CHEMICAL RECYCLING ROMANCE: DEBATING ALTERNATE VISIONS
Right now, when household plastic waste gets tossed into a recycling bin, it’s usually brought to a municipal recycling facility for mechanical recycling. The items, which include bottles, tubs, wraps and bags, are sorted and separated. Bags and wraps usually end up being relegated to landfills, while bottles and tubs might go to recycling, to be made into pellets that can be used as a secondary raw material to manufacture new bottles and tubs.
But mechanical recycling has limitations. As Miranda Wang puts it, “Mechanical recycling is not working today because there are few markets for the end materials.” That’s because plastic made from the pellets is often of a lower quality than the original virgin plastic, and bags and other film-type plastics are difficult to transform into high-strength resins at low cost. As well, the pellets often contain impurities or additives or are soiled, making it too expensive for companies with a profit motive to purify it and use it. Put simply, it’s cheaper to use virgin petrochemicals.
Companies in the growing area of chemical recycling, including Biocellection, believe the way to make virginquality plastics from waste is to alter it on a structural level through chemistry. In chemical recycling, large polymers are broken down into smaller monomers or even oil that can be used to create new materials using heat and/or chemical reagents. Polymers can also be extracted using solvents and then remoulded into new products. In theory, this opens up the world of recycling to the many types of plastic that aren’t currently recycled, potentially diminishing the mountain of waste we have created.
That said, chemical recycling might not be as green as proponents make it out to be. Solvents used for extraction may be harmful, and it’s not easy to dispose of them safely. What’s more, the high heat required to break down plastic through pyrolysis is energy-intensive, and even when heat is combined with a chemical reagent, as with Biocellection’s accelerated thermal oxidative decomposition method, the carbon footprint is still not negligible (Biocellection’s upcycling method uses low heat in the 200 C range).
Myra Hird, an expert on waste and recycling in Canada and a professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., speaks for many when she says the only way we will reduce plastic waste is by reducing the production of it in the first place. “But industry is not interested in waste reduction,” says Hird. Recycling “allows us to continue to use waste and create even more of lots of stuff.” Recycling, she says, is a win for capitalism.
Wherever you stand on the issue, there is no single solution that’s going to solve the plastic pollution dilemma. There is no one right way to deal with the mountains of plastic waste being discarded every day. Education is key, as is research. And though Miranda Wang and Myra Hird may be coming at the problem from different angles, both would likely agree that it’s going to take a multitude of ideas to maintain the momentum for positive progress.
On the future
Sometimes I feel down about all of the stuff that’s going on in the world. You’re like, how can that be so? How can the world be controlled by these types of people? Hope is a fluffy thing — you either feel it or you don’t. I think a lot of it comes down to persistence. The whole thing with the plastic issue is a puzzle; it’s the biggest enigma of our time. We have this incredibly successful product that is also bad for society. How can we reconcile something that is poison for us, but a very good poison? For me, what drives me is persistence. I’m extremely intellectually challenged by this issue, and it’s such a meaningful journey to go on. That’s what keeps me going. And I think it would keep a lot of people going.
Take on a challenge that, if you could find a way to solve that challenge, would make you feel that you rose to the occasion for your generation. Take on something big and ambitious, and build yourself a team and go on that journey. Don’t just sit around and wait for someone to give you hope. You shouldn’t be living life in a passive way, anyway. People should be driven by their love for what we have and how much good there is in the world and how much better it
‘HOPE is a fluffy thing — you either feel it or you don’t. I think a lot of it comes DOWN TO PERSISTENCE.’
can become. Choose problems that are hard, and be driven by your desire to achieve a solution. That’s really what we should all be living for.
To learn more about how you can reduce your personal plastic footprint, visit 10000changes.ca.