 595 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the International Solid Waste Association's 2014 Publication Award, Handbook of Recycling is an authoritative review of the current state-of-the-art of recycling, reuse and reclamation processes commonly implemented today and how they interact with one another. The book addresses several material flows, including iron, steel, aluminum and other metals, pulp and paper, plastics, glass, construction materials, industrial by-products, and more. It also details various recycling technologies as well as recovery and collection techniques. To completely round out the picture of recycling, the book considers policy and economic implications, including the impact of recycling on energy use, sustainable development, and the environment. With contemporary recycling literature scattered across disparate, unconnected articles, this book is a crucial aid to students and researchers in a range of disciplines, from materials and environmental science to public policy studies. Portrays recent and emerging technologies in metal recycling, by-product utilization and management of post-consumer waste Uses life cycle analysis to show how to reclaim valuable resources from mineral and metallurgical wastes Uses examples from current professional and industrial practice, with policy and economic implications

Download or read book Economic and Environmental Evaluation of the EM Ferro Plastic Sorting Technology written by Omid Nematshahi and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recycling has been continually practiced since the dawn of mankind; however, increasing production costs as well as environmental impacts of the conventional waste disposal methods have shed a light on the importance of recycling as a sustainable way to produce goods and services. Recycling has proven to be beneficial, economically and environmentally: it saves resources, prevents pollution, supports public health, and creates jobs. Recycling can be applied to different materials present in the municipal solid waste (MSW). Plastics constitute a substantial portion of the MSW. In 2012, plastics accounted for 12.7% of the total MSW generated in the United States. However, only 9% of the total amount of plastic generated in 2012 was recovered for recycling [1]. Currently, the major part of the plastics generated is disposed of through incineration or landfilling. These conventional disposal methods impose serious threats to the environment such as greenhouse gas emission and soil and underground water contamination. These effects along with the versatility of the plastic waste have led the development of more environmental friendly plastic recycling methods. Prior to recovery, the plastic waste should be sorted into the different plastic types it is composed of. Traditional plastic sorting methods used optical or manual sortation which was not only costly but also susceptible to high nonconformance rates. Newer technologies have been developed that have higher output and are more economically justifiable. This thesis performs and economical and environmental comparison between five plastic sorting methods that are currently in use and one emerging technology which uses electromagnetic (EM) waves and ferrofluid to sort plastics. Economic input-output life cycle assessment (EIO-LCA) is the method used to collect the data and perform the analyses. Two economic measures are used to evaluate the methods from an economical point of view. The objective is to study how the new method compares to the existing methods both economically and environmentally using a case study in Toledo, Ohio. The data related to cost, energy requirements, and carbon emissions were collected through contacting local vendors. Also, sensitivity analyses were performed using different changing variables and different outcomes on each of the six scenarios. The results of the study showed that all of the methods have positive economic performance with minor variations in energy use and carbon emission.

Download or read book Plastics Recycling written by Charles Jubb and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Designing Sustainable Technologies Products and Policies written by Enrico Benetto and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-07-03 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book provides insight into the implementation of Life Cycle approaches along the entire business value chain, supporting environmental, social and economic sustainability related to the development of industrial technologies, products, services and policies; and the development and management of smart agricultural systems, smart mobility systems, urban infrastructures and energy for the built environment. The book is based on papers presented at the 8th International Life Cycle Management Conference that took place from September 3-6, 2017 in Luxembourg, and which was organized by the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) and the University of Luxembourg in the framework of the LCM Conference Series.