Recycling: The Way Forward

Recycling

The Way Forward

The Indian recycling industry can capture the emerging and growing export markets for recycled materials and products made from recycled plastics. With our low labour cost, here is an opportunity for the Indian industry to convert adversity into an opportunity. We can seize this to our benefi t.

Contrary to popular perception, most plastics are amenable to recycling. Challenges lie in the collection, segregation and heterogeneous nature of plastics waste. The cost of collection is primarily infl uenced by consumer behaviour and waste management infrastructure. Both are equally important and are critical factors determining the viability of the entire plastic recycling value chain.

Unlike traditional materials, where wastes are more homogenous, as in cases of steel, glass, aluminium and paper; plastic wastes are predominantly in mixed forms despite signifi cant diff erences in their rheology and properties. This makes sorting and segregation expensive and recycling often economically unviable.

Traditional materials are widely recycled. Factors helping higher recycling are their durability and, more importantly, the homogeneous nature of wastes. Thus, recycling rates for metals and glass are relatively higher as compared to paper, since a signifi cant portion of paper waste degrades before reaching a recycling facility. In contrast, plastic wastes, even though not degradable, are highly heterogeneous contributing to a higher cost of sorting and segregation, and a lower rate of recycling. This can change! Enhancing Eff orts for Better Managing Plastics Waste

A signifi cant reason for ineffi ciencies in the plastics waste management system is our perception of plastics. Unlike metal, where each type of waste is viewed and handled diff erently at the disposal stage, plastic wastes are often viewed as a homogenous lot. To complicate the recycling process further, products made from diff erent plastic materials are often bundled together as plastics waste and disposed off along with other compostable and recyclable waste materials.

While it may be impractical to keep all products separated after their use (based on the type of plastic material used for the product) to facilitate

S. K. Ray Hon. Secretary & Member of Executive Committee, Indian Centre for Plastics in the Environment (ICPE), Mumbai

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recycling, an optimum degree of source segregation can go a long way. Adopting and using the recycling code to keep plastics waste separated at the source as much as possible will be a good start.

Mechanical recycling is the most effi cient route for recycling where the value of waste is retained at its highest level. Additive and processing technologies currently available can help maintain the original properties of individual plastic materials and, in many instances, can even enhance these. Signifi cant advances have been made to recycle dissimilar plastic materials with the help of available compatibilisers. A new generation of compatibilisers is under development in laboratories. Lack of source segregation and contamination with organic wastes had been the primary reason for plastics waste getting diverted to landfi lls

Based on the principle of ʻProducers Payʼ, it can encompass externalities to make the recycling of diffi cult-to-recycle plastics waste economically viable and environmentally sustainable.

or incinerated.

Most polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles are recycled into fi bres and textile products. These are easy to spot and pick in waste and can even be recycled back to chips meant for new bottle production. An estimated 85% of PET bottles are recycled in India. The hurdle to achieving a higher recycling rate is the callous manner of disposal of bottles, making collection economically prohibitive, if not, impossible at times. There are technical challenges in mechanically recycling biaxially oriented PET (BOPET) fi lms used widely in multilayer packaging (MLPs), due to their complex structures. These challenges can partially be overcome where BOPET is the dominant constituent. Chemical recycling, often dubbed as advanced recycling, is being explored to get back the original monomers or building blocks for PET and other polymers like PU, PBT or polyester resins. The use of compatibilisers to mechanically recycle MLPs is also a possibility.

Most industrial and institutional wastes are either recycled in-house or by a network of established recyclers. There are over 10,000 recyclers spread over

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