Recycled Plastics Market

There is a growing interest in increasing the recovery and recycling of waste plastics. The basic arguments regarding productivity activity are [6]  

Plastics waste can vary considerably from industry to industry as does the degree to which recycling can benefit individual industries. 

In the field of recycling plastics, the industry faces two major hazards  

Failing to take economic advantage offered by new market possibilities. 

Assuming the recycling market automatically has a profitable market outlet. 

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United States Canada Recycled Plastic Markets Database... 

The recycled plastics market wonld increase in the future if industries changed their state of ignorance regarding their collective concepts on the use of waste plastics material. Risk taking and innovation through the separation of plastics waste from other solid waste material will characterise the market trend. 

Messenger B. Recycled plastics market set to triple, but China s green fence hampering exports. Waste Management World June 2013. 

The recycled plastic will also have a degree of different contaminants that would eliminate its use in certain devices or products, such as in medicine, electronics, and food packaging. However, within these market applications there are acceptable designs with three-layer coextruded, coinjected, or laminated structures having the contaminated plastic as the center layer, isolated by clean plastics around it and no migration occurring. 

The Japanese Plastic Waste Management Institute is developing a process to convert PVC and other plastic waste materials to fuel oil through pyrolysis. In Eiuope, a free market for plastics waste is now being established by the European Plastics Converters over the internet. The company says it will be possible to establish market prices for recyclates at European level on a supply and demand basis. The European market for recycled plastics is currently worth around 1.18bn US dollars and is predicted to reach 2.53bn US dollars by the endof2001. WORLD... 

The building and construction plastics account only for 3% of overall collectable plastic waste in Western Europe in 2002, of which about 8% is mechanically recycled within Europe on a regular basis. However, the building and construction sector is an important end market for recycled plastics from many sectors. Some 30% of overall recycled plastics are used in applications such as insulation, fences and flooring. 

On the other hand, the process of shredding and remelting plastics recycles an important share of the plastic e-waste. These recycled plastics are normally sold in the second-hand market. 

Because recycling plastic takes many forms, the plastic recycling industry is not as large as some other forms of recycling, but it is growing. There are six times more companies handling recycled plastics today than there were 20 years ago, and the market demand for recycled materials continues to grow.16... 

Still, the demand for recycled plastics is low, mainly due to a general uncertainty of the quality of the recycled material. The possibility of offering high quality recycled polymeric materials relays on a reliable and selective collection and sorting, an efficient recycling process and of course an available end-market. The basic technological development, thus, lies in the development of fast, reliable and relatively cheap methods for characterisation of separated and commingled plastic fractions. Recently, it was demonstrated that separation, at home, of a very small amount of products can mean a decreased use of raw oil and less emission of CO2 to the environment [11]. If... 

US FDA, 1992, Food and Drug Administration Points to consider for the use of recycled plastics in food packaging chemistry considerations. Chemistry Review Branch, Office of Pre-market Approval, HFS-247. Washington DC, December 1992. 

At curbside many communities are collecting aluminum and tin cans, glass bottles, newspaper and plastic bottles. High-density polyethylene (HOPE) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) are the most commonly recycled plastic bottles. Some areas that have a market for other plastics also pick them up for recycling. Sorting is done to some degree by the resident, the collector, and the reprocessor. 

WRAP, Survey of Applications, Markets and Growth Opportunities for Recycled Plastics in the UK, Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), Banbnry, UK, 2003. 

The quantity of plastics actually returned to market as products made from recycled plastics was approximately 0.5 bilhon lb 0.2 billion lb were tailings . 

Many products can be produced from recycled polymers. When they are clean, almost every product that is produced from virgin polymers can be manufactured using recycled plastics. The only place where these products cannot be used is in food packaging. However, if the plastic is converted to monomers, and then repolymerized, it can be part of the food and beverage packaging market. Some of the possible products are summarized in Table 8, which again indicates a large opportunity for recycled plastics. 

Table 8 Some of the Markets and Products Made from Processing of Postconsumer Recycled Plastics...

The base is HDPE, the cap is another kind of plastic or aluminum, and the label has adhesives. The botdes are shredded and ground into chips for processing. The adhesives can be removed with a strong detergent. The lighter HDPE is separated from PET in water because one sinks and the other floats. The aluminum is removed electrostatically. What is left are plastic chips that may be sold to manufacturers who can use the chips in making other plastics. However, the FDA prohibits the use of recycled plastics in food containers, making one major market out of bounds for recycled plastics. 

Innovation in the fabric softener business not only focused on compositions, but also on packaging. As an alternative to plastic bottles, heat-sealed flexible polyethylene pouches were introduced to the market in the early 1980s [7], followed by several other containers free-standing flexible pouches with a solid base, different bag in a box rigid units, and refill cartons coated with chemically resistant polymers. These novelties led to a 40% reduction in plastic bottle consumption, the use of more biodegradable, renewable, easily recycled material, and a decrease in the packaging and distribution cost. New bottles made of 100% post consumer recycled plastic sandwiched between two layers of virgin resin also became available [7],... 

Packaging reduction has been achieved by simultaneously following several approaches. These include the use of recyclable plastics to reduce the use of virgin plastic and create a market for recycled plastic, introduction of lightweight bottles and refills, which use less plastic than conventional containers, and development of concentrated products. Recycled paper has also been used for cartons made from paper, to reduce the amount of wood fiber used and provide a market for recycled paper [35], This enabled the launch of concentrated fabric softeners, which were successfully formulated due to product and packaging improvements... 

Recycled resins (all commodity and some engineering ones) are commercially available. A comparative list of prices of the virgin and recycled resins is shown in Table 16.5. The prices of recycled plastics are quite competitive. Evidently, while the quoted prices of commodity resins are reasonably close to these of virgin materials, the situation vis-a-vis condensation polymer is atrocious. The only way to make profit on the latter materials is to upgrade them by the recyclers ABC and supply compounds with well-defined and reproducible set of properties to a specific market niche. As it will be discussed later, the addition-type polymers can be reused after restabilization and compounding, whereas the condensation-type ones may require molecular repair to bring up... 

A Carson City, Nevada, company is marketing a noise wall that contains recycled rubber tires and recycled plastics. The wall s shell is made of a pultruded thermosetting composite of polyester and glass, and the fill section is made of ground, recycled plastics and rubber tires... 

The principle is simple if we wish to expand the market for recycled plastic, we have to win back a market share from virgin plastics, which have very good technical performances. It is obviously necessary to supply industries which require low-grade plastics, but if we wish to develop the avenue of recycled plastics, it is essential to make recycled polymers whose performances are similar to those of virgin materials, thereby helping to increase volumes and margins. 

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