RESEARCH
The first synthetic plastic — Bakelite — was produced in 1907, marking the beginning of the global plastics industry. However, rapid growth in global plastic production was not realized until the 1950s. Over the next 65 years, annual production of plastics increased nearly 200-fold to 381 million tonnes in 2015. For context, this is roughly equivalent to the mass of two-thirds of the world population.
How much plastic enters the world’s oceans?
How do we dispose of our plastic?
Prior to 1980, recycling and incineration of plastic was negligible; 100 percent was therefore discarded. From 1980 for incineration, and 1990 for recycling, rates increased on average by about 0.7 percent per year.
In 2015, an estimated 55 percent of global plastic waste was discarded, 25 percent was incinerated, and 20 percent recycled.
If we extrapolate historical trends through to 2050 — as can be seen in the chart here — by 2050, incineration rates would increase to 50 percent; recycling to 44 percent; and discarded waste would fall to 6 percent.
Global plastic production to fate
cumulative production of polymers, synthetic fibers and additives was 8300 million tonnes;
2500 million tonnes (30 percent) of primary plastics was still in use in 2015;
4600 million tonnes (55 percent) went straight to landfill or was discarded;
700 million tonnes (8 percent) was incinerated;
500 million tonnes (6 percent) was recycled (100 million tonnes of recycled plastic was still in use; 100 million tonnes was later incinerated; and 300 million tonnes was later discarded or sent to landfill).
Of the 5800 million tonnes of primary plastic no longer in use, only 9 percent has been recycled since 1950.
Plastic waste per person
In the chart we see the per capita rate of plastic waste generation, measured in kilograms per person per day. Here we see differences of around an order of magnitude: daily per capita plastic waste across the highest countries – Kuwait, Guyana, Germany, Netherlands, Ireland, the United States – is more than ten times higher than across many countries such as India, Tanzania, Mozambique and Bangladesh.
How much of ocean plastics come from land and marine sources?
At the global level, best estimates suggest that approximately 80 percent of ocean plastics come from land-based sources, and the remaining 20 percent from marine sources.
Of the 20 percent from marine sources, it’s estimated that around half (10 percentage points) arises from fishing fleets (such as nets, lines and abandoned vessels). This is supported by figures from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) which suggests abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear contributes approximately 10 percent to total ocean plastics.
Solution: Upcycling
Recycling is the process by which waste products are broken down to their basic materials, and remade into new products. Ideally, this should mean less need for virgin raw materials. Instead of mining or creating new raw materials, it should be possible to use recycled materials instead. Then, the energy, time and labor which went into extracting the raw materials would only need to happen once, and those materials would constantly be cycled and recycled.
In practice, not all recycling is created equal. Some countries include incineration in their ‘recycling’ rates, while some materials become less and less useful the more they are recycled, and so don’t necessarily displace virgin raw materials. In the end, most of what we refer to as ‘recycling’ is really ‘downcycling’.
For example plastic can recycle well, if it is properly cleaned and sorted. Plastic needs to meet three criteria to be recycled in most facilities: it needs to be able to melt without burning, it needs to be a single type of plastic, and it needs to be clean. Off-cuts in plastic product manufacturing plants are relatively easy to recycle. Real-world plastic products, however, might be made from a half-dozen types of plastic, often several in one product. Cleaning and separating all those into separate streams is nigh impossible, and although there are some promising ideas to do this automatically, most of the time the recyclable material ends up being of inferior quality and gets downcycled into simpler products, like doormats, carpeting, fleece, or even roads. These subsequent products are very rarely recyclable at all, which means that the chain is finite. We might reuse these materials once or twice, but they will not last forever, and sooner or later we will need new plastic.
Coming back to concrete, downcycling is relatively straightforward: destroy a building, take out the steel, wood and glass, crush the remaining rubble, and you’re done, and although the market for rubble is somewhat limited, it might be cheaper (and less damaging) than landfilling. Recycling concrete, however, would mean separating this rubble into the gravel, sand and cement from which it was made, and remaking a new batch of concrete. This might involve chemical processes, which in turn requires infrastructure and materials.
Paper is easier to sort and easier to recycle, and it is currently one of the most recycled materials. Europe claims to achieve a 73.9% paper recycling rate. However, it is much harder to remake high-quality writing paper into new high-quality writing paper. The fibers which make up paper become shorter and shorter during each recycling process, limiting their uses. Most recycled paper is downcycled into cardboard, tissue paper, and manila folders. New pulp from freshly-felled trees can be mixed into the process to improve the quality, and this does reduce the need for virgin pulp from felled trees. This process might save significant energy, though, depending on the amount of renewable energy in the grid, this might not result in direct CO2 reductions. Anything dirty (think pizza boxes) can’t be used at all.
Upcycling generally means simply turning a low-value product into a high-value product. Upcycling might not require breaking down the old product into constituent materials. For example, The Upcycle in Amsterdam hosts workshops to turn old bike tires into new belts, old shopping bags into notebooks. Broken bicycles and motorbikes can be remade into lamps and furniture.
Most of the time, the history of the waste becomes part of the story of the new product. Plastic Whale fishes waste out of the Dutch canals and remakes PET bottles into office furniture. The furniture (and the recycled plastic) is worth a premium, because of its history. This bypasses economic challenges to some extent, by enabling us to channel our societal desire for recycling into our purchasing decisions.
Examples of Upcycling
· A biodegradable flower pot made from old newspaper
· Felt slippers made from a used sweater's wool
· Jewelry made from zippers
· Trendy child's dress made from a T-shirt