Future of recycling

First, a number of important facts

1. 90-95% of plastic waste in the oceans comes from Third World countries where there is no recycling or even landfills for plastic. They simply dump waste into the sea through ten large rivers in Asia and Africa. This plastic must be treated.
2. A lot of cardboard packaging, especially in the food industry, is coated with plastic on the inside, and sometimes on other layers as well, which makes recycling much more difficult, to the point of preventing it altogether.
3. 91% less energy is needed to recycle 1 kg of plastic compared with recycling paper. Mr. Keith Christman, the Managing Director of Plastic Markets at the American Chemistry Council’s Plastics Division, says, “Plastic has an important role in supporting sustainability processes. By using less material, plastic production reduces the carbon footprint and emissions of greenhouses gases and saves energy.”
4. There are other kinds of non-PET plastic, which are problematic and harm the environment.

The Alliance to End Plastic Waste has budgeted $15 billion to promote solutions for plastic waste. This amount is allocated to four main objectives:

1. To conduct innovative research and promote technologies to reduce waste and improve the recycling process.
2. To improve waste treatment and recycling infrastructures, with a focus on developing countries, which produce most global plastic waste (90-95%).
3. To increase environmental and recycling awareness and commitment of governments and businesses.
4. To clean the main polluting hubs that send plastic waste from land to the oceans (rivers in African and Asia).

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation is leading another initiative, Global Commitment, which has united over 500 organizations, including 26 financial institutions, with an aggregate value of $4.2 trillion, and 16 governments. All the signatories to Global Commitment have undertaken to implement six main principles:

1. To avoid the use of unnecessary and difficult to recycle plastic packaging through redesign and innovation in the product marketing and distribution networks.
2. To implement reuse models wherever possible to reduce the use of disposable packaging.
3. All plastic packaging will be reusable, recyclable or compostable.
4. All plastic packaging will be sent for reuse, recycling, or composting.
5. The use of plastics will be completely divorced from the use of non-renewable resources.
6. All plastic packaging will be free of hazardous materials of any kind.

• The information on this page is based on the experience and knowledge of Plastovack’s managers and includes extensive information from publications and research. We have provided links to some of them. This text was edited by Mr. Kelberman, an expert in plastics and recycling, who added notes and supplements. Mr. Kelberman, formerly the CEO of Aviv Recycling Industries, is currently a packaging consultant.