Advanced recycling technique is a solution to the world’s plastics pollution crisis, industry says

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The plastics industry says chemical recycling can help solve the crisis of waste plaguing the planet’s oceans, beaches and lands. Environmental groups say advanced recycling is a distraction from real solutions like producing less plastic.

They suspect the idea of recyclable plastics will enable the steep ramp up in plastic production to continue. And while the amount produced globally grows, recycling rates for plastic waste are abysmally low, especially in the United States.

The industry has made roughly 11 billion metric tons of plastic since 1950, with half of that produced since 2006, according to industrial ecologist Roland Geyer. Global plastic production is expected to more than quadruple by 2050, according to the United Nations Environment Programme and GRID-Arendal in Norway.

Ground up plastics that Alterra Energy receives from recycling facilities, move along a conveyor at the start of their process that transforms the material into a liquid that is then used in the manufacture of plastic, from the facility in Akron, Ohio on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2022. The U.S. facilities currently recycling plastic into new plastic are small — the largest is the 60-ton-per-day plant Alterra Energy, according to the ACC. The U.S.

The process doesn’t involve oxygen so there’s no combustion or incineration of plastics, DeBenedictis said, and their product is trucked as a synthetic oil to petrochemical companies, essentially the “building blocks on a molecular level for new plastic production.” DeBenedictis said he’s licensing the technology to try to grow the industry because that’s the “best way to make the quickest impact to the world.” A Finnish oil and gas company, Neste, is currently working to commercialize Alterra’s technology in Europe.

 

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We all know that plastic is here to stay so reducing its impact on the environment is a plus

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