An Infinitely Recyclable Plastic
Sep. 19th, 2019 12:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unspeakablehorrorThis is one thing that may be useful for plastic recycling:
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/recyclable-plastic-closed-loop/
One problem with current plastic recycling is that plastic is such a low-value recyclable due to the extremely limited number of times it can be recycled. However, this new plastic polymer can be recycled infinitely. Obviously, I think this is something that bears further analysis to determine the viability of this technology in mass deployment.
This doesn't change my position that plastic recycling needs to be secondary to plastic reduction and reuse, though. As the article itself says,
While PDK doesn’t address the problem of single-use plastics, still involves fossil fuels for production, and depends on municipalities to develop infrastructure to effectively recycle it, the new material could provide a bridge to a more sustainable future.
Firstly, as stated in the quote above, it doesn't address the issue of single use plastics, which as I've discussed previously, account for nearly half of all plastic waste. It's not clear to me exactly why this new plastic is not a good option for replacing single use plastics, but I'm going to take the article at it's word on this for now. At any rate, if this is the case, then there is of course an enormous segment of waste that this new plastic type cannot address.
Additionally, it also depends on local municipalities to develop infrastructure for it, which to be widely usable is going to create a massive one-time monetary and carbon cost plus any additional carbon costs necessary to actually perform the recycling. There's also the question of how much pollution this recycling process requires.
Still, I simply don't think plastics are going to disappear overnight, and if this can address some of the issues with plastics long term I think it needs to be considered as one strategy for tackling the plastic waste problem.
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/recyclable-plastic-closed-loop/
One problem with current plastic recycling is that plastic is such a low-value recyclable due to the extremely limited number of times it can be recycled. However, this new plastic polymer can be recycled infinitely. Obviously, I think this is something that bears further analysis to determine the viability of this technology in mass deployment.
This doesn't change my position that plastic recycling needs to be secondary to plastic reduction and reuse, though. As the article itself says,
While PDK doesn’t address the problem of single-use plastics, still involves fossil fuels for production, and depends on municipalities to develop infrastructure to effectively recycle it, the new material could provide a bridge to a more sustainable future.
Firstly, as stated in the quote above, it doesn't address the issue of single use plastics, which as I've discussed previously, account for nearly half of all plastic waste. It's not clear to me exactly why this new plastic is not a good option for replacing single use plastics, but I'm going to take the article at it's word on this for now. At any rate, if this is the case, then there is of course an enormous segment of waste that this new plastic type cannot address.
Additionally, it also depends on local municipalities to develop infrastructure for it, which to be widely usable is going to create a massive one-time monetary and carbon cost plus any additional carbon costs necessary to actually perform the recycling. There's also the question of how much pollution this recycling process requires.
Still, I simply don't think plastics are going to disappear overnight, and if this can address some of the issues with plastics long term I think it needs to be considered as one strategy for tackling the plastic waste problem.