Recirculation of Plastics

Tiistai 20.11.2018 klo 15.32 - Mikko Nikinmaa

A huge problem has been generated for most Western countries. China has stopped importing any plastic waste. Exporting plastics for reuse in China has been the way most West European and North American countries have got rid of accumulated plastics. While much of the plastic waste has been reused in plastic toys and such like, some of it has ended up in the huge amount of plastics in the ocean near China. In principle the reuse in, e.g., plastic toys is a good way of getting rid of plastic waste, but one should be able to ascertain that all the waste is going for the intended purpose and not ending up in oceans. One thing is that plastic waste should be clean and uniform. Earlier on one did not care if plastics had toxic components, since they were thrown away anyway (one did not care that the toxicant ended up in the environment). However, recycling of plastics requires that the new products made are not toxic. Also, people sorting the plastics should not be exposed to the toxicants. The need for toxicants in plastics has actually disappeared making large-scale sorting feasible. It can be done more and more automatically - and should be done, if not in China then in the places of origin.