Plastic recycling is often considered too energy-intensive to solve the problem of greenhouse gas emissions and waste from plastic production. But a new study suggests that as part of a circular economy, where waste from one process becomes a feedstock for another, recycling can yield net-zero emissions plastics at similar operational costs as fossil-fuel based production.
It’s an effort that would require serious commitment and coordination across industries, from waste processing to biomass production to carbon capture. Inexpensive renewable energy is a crucial ingredient. But the key message from the research, published in October in the journal Science, is that technology can provide a solution to the seemingly intractable problem of plastics, says lead author Raoul Meys, a researcher in energy systems engineering at RWTH Aachen Univ. in Germany.
“Net-zero greenhouse gas emission plastics can be done with the current set of technologies that are more or less market-ready,” Meys says. “This is a matter of will and political implementation if we want to do the transition.”
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