Validating the role of chemical recycling with the life cycle of plastics

On April 13, 2022, the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) Plastic Waste Action Alliance released the report "Chemical Recycling in the Plastic Circular Economy", encouraging the development of new technologies for plastic recycling to meet the key principles of safe, reliable, and environmentally sound development.

To support the opinion, the alliance reported a independent Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study. It indicates that chemical recycling of the plastic waste can reduce the climate impacts compared with incineration.

To help achieve the ultimate goal, the consortium developed a shared vision and principles for a pyrolysis-based chemical recycling safety model. The paper states that chemical recycling can increase the recycling rate of packaging and achieve recyclability goals. The document outlines six key principles:

1.  Sources of material for chemical recycling do not include material that is practicable and mechanically recycled at scale.

1. Traceability: Accurately track recycled content using a reliable mass balance protocol.

2. Process Yield: Maximize the use of chemical recycling to produce plastics without prioritizing the production of other materials (such as wax) and fuels.

3. Environmental impact: In comparable systems, the life cycle climate impact of chemically recycled plastics can be reliably demonstrated to be lower than that of virgin plastics.

5. Claims about chemical recycling should be credible and transparent.

6. Health and Safety: Discharge pollution must be safely managed.

The study provides a life-cycle impact assessment and compares conventional plastic produced from fossil sources and incinerated at the end of its life with chemically recycled plastic.

The coalition commissioned a separate study on the effects of climate change from the environmental consulting firm Sphera. A team of experts from the United Nations Environment Program and Northwestern University conducted peer review throughout the research. The study provides a life-cycle impact assessment and compares conventional plastic produced from fossil sources and incinerated at the end of its life with chemically recycled plastic. The study provides a life-cycle impact assessment and compares conventional plastics produced from fossils and burned at the end of their lives with chemically recycled plastics.

Chemical recycling is a key complement to mechanical recycling, as it allows for the recycling of large volumes of flexible packaging into food-grade packaging. This study shows that chemical recycling has a much lower carbon footprint than the current end-of-life of flexible packaging. As we continue to reduce our consumption of virgin plastics, new technologies such as chemical recycling can help improve recycling rates and increase the availability of food-grade recycled materials. the CGF's six principles and life cycle assessment work are key to ensuring that this is achieved in a safe and environmentally sound manner. When evaluating technologies such as chemical recycling of plastics, it is important to consider all potential environmental impacts throughout the life cycle of the production and consumption system. A specific challenge with relatively new technologies includes the chemical composition of emissions, emissions and wastes from the plant, and also the need for additional pollution control equipment and management.

To better realize the chemical recycling of waste plastics, it requires mature technology and processing equipment with the functions of both recycling disposal and emission treatment. The industrial continuous waste plastics pyrolysis equipment provided by Niutech is a perfect solution to the dual benefits of recycling treatment and environmental protection and ecology, and the pyrolysis oil produced by its disposal is a widely used and highly valuable renewable resource, which is increasingly used in fuel substitution and recycled plastics.

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