Tag Archives: NAPCOR

Plastic Recycling: Green or “GREEN”?

 

Recycling is all about the environment, conserving our resources and greening our planet.

Isn’t it?

With the recent onslaught of laws angled at restricting the types of materials allowed to be recycled, one could start to wonder. After all, technically all these materials can be recycled. Are they implying that we should not encourage recyclers to find outlets for new materials? As companies are pushing for new materials that are more sensitive to our fragile environment, recyclers are pushing for laws that prevent recycling these materials, because they want to “protect” their profits and use of traditional plastics?

Are you kidding me?

Sounds a bit more like the green they are pursuing is the money in someones pocket. Even NC Representative Brawley’s site positions “These companies are developing new and innovative technologies to recycle plastic, including the development of new types of degradable and biodegradable plastic materials designed to decompose in landfills or when they are exposed to soil, water, and other natural elements over time. This has great benefits for our environment.” and then at the same time, acknowledges that despite the environmental benefits, we should protect petroleum based plastic recycling. I hear dollar signs  $$$..

I may be out in left field, but wouldn’t it make sense to send all materials that have the potential to be recycled to the recyclers and encourage them to find new and innovative ways to recycle those materials? Why are we OK with only recycling a few select materials?

With the latest reports on recycling rates in the US, it definitely seems our recycling infrastructure has a terminal illness; traditional medicines are not working to solve this illness. PET bottle collection rates are stagnant, HDPE recycling rates have dropped and there is no plan in sight to fix this. Even NAPCOR recognized this in their recent statement “without additional collection efforts or NEW STREAMS OF MATERIALS, the increased capacity will only serve to drive prices to unsustainable levels” and from Scott Saunders of KW Plastics Recycling “unfortunately, the recycling rate is going to stay where it is unless some NEW IDEA pushes recyclers forward.”

How about this NEW IDEA to provide NEW STREAMS OF MATERIAL:

Let’s place all clean materials (paper, plastic, metal, wood) in our blue bin and use the subsidies paid to recyclers to find out how to effectively recycle. and if that seems too radical check out this new idea that is already 5 times more effective than recycling: 35% success rate for waste management

I find myself placing plastics and other recyclable material that are not “on the recyclable list” in my blue bin in hopes that my little bit of rebellion will encourage recyclers to find ways to utilize these materials.   I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas on this subject.

Are you confused about recycling?

Are You Confused About What to Recycle?

When is the last time you asked yourself or someone else if something was recyclable?  It a common question and one that gets many different answers depending on what packaging or material you are asking the question about.

Most recycling programs will have information readily available to the public on what they will accept in the recycle bins.  This list however is quite small and becomes apparent that what recyclers are looking for is the cream of the crop.  If you are anything like me you put everything in the recycle bin and hope that it will motivate recyclers to start taking more material.

People in general want to do the right thing and truthfully speaking it’s a great feeling to know we are doing our part to help recycle when we do make the effort to recycle.  I suppose someday recycling will become a mainstream religion – to a very few it already is.  I often wonder what recycling would look like if people got paid for their recyclable materials?  After all for decades aluminum cans provided a source of additional funds to many and this resulted in very high recycling rates for aluminum cans.  It would sure make it a little more worth the effort to sort through and place materials in the proper bin.

The April 1st, 2013 issue of Plastics News had a great Viewpoint article by Don Loepp which addressed this very issue as a discussion point from the March Plastics Recycling Conference in New Orleans.

http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20130321/BLOG01/130329974/plastics-recycling-are-you-still-confused#

If we are going to have recycling be a big part of the environmental solution to the growing global plastic pollution issue we are going to have to get aggressive about our recycling efforts and recyclers will need to be a stakeholder in the bigger environmental mission as much as they are with the business focus of recycling.  All materials have the potential to be recycled, let involve state and federal programs to bring innovation to the market so that recyclers can accept all materials and have markets to sell those materials.

We’d love to hear what you think?

Plastics recycling: Are you still confused?

 

Pitt Researchers: Plant-Based Plastics Not Necessarily Greener Than Oil-Based Relatives

Biopolymers are the more eco-friendly material, but farming and energy-intense chemical processing means they are dirtier to produce than petroleum-derived plastics, according to study in Environmental Science & Technology

Contact: Morgan Kelly | mekelly@pitt.edu | 412-624-4356 | Cell: 412-897-1400

PITTSBURGH—An analysis of plant and petroleum-derived plastics by University of Pittsburgh researchers suggests that biopolymers are not necessarily better for the environment than their petroleum-based relatives, according to a report in Environmental Science & Technology. The Pitt team found that while biopolymers are the more eco-friendly material, traditional plastics can be less environmentally taxing to produce.

