1. Exposing the pitfalls of plastics mechanical recycling through cost calculation.
- Author
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Van Camp N, Lase IS, De Meester S, Hoozée S, and Ragaert K
- Subjects
- Costs and Cost Analysis, Waste Management methods, Waste Management economics, Recycling methods, Recycling economics, Plastics
- Abstract
The plastic industry needs to match the recycling goals set by the EU. Next to technological hurdles, the cost of plastics mechanical recycling is an important modality in this transition. This paper reveals how business economic cost calculation can expose significant pitfalls in the recycling process, by unravelling limitations and boundary conditions, such as scale. By combining the business economic methodology with a Material Flow Analysis, this paper shows the influence of mass retention of products, the capacity of the processing lines, scaling of input capacity, and waste composition on the recycling process and associated costs. Two cases were investigated: (i) the Initial Sorting in a medium size Material Recovery Facility and (ii) an improved mechanical recycling process for flexibles - known as the Quality Recycling Process - consisting of Additional Sorting and Improved Recycling. Assessing the whole recycling chain gives a more holistic insight into the influences of choices and operating parameters on subsequent costs in other parts of the chain and results in a more accurate cost of recycled plastic products. This research concluded that the cost of Initial Sorting of flexibles is 110,08-122,53 EUR/t, while the cost of subsequent Additional Sorting and Improved Recycling ranges from 566,26 EUR/t for rPE Flex to 735,47 EUR/t for rPP Film, these insights can be used to determine a fair price for plastic products. For the Quality Recycling Process it was shown that rationalisation according to the identified pitfalls can reduce the cost per tonne of product by 15-26%., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: [Nicola Van Camp reports financial support was provided by Research Foundation Flanders. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper]., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)
- Published
- 2024
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