Plastic has extraordinary qualities that have made our life, through its applications, much more comfortable, safe and economical

These are not sensations but clear and irrefutable data on how cheap, resistant, durable, suitable for food and medical, waterproof, electrically neutral, malleable, mouldable, light, colorable and with a very low carbon impact during production.

The media fuss raised by many parties, sometimes driven by non-crystalline interests and by people who have no knowledge of the sector, even on a political level, it attributes to plastic the faults it does not have, such as that of polluting the planet.

The problem exists, it must not be denied, but the question must be reduced to two factors: the main one is the habit of man to get rid of his own waste, whatever, in the environment comfortably and the second is that the recycling rates of plastic, as for other products, are still very low, for various reasons that we will see in this article produced by BASF.

The topics are dealt with through the interview with Prof. Dr. Helmut Maurer, Principal Jurist at the Waste Management and Recycling Unit from the European Commission, Directorate General for the Environment and to Patricia Vangheluwe, PhD, Director of Consumer and Environmental Affairs at PlasticsEurope.

The success of plastics is undisputed, while its negative aspects such as waste disposal are the subject of much discussion. Prof. Dr. Helmut Maurer and Patricia Vangheluwe , PhD, two experts in the plastics industry, discuss their ideas on how to address this global challenge.

Plastics affect almost every area of our lives, bringing improvements, convenience and cost savings. For over 100 years, these highly versatile materials have helped shape our world and new plastics are always in development. But as plastic waste accumulates in landfills and oceans, their disposal is now a serious environmental problem.

Patricia Vangheluwe, PhD, of PlasticsEurope, and Professor Dr. Helmut Maurer of the European Commission for Waste Management and Recycling, discuss the dilemma facing we meet.

For some the word " plastic" has become synonymous with throwaway culture , yet the material makes a huge contribution to our daily lives. Do you think plastic has an image problem?

Helmut Maurer : Plastic is a victim of its versatility and its great success. What don't we do with plastic? We even have it in our bodies as part of medical applications.

There is no reason to demonize plastic. The problem, from my point of view, is that it is widely overused. We market and produce it as much as possible but then we don't have the tools to manage it properly. Planned obsolescence has become an industrial principle.

Patricia Vangheluwe : I agree that plastics suffer from an image problem and that we need to change this situation. For example, we need to do much more to use post-consumer plastic waste as a resource and make people understand that plastic is a valuable material.

As a society we have to address this problem because plastic offers enormous possibilities to address social challenges and is one of the most eco-efficient materials around.

Increasing consumption has created problems as states make every effort to handle large quantities of plastic as waste.

According to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), between 22% and 43% of plastic waste ends up in landfills all over the place instead of being reused or recycled. How can we solve this problem? 

Maurer : In developing countries, plastic is almost always thrown away, either in landfills or in nature. In Europe too, around 50% ends up in landfills.

It is clear that we need to act urgently. What we need is a global ban on landfilling. And we have millions of tons of plastic decomposed into microparticles floating in our oceans - a stream of another 10 to 15 million tons reaches the marine environment every year.

We need to talk globally - oceans have no borders. We also need to work on the chemical composition of the materials. It is necessary to make products with materials designed to be recycled and to avoid toxic additives that make recovery difficult. It is a great challenge for the plastics industry.

Vangheluwe : I share Helmut's opinion that we must encourage a global landfill ban.

When it comes to post-consumer waste, the entire value chain - from plastics manufacturing companies to product manufacturers, retailers and end consumers - can Do more.

We have to design products to ensure eco-efficiency, which is not exactly the same as designing for recycling, and in doing this we have to take that into account which will happen with the product at the end of its life.

Manufacturing companies have always taken waste very seriously, because from an economic point of view it makes sense to use the resources within the production as efficiently as possible .

All the product and application developments they are carrying out are intended to make products lighter, more durable and more functional. This helps to save resources, which has similar positive effects to waste prevention.

"We need to do much more to use post-consumer plastic waste as a resource and make people understand that plastic is a valuable material." 

Often for industrially advanced countries it is cheaper to ship plastics by ship thousands of kilometers away than to rework them where they were used.

Wouldn't it be appropriate to make recycling close to home more economically viable?

Vangheluwe : Quality recyclates should be considered products, just like any other product on the market. In a free market, products can be traded; supply and demand govern the market.

But it would be good for recyclers to go hand in hand with the value chain close to home to derive more value from these recycled materials. Plastics manufacturers can help recyclers because they have knowledge of the material itself.

This information can help determine which markets those products can target and how to perform quality controls.

Maurer : As Patricia rightly puts it, manufacturers know their material best and it is extremely important that recyclers have that same knowledge.

There is still a lot to do to simplify this knowledge transfer. There are several things we can do to improve internal recycling of plastics.

First we can set goals to recycle much more. So we also need to facilitate the markets. We can define end-of-waste criteria and create market demand for high-quality recycling.

Burning plastic waste to generate energy is also an industry. As plastic recycling rates worldwide are low, many say it is a key component of the energy mix.

Do you believe that waste energy recovery schemes using plastic play a long-term role?

Maurer: In principle, the combustion of plastic should be avoided because in combustion we lose the process energy needed to produce the plastic. Combustion will slow down as recycling becomes more tempting.

But the reality is that a lot of post-consumer plastic is not suitable for recycling - partly due to harmful materials placed in by manufacturers, such as some flame retardants or phthalates. But we're talking about a moving goal because tomorrow's plastic - the best recyclable plastic - will naturally lead to more recycling.

Another important argument against plastic combustion is climate change. Until 2050 we have a maximum budget of 1,000 billion tons of CO2 emissions to be respected if we want to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.

But as we already know, the global reserves of fossil fuels are equal to 2,900 billion tons of CO2. If we were to leave them in the ground, this would force us to recycle more.

Vangheluwe : Energy recovery is sometimes the most eco-efficient solution, especially for mixed waste. When this happens from a life cycle perspective, energy recovery makes sense as one of the waste management options.

It is hoped that one day there will be an innovation that will allow us to break down mixed plastics that cannot be sustainably recycled into raw materials that can be reused to produce plastic in an economical and eco-sustainable way - this would be an achievement that would help increase the recycling of plastic.

“In Europe too, around 50% of plastic ends up in landfills. It is clear that we need to act urgently. What we need is a global ban on landfilling. "

How do you think plastic products will evolve in the next 50 years? In which sectors do you see the greatest opportunities and challenges?

Maurer : I would like plastic to get rid of its negative image as an omnipresent, cheap and easily decomposable material. But I would like to warn against assuming that the future depends only on more technology.

We have to face the fact that a global 5% annual growth rate in plastic production would mean doubling production every 14 years, so that by 2043 we would produce 1,200 million tons per year.

This obviously wouldn't be sustainable. Already today, plastic in the marine environment is totally out of control. I think we are producing too many things that we don't really need.

Vangheluwe : We will see continuous developments in intelligent packaging and barrier couplings, medical applications such as prosthetics and even lighter composite materials that can be used in structural applications for the automotive and construction markets.

Bio-based plastics will continue to be developed and I believe we will have mixed plastics that will be used as a feedstock for plastics over the next 50 years.

We will also see an increasing use of CO2 as a raw material, thus closing the entire carbon cycle. This is what is happening now for the production of polyurethanes.

If plastics are going to continue to deliver all the benefits it has offered up to now, we will all have to continue working on the challenge of managing waste as garbage and plastic in the environment. I have always believed that technology and innovation can make a difference.

With a growing education in proper waste management and innovation, plastics will continue to provide solutions to many of the social challenges that lie ahead.

Automatic translation. We apologize for any inaccuracies.