Plastic Wastes and Their Utilisation

Serious effort is being made in many countries to find a suitable way to utilise plastic waste or at least enable it to be recycled/reused as a result, the European Union has adopted numerous directives and legislation. Their primary purpose is to develop sustainable management in the long term and potential energy recovery from plastic waste. The main requirements are listed below [13]  

Based on the literature it can be stated that plastic waste management currently operates four fundamental methods incineration, landfill, reuse and recycling via energy production [12]. Unfortunately, both landfilling and incineration are currently the mostly commonly used methods for solid and plastic waste disposal. However, it is also well known that neither deposition, nor combustion should be the long-term solution for the problem of waste plastic treatment. 

In the landfill sites, plastics are slowly degraded and the different additives, such as metal additives and other impurities, can cause serious environmental effects. 

With regard to incineration, emission problems are the primary concern. In addition, there is a high concentration of inorganic metal salts, from the plastic additives, in the fired residual ash, which could be another source of an environmental problem [14-16]. 

---