Where does our plastic go?

When we throw a plastic bottle into the recycling cage we feel that we have helped to prevent damage to the environment, but the real picture of plastic recycling is much more complicated

Amos Stibelman and Shiri Hefer, Zoyt - Science and Environment News Agency

Want to participate in the experiment? In the next hour, try not to use a plastic product. It is very likely that within a few minutes you will discover that you have failed. There is not a day when we do not use products made of plastic. The plastic is so common due to its low cost and its many useful properties: chemical resistance, insulation, electrical non-conductivity and a high weight-strength ratio. Along with these advantages, plastic is a significant environmental nuisance, among other things, due to the low quality of the recycling products, which are suitable for single reuse only. While the global recycling rate of metals and paper is over 50 percent, in 2013 only 14 percent of all plastic packaging produced in the world was collected for recycling. The rest of the packaging is buried in the ground (about 40 percent), spills from the waste collection systems into the environment (32 percent) or is converted into energy by treatment in incinerators (14 percent). Of course, all these alternatives create environmental problems.
The incarnation of a bottle

In a new article published in the journal "Ecology and Environment" the real situation of the field of plastic recycling in Israel was examined. Israel's waste management policy prioritizes recycling over landfilling. This policy is promoted by the landfill levy, the deposit law on beverage bottles and the packaging law, thanks to which the collection rate of beverage bottles under the deposit law, as of 2015, is 78 percent, and the collection rate of family beverage bottles is approximately 54 percent. Ostensibly, these are encouraging data, because they indicate compliance with the collection goals according to the deposit law, but in fact the bottles make up only about 12-7.6 percent of the plastic packaging waste. In addition, the mere fact that the bottles are collected does not necessarily indicate that they are handled in a way that really helps the environment.

Without official data on the quantities of plastic waste exported from Israel, it must be assumed that the situation in Israel is not fundamentally different from the situation in the European Union. Europe exports about 46 percent of the plastic waste collected there for recycling, and about 87 percent of it goes to China, the largest importer of plastic waste in the world. The main reasons for this are the low shipping rates to China and the relatively low cost of manpower in China. The result is that the plastic waste is not used where it is generated, and therefore does not result in local savings in the use of raw materials.
Is it worth recycling?

Despite the high importance attributed to recycling as a means of reducing landfill, in practice, the recycled plastic packaging produces low quality products, which usually cannot be recycled again. An example of this is packaging that is not intended for food, which makes up over 30 percent of the plastic products that are recycled in China. Thus, in fact, the recycled plastic is used by us for only one additional life cycle, and then ends up in a landfill, for treatment, such as incineration for energy, or leaks from the collection systems into the environment. In this way, the profit for the environment from this recycling process is not very large.

The plastic recycling market is characterized by instability, which is due, in part, to the fact that the price of non-recycled plastic is derived from the price of oil, which has been declining in recent years. The low price of oil means that plastic recycling becomes economically unviable. In 2015, for example, the price of new PET plastic (from which drink bottles are made, for example) was lower than the price of recycled PET. It can be assumed that if the conditions do not change, the recycling infrastructure of factories and businesses will be significantly reduced. In the USA we can already see the first signs of this, and a significant part of the plastic collected for recycling will unfortunately end up in landfills or simply thrown into the sea.

If so, is there any point in continuing to focus efforts on collecting plastic packaging and making recycling the main goal? In the method used in Israel, the responsibility of the food and beverage manufacturers is limited to the collection, in which the public also participates, and the delivery of the waste to the "recycler". In this way, no incentives are created to find appropriate solutions for the collected waste. A clear evidence of this is the large gap between the percentage of beverage containers that are collected under the deposit law and in the recycling cages of AL, compared to the recycling rate of all plastic packaging waste, which is estimated at only 15-12 percent. More importantly, no incentives are created to reduce the amounts of plastic produced and consumed. What happens later in the life cycle of the packaging waste is a sort of "let it go and forget it".

In fact, when users throw the bottle into the cage or return it for a deposit, they feel that they have brought the packaging to a "safe beach" and thereby contributed to preventing damage to the environment. But continuing to focus on collection operations and striving to meet the recycling goals alone, will not bring about the desired change - reducing the effects of plastic waste on the environment. It turns out that if we continue to consume plastic and treat it as we do today, in 2050 the weight of plastic packaging waste in the oceans will be equal to the weight of the fish in them. A study that examined the presence of plastic waste in fish in the Mediterranean Sea found plastic residues in the stomachs of about 18 percent of the fish sampled. These residues release toxic chemicals into the tissues of the fish, some of which are edible fish that may end up on our plate.

Innovation and Holism

so what are we doing? The challenges and problems in the field of plastic packaging waste require a dedicated policy for this waste, which will take into account the uniqueness of plastic compared to other materials. This policy should encourage manufacturers to reduce the scope of packaging used for their products and provide products in packaging containing a high percentage of recycled material or those that are environmentally degradable. Also, innovation in the field of packaging production should be encouraged, in Israel and in the world, such as packaging that can be recycled a large number of times in a high-quality way or those made from more environmental materials, such as a biodegradable bottle based on algae developed by the Icelandic designer Ari Johansson. Above all, a holistic approach of cooperation between industry, government and academia is required in order to find solutions that will significantly reduce plastic waste and its negative effects on the environment.

A video showing Ari Johansson's biodegradable bottle: