Plastic Recycling

By Author: rajeev baghele
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PLASTIC REYCLING
Plastic recycling is the reprocessing of plastic waste into new and useful products. When performed correctly, this can reduce dependence on landfill, conserve resources and protect the environment from plastic pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.[1][2][3][4] Although recycling rates are increasing, they lag behind those of other recoverable materials, such as aluminium, glass and paper. The global recycling rate in 2015 was 19.5%, while 25.5% was incinerated and the remaining 55% disposed of to landfill.[5] Since the beginning of plastic production in the 20th century, until 2015, the world has produced some 6.3 billion tonnes of plastic waste, only 9% of which has been recycled, and only ~1% has been recycled more than once.
Recycling is necessary because almost all plastic is non-biodegradable and thus builds-up in the environment, where it can cause harm. For example, approximately 8 million tons of waste plastic enter the Earth’s oceans every year, causing damage to the aquatic ecosystem and forming large ocean garbage patches.[6][7]

Presently, almost all recycling is performed by ...
... remelting and reforming used plastic into new items; so-called mechanical recycling. This can cause polymer degradation at a chemical level, and also requires that waste be sorted by both colour and polymer type before being reprocessed, which is complicated and expensive. Failures in this can lead to material with inconsistent properties, which is unappealing to industry.
In an alternative approach known as feedstock recycling, waste plastic is converted back into its starting chemicals, which can then be reprocessed back into fresh plastic. This offers the hope of greater recycling but suffers from higher energy and capital costs. Waste plastic can also be burnt in place of fossil fuels as part of energy recovery. This is a controversial practice, but is nonetheless performed on a large scale. In some countries, it is the dominant form of plastic waste disposal, particularly where landfill diversion policies are in place.
Although plastic recycling is important, it sits quite low in the waste hierarchy as a means of reducing plastic waste. It has been advocated since the early 1970s,[9] but due to severe economic and technical challenges, did not impact plastic waste to any significant extent until the late 1980s. The plastics industry has been criticised for lobbying for the expansion of recycling programs while industry research showed that most plastic could not be economically recycled; all the while increasing the amount of virgin plastic being produced

Plastic waste, or plastic pollution, is ‘the accumulation of plastic objects (e.g.: plastic bottles and much more) in the Earth’s environment that adversely affects wildlife, wildlife habitat, and humans. https://rajeevrecycling.wordpress.com/