The rest ends up in landfills and incinerators. Or it lands in the environment, contaminating soil, air and the oceans<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 which take up roughly one garbage truck of plastic every minute.<\/p>\n “Just because something is recyclable doesn’t mean it’s getting recycled,”\u00a0said Moritz J\u00e4ger-Roschko, a plastics expert at Greenpeace Germany. “Currently, it is simply cheaper to just make a new plastic product than to collect it and recycle it.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Not all plastics are equal<\/p>\n One of the main hurdles to greater re-use is plastic type. Of the thousands out there, some, like cross-linked polymers, are hard to handle.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Recycling doesn’t really work in the mechanical sense because you cannot split them up and bring them back into their original state,”\u00a0said Marc Kreutzbruck, head of the institute of plastics engineering at Germany’s University of Stuttgart.<\/p>\n But being robust, durable and heat-resistant, they are exactly the type of plastics used in aerospace, electronics<\/a>\u00a0and automobiles<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Everything in transportation that is focused on lightweight construction relies on these kinds of plastics,”\u00a0Kreutzbruck added.<\/p>\n Hazardous chemical additives<\/p>\n Another major sticking point is that plastics are often custom formulated with additives that make them more flexible, stronger or cheaper to produce.<\/p>\n Sarah Perreard, co-director of global Plastic Footprint Network coalition, said the number of additives that have been invented and used in the past decade “has increased drastically.”<\/p>\n “We have almost created this sort of monster that we don’t fully control anymore,” Perreard said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The problems are as complex as the plastics themselves. Firstly, many additives are hazardous to both human health and the environment and can leach out during recycling or even during use in recycled products. And recycling streams contaminated with hazardous additives can be flagged as toxic waste by regulatory agencies, making re-use more complicated or even illegal.<\/p>\n Equally, when recycled together, additives can mix unpredictably and degrade the quality of end material, making it unattractive to manufacturers.<\/p>\n Other types of plastics \u2014 like PET and HDPE, used in drinking and detergent bottles respectively \u2014 are easier to recycle because the materials they’re made from are easier to identify. Yet still, they are often discarded.\u00a0<\/p>\n “If it is technically recyclable but there is no infrastructure in many of the places where this plastic is put on the market, it will not be recycled. It will not even be well managed,”\u00a0Perreard said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Then there is composite packaging \u2014 like chip bags or coffee pods \u2014 made from a combination of plastic and aluminum\u00a0or paper. They are nearly impossible to separate, and most recycling plants can’t process them at all. \u00a0<\/p>\n Searching for solutions<\/p>\n Experts say it is critical to rethink the way plastics are recycled \u2014 and some are already finding new ways to turn even the most difficult-to-recycle waste into something useful.<\/p>\n Veena Sahajwalla, a materials scientist at the University of New South Wales in Australia, challenges the notion that every product must come back in the exact same form when recycled.<\/p>\n “The journey for us started at that point where we’re saying, what do people mean when they say this is not recyclable? But what if we could remanufacture completely different products out of it?”\u00a0she said.<\/p>\n Sahajwalla is pioneering ‘microfactories’ that transform mixed plastic waste like e-waste plastics \u2014 which are usually difficult to recycle \u2014 into high-value materials.\u00a0<\/p>\n “We create pools of plastic filaments that are made from 100% recycled materials out of all the difficult plastics that are in all the hardware like IT printers. And these recycled plastic filaments are then fed into a 3D printer,”\u00a0she said.<\/p>\n The idea is to use the\u00a0new material for remanufacturing \u2014 right at the source.<\/p>\n “So, for example, our microfactory is located in the warehouse where our industry partner is basically now taking that plastic and producing these plastic filaments right there in the warehouse itself in Sydney.”<\/p>\n A piece that’s needed to fix a broken computer or printer, for instance, can be created right there in the 3D printers from recycled plastic.<\/p>\n “So, let’s not say the problem is with the raw material. Let’s talk about how we can design and redesign our manufacturing processes,” Sahajwalla said.<\/p>\n The role of policy<\/p>\n Recycling alone won’t fix the crisis without cutting production,<\/a> though, according to J\u00e4ger-Roschko. That’s why policy matters, too. What’s really needed, experts say, is effective regulation.<\/p>\n And Pereard from the Plastic Footprint Network calls for global rules\u00a0that apply to every country. “Even businesses want these rules,” she said.<\/p>\n The latest round of UN Plastic Treaty negotiations<\/a> offers a historic chance to tackle plastic pollution and recycling issues. Greenpeace is calling for a 75% reduction in plastic production by 2040, according to J\u00e4ger-Roschko.<\/p>\n Yet, the fossil fuel industry,<\/a>which provides the oil and gas<\/a> from which plastic is derived, is holding firm.<\/p>\n “Countries that produce oil are not in favor of a strong treaty because we see that with the shift towards renewable energy, a lot of the oil is going to be reduced over time, and plastic is a great outlet for countries that produce oil,”\u00a0Perreard said.<\/p>\n She is pushing for policies that would hold companies accountable for packaging throughout their lifecycle.<\/p>\n After all, experts say these big companies helped create the plastic crisis, and they have a responsibility to redesign packaging, cut down on single-use plastics, and invest in real reuse systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n Edited by: Tamsin Walker\u00a0<\/p>\n Tackling our waste and plastic crisis | Eco Africa <\/p>\nIn 2023, we produced 413.8 million metric tons of plastic\u00a0\u2014 a figure that has more than doubled over the past two decadesImage: Paulo de Oliveira\/IMAGO\/Ardea<\/p>\n
Some plastic types \u2014 like PET (used in drinking bottles) \u2014 can be more easily recycled than others, but they often don’t make it to recycling facilities Image: K. Y. Cheng\/Newscom\/picture alliance<\/p>\n
With a bit of creativity, even the most difficult to recycle waste, like electronics, can be turned into high-value materialsImage: UNSW SMaRT Center<\/p>\n
This 3D printer is being fed with filaments made out of 100% recycled plasticsImage: UNSW SMaRT Center<\/p>\n
At the UN Plastic Treaty negotiations in Geneva, countries are discussing how to solve the plastic crisis across the globeImage: Owen Humphreys\/PA Wire\/empics\/picture alliance <\/p>\n