Combitech Italia’s Post

The future of convenience is not plastic. It cannot be. Only 9% of plastics are successfully recycled, so more recyclable plastics and more recycling is not the solution. In the article linked below, we discuss how moving away from petrochemical plastics not only presents value creation opportunities for your business but is necessary. If you have yet to remove fossil fuels from your business, send us an email at hello@ecoware.co.nz. https://lnkd.in/gTzh5Diz #recycling #plasticpollution #wastemanagement

Most plastic bottles are still landfilled despite recycling efforts, as traditional methods only handle type-1 and type-2 plastics. Global plastic production surged to 360 million tons in 2018, with half becoming single-use waste. ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Kevin Schug from The University of Texas at Arlington is researching pyrolysis, which decomposes all types of plastics into crude oil-like substances, bypassing the need for sorting. His team developed a new method to differentiate pyrolysis oils from various plastics, enhancing recycling potential and helping reduce fossil fuel reliance and climate change impacts.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Read about this incredible article in detail here: https://lnkd.in/gyiUcdmy ⁣⁣ #oceanenvironmentalsolutions #maritime #pyrolysis #researchstudy #recycling

#ResearchSpotlight Could vaporising be the new recycling? Researchers from UC Berkeley have developed a game-changing method to tackle one of the biggest environmental challenges - plastic waste. By using a process that "vaporizes" hard-to-recycle plastics like polyethylene (PE) & polypropylene (PP), this innovation breaks them down into their basic building blocks without releasing harmful gases. These gases can then be reused to create new, high-quality plastics, contributing to a circular economy for plastics. Check out the newly published article in The Oxford Scientist: https://lnkd.in/gZWnvyqx #CircularEconomy #Plastics #PlasticRecycling #Innovation #Sustainability

Chemical recycling More than $350M has been invested into the PureCycle chemical recycling plant to deliver the first batch of recycled polypropylene pellets - delayed, over budget, while being sued by investors who feel misled. The plastic is broken down using “a nightmare concoction” that is difficult to manage. The New York Times indicate that it is butane, a highly flammable gas, stored under pressure. The company’s filing described the risks of explosion, citing a “worst case scenario” that could cause second-degree burns a half-mile away. Chemical recycling has been attractive to investors, seeking to save the planet, with a requirement for a large ticket size and familiar linear models of return. I wonder what $350M could buy us in demonstrating commercial scale reuse?  Where are these pioneering and bold investors 😉? We need to make less plastic. #BreakFreeFromPlastic https://lnkd.in/eMd8wH7p

No, Recycling Won’t Solve Our Plastic Problem The world must come together to address the full life cycle of this ubiquitous material. Furthermore, plastics production uses a staggering array of different chemical compounds, and many are known to possess hazardous properties. Many studies show that harmful chemicals can ACCUMULATE in plastics during recycling processes. Especially when recycled plastic is used for food contact packaging, there is concern about the migration of hazardous chemicals into food. #PlasticsTreaty #Inc4 https://lnkd.in/gVr2qBtF

An interesting read that brings into the forefront that topic of using recycled plastic as food containers. Thankfully, we’ve learned to refrain from ‘re-heating’ items housed in plastic, but now we must be mindful of what can occur by using recycled plastic to house and/or store our food. #forapostplasticworld

Chemical recycling is a promising solution for plastic waste, offering a way to break down plastics into high-quality materials without losing their quality over time. Unlike traditional recycling, which reduces plastic quality, chemical recycling breaks plastics down into their basic parts, allowing for the creation of new, high-grade products. Researchers at ETH Zurich have made a breakthrough by developing a new formula that improves this process. This formula helps control the chemical reactions more effectively, leading to better recycling with fewer unwanted byproducts. #ChemicalRecycling #PlasticWaste #Sustainability

Plastic has a problem; is chemical recycling the solution? https://lnkd.in/e4cgvee As we weave our story to our audience we share an old (but very relevant) article on the challenges of mechanical recycling. It reports on why chemical recycling will have to be adopted if we are to embrace plastic recycling at a scale meaningful to transition to a circular economy. Although a pre-covid article, the content mentions many technologies that have now matured and are serving at a commercial scale. Please do click the link above for the full story. #circulareconomy #depolymerization #plasticsrecycling #polymers

Plastic Recycling (5) – “Recycling has become a Greenwashing Term. The EU Waste Directive from 1975 defines “recovery” and refers to a list of operations including recycling of organic substances, metals and inorganic materials. The version from 2008 defines “preparing for re-use” - means checking, CLEANING or repairing recovery operations, by which products or components of products that have become waste are prepared so that they can be re-used without any other pre-processing; “recycling” - means any recovery operation by which waste materials are reprocessed into products, materials or substances whether for the original or other purposes. It includes the reprocessing of organic material but does not include energy recovery and the reprocessing into materials that are to be used as fuels or for backfilling operations; Chemists may not distinguish between CLEANING and a physical SEPARATION and/or PURIFACTION, what would make #PhysicalRecycling (synonym: #MaterialRecycling) processes to a #PreparationforREUSE. But this is obviously not the interpretation of the inventors of our #WasteDirectives. They focus on “recycling” quota based on a definition that is so broad that it applies to everything except energy and fuel. No wonder that all recovery operations (regardless whether they break down polymers into the smallest pieces possible) are called recycling. Since centuries we separate & purify substances with physical processes. Those are also applied to separate chemicals needed for the polymerization of polymers. It is hard to believe that everybody has forgotten about this and we only debate about mechanical vs. chemical recycling. It should matter to our #CircularEconomy experts and legislators, what recovery processes produce as output, what energy they consume or what their CO2 footprint is? Actually, #mechanicalrecycling and #combustion are the only options at industrial scale for plastic waste besides disposal and export. It is mysterious, that we don’t apply the knowledge we have in order to transfer to a #CircularEconomy. It would start with distinguishing between processes which allow us to reuse polymers and which don’t. It makes no sense to step down the #ValueChain if one doesn’t need to. Stay tuned! #plasticwaste #recycling #plasticrecycling, #MaterialRecycling, #PhysicalRecycling, #EUgreenDeal, #SolventbasedPurification, #DissolutionRecycling

Since the 1950s, around 5 billion tons of plastic have gone to landfills, and recycling efforts have only tackled 9% of our production. Thankfully, a new method of plastic removal may be on the horizon. Researchers have developed a process that breaks down waste plastic into constituent parts. While it was expensive resource-wise at first, they've created an improved process that works on polyethylene, from which most plastic bags are made, and polypropylene, which is used to make harder objects. It relies only on catalysts considered so common that they are essentially “dirt.” #Plastic #Recycling #PlasticPollution