|
MOSCOW (MRC) -- Approximately 220
million tons (MT) of plastic waste is generated globally each year. Of this,
around 90MT is mismanaged and leaking into the natural environment, 70MT is
landfilled, 30MT is incinerated and another 30MT is recycled. If the plastics
value chain is to become more sustainable, the industry must focus on reducing
the amount of mismanaged waste and recapturing as much of its value as possible.
To do this, more investment must be allocated to chemical recycling
technologies, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing with
reference to Wood Mackenzie.
“Mechanical recycling has, to date, been the
best way of capturing the value of plastic waste by turning it into other useful
applications. However, the approach has its limitations.
“Chemical
recycling - sometimes known as ‘advanced recycling’ - describes a
range of approaches that can be used to significantly increase the amount of
plastic waste that is cycled back into the chemicals value chain. Among several
benefits, chemical recycling technologies reduce fossil fuel extraction and CO2
emissions, and give value to difficult to recycle plastic waste by acting as a
complement to mechanical recycling,” said Ashish Chitalia, Wood Mackenzie head
of Polyolefins.
While chemical recycling has the potential to provide
solutions to challenges facing the plastics value chain, it is not universally
hailed by all stakeholders as a having a positive role to play. Some are
concerned by the environmental impact of chemical recycling, while others
consider it to be a form of greenwashing.
“Despite objections from some
stakeholders, if implemented carefully, chemical recycling can increase our
capacity to process plastic waste, ensure that more plastic waste is reprocessed
into higher value products such as food grade applications, and reduce carbon
emissions relative to some - although not all - alternative means of
dealing with end-of-life plastic,” added Chitalia.
According to a
scenario modelled by Wood Mackenzie, which factored in plastic packaging
consumption, collection rates and optimum disposal routes for different
combinations of plastic, packaging type and region, chemical recycling can
double the proportion of plastic packaging that is currently
reprocessed.
The results of the model, as shown in the chart below,
suggest that there is potential for strong growth in both total recycling rates
and absolute volumes. In combination, the proportion of plastic packaging
reprocessed into the energy and petrochemical value chains would more than
double, from 22% today to 50% by 2040. Plastic to feedstock (P2F) routes -
which are better positioned to handle the dominant polyolefin
applications - would be expected to grow at more than twice the rate of
plastic to plastic (P2P), accounting for 17% of plastic packaging in 2040
compared to 8% in 2020.
“If we look at the United States today, for
example, only 13% of plastic packaging is recycled, a further 17% is incinerated
and 70% is landfilled. If chemical recycling can be implemented to move
significant volumes of waste to the most appropriate disposal route, it will
make a considerable positive impact to the sustainability of the petrochemicals
industry. In a country such as the United States, this could revolutionize the
way plastic waste is managed,” said Chitalia.
What are the key variables
that will determine whether chemical recycling is likely to scale? Wood
Mackenzie’s report identifies three key factors:
Collection rates: the
feedstock for recycling is plastic waste and this needs to be collected to be
fed into managed disposal routes. 40% of plastic waste is currently mismanaged
and lost to the system. This rate needs to increase to provide feedstock for
chemical recycling facilities, particularly in middle-income
countries.
Investment: to achieve a recycling rate of 25% of plastic
packaging, Wood Mackenzie calculates that USD50 billion of investment will be
required by 2040 to deliver enough chemical recycling capacities.
Value
chain integration: with much of the cost of dealing with end of life plastic
coming from collecting and sorting of the waste, there are likely to be
considerable economies of scale by integrating waste management, refining and
petrochemicals facilities to shorten the distance between waste leaving the
consumer and re-entering the value chain.
Given the level of activity in
the form of pilots, partnerships and investments, participants in the plastics
value chain anticipate that chemical recycling will have an important role to
play in addressing end of life plastic in the future, says Wood
Mackenzie.
"The situation is moving fast, and we are now seeing major
plastics producers beginning to commercialize chemically recycled plastics, with
Chevron Phillips becoming the first company to announce the production of
circular polyethylene in October 2020. The fact that there is so much activity
in developing technologies and partnerships is indicative that there is
confidence that these technologies will have an important role to play in the
coming years," added Chitalia.
As MRC reported
earlier, Chevron Phillips Chemical still has not lifted force majeure on its
polyethylene (PE) products after assessing the impact of Hurricane Laura to its
Gulf Coast PE operations. The force majeure circumstances were declared on 1
September, 2020. CP Chem operates a 420,000 mt/year high-density polyethylene
(HDPE) plant in Orange, Texas, and an 855,000 mt/year cracker in Port Arthur.
The company plans to minimize the impact of the event and return to full PE
deliveries as soon as possible.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report,
Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,594,510 tonnes in the first nine
months of 2020, up by 1% year on year. Only high denstiy polyethylene (HDPE)
shipments increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market
reached 880,130 tonnes in the nine months of 2020 (calculated using the formula:
production minus exports plus imports, exluding producers" inventories as of 1
January, 2020). Supply increased exclusively of PP random copolymer. |
 |
