Light yet strong, easy to mold and shape, and wear-resistant. Plastic has them all. These features made it so convenient to use to the point of becoming the go-to material for hundreds of applications. The other side of the coin of such convenience is the resulting throw-away culture. Many plastic objects we use every day only last a few minutes – to wrap some food or carry groceries home. Conversely, bags, bottles, and films remain in the environment for hundreds of years, affecting oceans, wildlife, and our food too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OECD<\/a> estimated 367 million metric tons of plastic waste in 2020. This figure is expected to triple by 2060. <\/p> <\/div> Plastic can stick around for centuries. For instance, a plastic bottle can take up to 600 years to decompose.<\/p> <\/div> According to OECD, less than a tenth<\/a> of worldwide plastic is recycled. In the EU, 41 percent of packaging plastic was recycled in 2019. <\/p> <\/div> In addition to bans on single-use plastics, EU countries are introducing a plastic tax. These duties change state by state – albeit part of the European Green Deal strategy – tax businesses consuming non-recycled plastic. <\/p> <\/div> <\/div>\n\n\n\n If, on the one hand, norms can help – such as bans<\/a> on single-use plastic – on the other efficient recycling methods represent a necessity. Several types of plastic cannot even be recycled. They get burned and the resulting heat can eventually be collected and used as energy. However, most plastics end up in landfills – staying there for centuries. European researchers are working on solutions to tackle this problem, and here are a few examples. <\/p>\n\n\n\n TUSTI<\/a> is striving to improve plastic recycling, focusing on some of the most challenging fractions of this waste: the greasy ones. The firm, based in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, developed an innovative method to treat this waste without heating the material at high temperatures or using hazardous chemicals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Plastic is shredded into tiny pieces, which are washed with a patented pending cleaner. Then, fractions are dried and packed into bags to reach the closest recycling facilities. <\/p>\n\n\n Sorting plastic films is one of the main constraints to their recycling. They can either be single-layered – such as toy wrapping – or multi-layered – such as food packaging. To distinguish between the two varieties of plastic, scientists at the University of Leoben<\/a>, Austria, are using near-infrared light. The research aims to see the difference in radiation between the two kinds of material. Researchers use a neural network to spot the differences between single and multi-layered plastics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If the process works out fine, films will return to the product cycle, potentially being able to be reused several times. Manufacturing consumption would decrease while saving tons of CO2<\/sub> emitted to produce new plastics. <\/p>\n\n\n Plastic objects can take up to 500 years to degrade. Is there anything we could do to boost this process? Enzymes can undoubtedly be a good option. By nature, they are proteins that accelerate chemical reactions – such as human metabolism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Scientists at the University of Portsmouth<\/a>, England, engineered PETase<\/a>, an enzyme that breaks down PET plastics used for single-use drinking bottles. The protein can degrade discarded plastics, reducing the time needed for recycling. Last year, they announced that they characterized another enzyme that helps break terephthalate – one of the PET building blocks – resulting after PETase action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Polyurethane – PU – is one of the most used commodity plastics. Windows, fridges, and shoes contain it – it can be shaped in countless forms. A team of scientists at Aarhus University<\/a>, Denmark, found a way to recycle this material, getting as an output of the process the essential compounds composing it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By heating the material with alcohol – a special one called tert-Amyl<\/em> – and potash – a class of minerals containing potassium – PU breaks down. Researchers proved the method with several kinds of PU, patenting it. <\/p>\n\n\n At the Chalmers University of Technology<\/a>, Sweden, scientists are experimenting with new technology: thermo-chemical recycling. This method allows turning waste into new plastics. In fact, they developed three processes for recycling plastic: pyrolysis, gasification, and combustion plus synthesis. Each of them targets different kinds of plastic – clean or mixed – allowing the production of high-grade plastics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The method distinguishes itself from mechanical recycling, which works well for clean and small materials. Furthermore, thermo-recycling enables the production of high-grade materials by requiring less energy for plastic output than when producing them from fossil fuels.<\/p>\n\n\n Enzymes, chemistry, and AI, we have plenty of allies in recycling plastics, and we will need all of them to recycle as much as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Light yet strong, easy to mold and shape, and wear-resistant. Plastic has them all. These features made it so convenient to use to the point of becoming the go-to material for hundreds of applications. The other side of the coin of such convenience is the resulting throw-away culture. Many plastic objects we use every day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2084,"featured_media":515848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[74631,48948,77265,77268,54632],"location":[66582],"article_type":[36684],"serie":[],"archives":[],"internal_archives":[74857],"reboot-archive":[],"class_list":["post-431170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sustainability-nl","tag-aarhus-university","tag-chalmers-university-of-technology","tag-plastic-recycling-3","tag-university-of-leoben-2","tag-university-of-portsmouth","location-europe","article_type-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":{"subtitle":"Plastic pollution is one of the challenges of our time. These five technologies can assist us in recycling it. ","text_display_homepage":false},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Mauro Mereu","author_link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/author\/mauro-mereu\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/cristian-palmer-tWccDYLHF-Y-unsplash.png","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Sustainability<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Sustainability<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["aarhus university<\/a>","Chalmers University of Technology<\/a>","plastic recycling<\/a>","University of Leoben<\/a>","University of Portsmouth<\/a>"],"unlinked":["aarhus university<\/span>","Chalmers University of Technology<\/span>","plastic recycling<\/span>","University of Leoben<\/span>","University of Portsmouth<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 3 years ago","modified":"Updated 3 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on April 27, 2023","modified":"Updated on April 27, 2023"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on April 27, 2023 3:00 pm","modified":"Updated on April 27, 2023 3:00 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2084"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431170"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=431170"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=431170"},{"taxonomy":"serie","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/serie?post=431170"},{"taxonomy":"archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archives?post=431170"},{"taxonomy":"internal_archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal_archives?post=431170"},{"taxonomy":"reboot-archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reboot-archive?post=431170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Greasy plastic <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Infrared and AI for plastic recycling<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Plastic-eating enzyme <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Polyurethane recycling <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Thermo-chemical recycling<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What\u2019s going to help? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n