To truly achieve 100% recycling of plastic packaging requires the participation of the wider plastics industry.
1. Mechano-physical regeneration process
Currently widely used in the field of plastic recycling, the process is quite mature, and plays an important role in the recycling of plastic packaging bottles. However, this process still has a long way to achieve 100% recycling of plastic packaging. For example, the recycling of disposable plastic straws, plastic lunch boxes, and packaging bags requires a very complete front-end recycling system.
To achieve 100% recycling of plastic packaging, other recycling processes must be considered.
2. Waste plastic oilification process
The waste plastic oilification process does not require screening of mixed waste plastics (polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene and a small amount of polyvinyl chloride). The principle of catalytic thermal cracking and catalytic reforming is used to generate a series of The latest technology of cutting organic molecular chain by chemical reaction, reducing it to low molecular fuel, and finally converting it into gas, gasoline, diesel and other products.
Compared with the mechanical and physical recycling process, the waste plastic oilification process does not require the sorting and cleaning of plastics, and there is no requirement for the type of plastics. Waste plastics in domestic waste or waste plastics in stale waste can be used as raw materials. This process is more effective for recycling single-use plastic products.
3. Chemical recycling process
At the 2018 RE|FOCUS SUSTAINABILITY & RECYCLING SUMMIT just concluded last month, John Layman, the chief technical expert from Procter & Gamble, said: Mechanical and physical recycling has limitations.
For example, most of the recycled PP is black or gray, very transparent PP regrind is hard to come by in the market, and PP regrind may be "smelly" and may be contaminated with "toxic chemicals".
Therefore, P&G has developed a solvent-based plastic recycling process, named "PureCycle Technologies", which removes color and odor from PP to produce high-purity recyclable flakes.
Chemical recovery of PS
Oregon-based Tigard Agilyx has broken the world's first commercial-scale polystyrene chemical recycling cycle. The Tigard plant will recycle up to 10 tonnes of polystyrene waste to produce high-quality styrene oil, which will be made by styrene manufacturers AMSTY and NiNOS companies for the manufacture of consumer goods.
Jon Timbers, senior manager of sustainability and innovation at AmSty, said chemical recycling technology is an important addition to existing plastic recycling technology.
After a single use, plastic loses its important performance characteristics, which are difficult to restore with existing recycling technologies. In addition to the ability to preserve the properties of virgin plastics, the main advantage of chemical recycling is that it puts recycled materials and raw materials in the same place on the cost curve.
Selective extraction and chromatographic separation techniques
In addition, a research team led by Nien-Hwa Linda Wang, a professor of chemical engineering at Purdue University in Indiana, used selective extraction and chromatographic separation techniques to recover engineering plastics polycarbonate, acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) from waste plastics ) and styrene-acrylonitrile (SAN) and flame retardants.
It can be seen that under the environment of the global plastic ban, more researchers and entrepreneurs have been inspired to invest more energy in developing new technologies related to plastic recycling.
Plastic is famous for its recyclability, but less than a hundred years after its birth, it has caused human discussion due to the pollution of plastic. And when human beings face a crisis, more people think about it.

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