Biopolymers trumped the other plastics for biodegradability, low toxicity, and use of renewable resources. Nonetheless, the farming and chemical processing needed to produce them can devour energy and dump fertilizers and pesticides into the environment, wrote lead author Michaelangelo Tabone (ENG, A&S ’10), who conducted the analysis as an undergraduate student in the lab of Amy Landis, a professor of civil and environmental engineering in Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering. Tabone and Landis worked with James Cregg, an undergraduate chemistry student in Pitt’s School of Arts and Sciences; and Eric Beckman, codirector of Pitt’s Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation and the George M. Bevier Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering in Pitt’s Swanson School. The project was supported by the National Science Foundation.

The researchers examined 12 plastics—seven petroleum-based polymers, four biopolymers, and one hybrid. The team first performed a life-cycle assessment (LCA) on each polymer’s preproduction stage to gauge the environmental and health effects of the energy, raw materials, and chemicals used to create one ounce of plastic pellets. They then checked each plastic in its finished form against principles of green design, including biodegradability, energy efficiency, wastefulness, and toxicity.

Biopolymers were among the more prolific polluters on the path to production, the LCA revealed. The team attributed this to agricultural fertilizers and pesticides, extensive land use for farming, and the intense chemical processing needed to convert plants into plastic. All four biopolymers were the largest contributors to ozone depletion. The two tested forms of sugar-derived polymer—standard polylactic acid (PLA-G) and the type manufactured by Minnesota-based NatureWorks (PLA-NW), the most common sugar-based plastic in the United States—exhibited the maximum contribution to eutrophication, which occurs when overfertilized bodies of water can no longer support life. One type of the corn-based polyhydroyalkanoate, PHA-G, topped the acidification category. In addition, biopolymers exceeded most of the petroleum-based polymers for ecotoxicity and carcinogen emissions.


Once in use, however, biopolymers bested traditional polymers for ecofriendliness. For example, the sugar-based plastic from NatureWorks jumped from the sixth position under the LCA to become the material most in keeping with the standards of green design. On the other hand, the ubiquitous plastic polypropylene (PP)—widely used in packaging—was the cleanest polymer to produce, but sank to ninth place as a sustainable material.

Interestingly, the researchers found that the petroleum-plant hybrid biopolyethylene terephthalate, or B-PET, combines the ills of agriculture with the structural stubbornness of standard plastic to be harmful to produce (12th) and use (8th).

Landis is continuing the project by subjecting the polymers to a full LCA, which will also examine the materials’ environmental impact throughout their use and eventual disposal.

<table style="cursor: default; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; width: 600px; border: 0px dashed #bbbbbb;" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="width: 50px; text-align: center;"><strong>Polymer</strong></td>
<td style="width: 50px; text-align: center;"><strong>Material</strong></td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">&nbsp;<strong>Green Design Rank</strong></td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;"><strong>LCA Rank</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 50px;">Polylactic acid-NatureWorks (PLA-NW)</td>
<td style="width: 50px;">Sugar, cornstarch</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">1</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">6</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 50px;">Polyhydroxyalkanoate-Stover (PHA-S)</td>
<td style="width: 50px;">Corn stalks</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">2</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 50px;">Polyhydroxyalkanoate-General (PHA-G)</td>
<td style="width: 50px;">Corn kernels</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">2</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">8</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 50px;">Polylactic acid-General (PLA-G)</td>
<td style="width: 50px;">Sugar, cornstarch</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">4</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">9</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 50px;">High-density polyethylene (HDPE)</td>
<td style="width: 50px;">Petroleum</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">5</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 50px;">Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET)</td>
<td style="width: 50px;">Petroleum</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">6</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">10</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 50px;">Low-density polyethylene (LDPE)</td>
<td style="width: 50px;">Petroleum</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">7</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 50px;">Biopolyethylene terephthalate (B-PET)</td>
<td style="width: 50px;">Petroleum, plants</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">8</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">12</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 50px;">Polypropylene (PP)</td>
<td style="width: 50px;">Fossil fuels</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">9</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 50px;">General purpose polystyrene (GPPS)</td>
<td style="width: 50px;">Petroleum</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">10</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">5</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 50px;">Polyvinyl chloride (PVC)</td>
<td style="width: 50px;">Chlorine, petroleum</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">11</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 50px;">Polycarbonate (PC)</td>
<td style="width: 50px;">Petroleum</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">12</td>
<td style="width: 10px; text-align: center;">11<span style="color: #494949; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 10px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Recycling – Is it just a business?

This is a question that I’ve been mulling over for the past couple of weeks. Recently I’ve been reading books and articles that suggest that recycling is more of a business than an environmental solution. The articles claim that the majority of the recycling industry is not based on “helping the environment” but is about picking the easiest and largest money making bottles – #1 PET and #2 HDPE beverage bottles.

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