Discussion of Economic Aspects

I—I Energy used in plastic production — (potentially recoverable) 

Potential maximum energy recovery versus practical achievable energy recovery of various plastics waste 

This whole picture suggests that chemical recycling is financially still a rather uncertain business, a view that is indeed reinforced by cost calculations. The basic point probably is that purpose-built recovery installations will always have trouble in competing with technologies built for another purpose, but which happen to be able to recycle or recover MPW - which is the case with blast furnaces and cement kilns. The latter have the advantage that capital investment does not need to be allocated to the MPW. 

From the comparison it follows that route (1), direct incineration in MSWls, is generally the least favoiuable option in environmental terms. Hence, there is no doubt that the targets in the EU Packaging directive, which aim to steer away from incinerating plastics packaging in MSWls, have a sound rationale. 

For treatment of plastics packaging waste, many technologies are available. They basically can be divided into the following classes  

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