Polymer Recycling and Sustainability

Thus preserving food effectively represents a larger environmental impact than the question of recyclability of the packaging material. This especially impacts small packaging that protecting small amounts of food for single households [6], 

Prerequisites for Other Technoiogies But plastics are also prerequisite for numerous modem technologies that would not exist without plastics. The transport of electricity is the most famous example. What alternative materials exist for a flexible, longlasting insulation The storing of information on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) tapes or on polycarbonate disks is another example. A so-called welfare cost-benefit analysis for a huge number of different plastics applications has been carried out by GUA.Geselllschaft fiir umfassende Analysen, Wien, initiated by APME [7]. 

While these contributions of plastics toward sustainability are seldom questioned, it was a common believe in the early nineties in Germany that this material could not be recycled. This provoked a critical public position toward plastics in general. 

This was especially true for household plastic packaging and resulted in a rather restrictive legal situation on collection and recycling of packaging materials. 

Meanwhile a lot happened in Germany, certainly stipulated by these governmental legal restrictions  

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