Chemical Recycling: Breaking The Status Quo Of Waste Plastics

Wood Mackenzie, a leading global energy consulting firm, recently released a report titled "Chemical Recycling: Disrupting the Status Quo".  The report explores the potential of the chemical processes "plastic to plastic" and "plastic to fuel"， which bring more materials into the circular economy. Existing physical recycling processes can only handle certain types of plastics. And can we expect chemical recycling to provide us with new solutions?

Existing Issues

Plastic is vital to global economic life, but the problem of plastic waste also deserves worldwide attention. While growth in global demand for plastic packaging is expected to slow in the coming decades, the amount of plastic waste generated in 2040 is still expected to be nearly double what it is today.  Thus there is an urgent need for more sophisticated recycling technology to prevent plastics from polluting the environment. The current conventional mechanical recycling method of breaking plastics into small particles is only applicable to certain types of packaging.

Advantages Of Chemical Recycling

Chemical recycling processes may capture more than 50 million tons of plastic packaging waste that is currently considered "non-recyclable". The use of chemical recycling can improve the overall recycling rate of plastic waste. Meanwhile chemical recycling produces a higher value of virgin quality material. It is also more tolerant of lower quality waste because of its ability to handle a variety of materials. Many famous brands support chemical recycling, including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestle, Danone and Unilever.

Chemical Recycling Challenges

While chemical recycling holds great promise, there are some barriers to widespread adoption. One problem is that chemical recycling is more carbon-intensive than mechanical recycling. Yields may also struggle under commercial operations.However, one of the biggest challenges is getting enough raw materials in large-scale form. Since China promulgated the policy of banning the import of waste plastics, there has been a gap between the supply and demand of raw materials in large packages. The implementation of the policy has led to an increase in plastic ending up in landfills, incinerators or littering, given that my country previously processed nearly half of the world's recyclable waste.

Industrial Continuous Waste Plastic Pyrolysis Technology

The industrial continuous waste plastic pyrolysis technology and equipment developed by Niutech Environment Technology Corporation is the advanced recycling technology in the field of waste plastic chemical recycling. It has the advantages of wide material adaptability, low processing energy consumption, excellent treatment effect and good product quality. It has become a key development direction recognized by various countries, bringing new impetus to the development of global waste plastic recycling and ecological protection.

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