2024 journal article
Economic and environmental comparison of emerging plastic waste management technologies
RESOURCES CONSERVATION AND RECYCLING, 205.
author keywords: Plastic waste; Circular economy; Solid waste management; Optimization; Life cycle assessment; Recycling
UN Sustainable Development Goal Categories
7. Affordable and Clean Energy
(Web of Science)
11. Sustainable Cities and Communities
(Web of Science)
12. Responsible Consumption and Production
(Web of Science)
13. Climate Action
(Web of Science)
Source: Web Of Science
Added: May 7, 2024
Recovery of plastics may need to move beyond traditional mechanical methods and adopt emerging recycling processes including dissolution/precipitation, solvolysis, and pyrolysis. We investigate the costs and climate impacts of optimal solid waste management (SWM) strategies when deploying emerging recycling processes. Introducing a mix of emerging recycling technologies can reduce SWM system costs, increase plastic recycling rates, and potentially help SWM systems achieve net reductions in life cycle emissions. Recycling programs that rely solely on traditional mechanical recycling incur higher system costs, but can achieve the lowest life cycle emissions, regardless of whether the rejected plastic streams are landfilled or treated in waste-to-energy. In a future with increased recycling, SWM systems that utilize fully commercialized dissolution/precipitation and chemical recycling can further improve the cost advantage and the emission reduction potential. The sensitivity analysis demonstrates that enhancing waste collection and refining emerging recycling technologies can considerably increase the economic and environmental performance of SWM.