Collection of Plastics for Recycling

Rigid plastic container material code system  

In the United States, the collection of plastic postconsumer packaging from households is mostly confined to HDPE and PET bottles [13, 20]. This is reasonable 

Perhaps the fastest growing type of residential collection program in North America is the collection of consumer electronics—TVs, computers, audio equipment, VCRs, fax machines, and small appliances (Fig. 14.6). These consumer products are included in the definition of municipal solid waste in the United States [12], and on average, plastics make up about 20% by weight of these products [28, 29]. 

Plastic Television Computer Misc. Percent of Total 

MultiCounty Collection Pilot Program Organized by MOEA in 2000. Ref. 39  

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Collection of plastics for recycling often occurs as part of a system designed to collect a variety of materials, not just plastics. Similarly, initial processing, in which collected materials are separated by generic type, often occurs in a multimaterial recycling facility. 

Degradable plastics do not represent the only route to an improved environment. Plastics can be collected after use for recycle and/or incineration.(8) Collection looms as a problem for both approaches, and separation of plastic types is needed for recycling to be successful. Without debating the pros and cons of recycling, incineration, and degradable plastics, it does seem likely that all three will play an important part in a cleaner environment. Each will offer particular advantages for certain applications of plastics. 

According to the American Plastics Council (APC), more than 80 percent of all U.S. households have access to a plastics recycling program, and about 17,000 communities now collect plastics for recycling, half of which offer residents curbside collection. However, all types of plastics are not collected for recycling in all communities. It varies from place to place. Of course, the items most commonly recycled are plastic bottles. 

Plastics produced from petroleum-based raw materials in the form of single-use consumer products ate of environmental concern, as most of these materials do not degrade when disposed in the environment after their useful life is over . Currently, systematic collection of plastic waste for recycling and/or disposal is expensive and is limited only to certain communities. Particularly, when plastics are contaminated with soil, foods or other chemicals their recycling become rather difficult. As a result, in the last decade, significant efforts have been made to develop environmentally... 

The programs consisted of adding curbside collection of plastics to five existing routes 3 routes in the city of Minneapolis, 1 route in the city of Minnetonka and 1 route in three northwestern suburbs known as the Hennepin County Recycling Group (HRG). The three Minneapolis routes collected biweekly and the other two routes collected weekly. All methods utilized curbside sortation of material. The study duration was roughly three months. A summary of collection methods for each route is shown in Table 2.7. All field data were collected over a one month period by Cal Recovery Systems, Inc. 

The time it takes to collect recyclables has a direct impact on the economics of curbside collecdon. Discussed below are some field measurements of collection times using varying collection methods. Assuming collection methods are similar, the collection times shown can be used for assessing curbside collection of plastics and curbside recycling in general. 

The collection of plastic post-consumer containers for liquid is relatively simple to organize and can be an inexpensive source for recycling of large amotmts of plastic materials. Most plastic containers are made out of three polymers, namely, high density polyethylene, HDPE, pol3rvinylchloride, PVC, and polyethyleneterephthalate, PET. 

Collection of plastics waste as type-clean as possible for material utilization. No material recycling of strong mixed and polluted as well as small-part plastics waste. 

A more fundamental problem than data accuracy is the matter of definition—what should count as recycled The two most common options are determining the amount of material collected for recycling and determining the amount of material delivered for reuse. Since 5 to 15 percent of collected material typically is lost during processing (mostly because it is some type of contaminant such as a paper label, product residue, unwanted variety of plastic, etc.), recycling rates calculated using these two methods can differ substantially. 

Finally, other relevant treatment options for plastics waste include landfill and mechanical recycling. Since these options (unlike Vinyloop and cement kiln incineration) are not even similar to feedstock recycling we discuss them here only very briefly. Mechanical recycling of plastics (be it PVC or other plastics), needs dedicated collection of the plastic waste in question. This is only possible for selected plastic flows (high volumes, recognisable products, products consisting mainly of one plastic). Landfill can accept plastic waste in any waste context (pure plastic type, MPW, mixed materials). I will only address the costs of these alternative technologies. 

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