Damage to the planet, no matter the cause,
must be avoided to preserve human lifestyles and existence. Driven by the need
to preserve the ecology, a revolution to this industry must start from durable
products, for continuous remanufacturing usage. Large pockets of plastics, a man-made
offspring of mostly Crude Oil, in the earth for millions of years, is less
dangerous than tiny broken portions of used plastic products, which pollutes
and kills. The mission is No biodegradable plastics to find its way into
landfills for multiple generations, only collectable, valuable reusable
containers. Banning such containers is not the answer, the problem was in
making containers without a recycling plan.
The Manufacturing Process will
help to better understand the subsequent recycling processes. Plastics does not occur naturally, specialized
manufacturers have techniques to use natural polymers such as; natural gas, coal,
soil, cellulose, and various plant-based proteins to create it. Despite these
various sources, most artificial polymers today are made from petroleum.
Petroleum or crude oil is prospected, targeted, and extracted, the
crude oil is transported via a pipeline to an oil refinery. It is then heated
up to hundreds of degrees, sent up a fractional distillation column, a tower
that separates the oil’s thousands of components using condensation or
boiling-point techniques. Naphtha, the primary component for plastic making is
separated between 180°C and 40°C. This collected naphtha then undergoes
Cracking, which is the fragmentation of naphtha’s big hydrocarbon molecules
into smaller, and thus more easily processed, sections. First, the crude oil is
mixed with water vapor. The resulting Mélange is then heated to 800°C, then
very quickly cooled down to 400°C. The tiny molecules obtained will be used to
make chains called Polymers, plastic’s basic building blocks.
Natural gas is obtained by roughly the same methods of extraction and
cracking as crude oil, but the plastic industry uses it for its potentially
high ethane content, a gas that, once it has been condensed at below 100°C, is
another raw material for plastic making. When heated to 850°C, ethane molecules
separate and create a hydrogen and ethylene mix. Only the purified ethylene is
then used to create the future polymer solids, also called polyethylene (PE).
Coal, once it has been measured and sifted, the collected
material is distilled in an oxygen-free coke oven. This coke-making process is
used to create quasi-pure carbon, but also creates volatile material that can
be used to create gas for households, such as; benzole (used in cosmetics and
pharmaceutical industries), or coal-tar, which can be reused to make plastic
material.
Soil is rich in organic molecules, and the most
abundant one is Cellulose. This naturally occurring homopolymer (i.e.:
made up of one type of polymer) is the main component of plants’ cellular
walls, making up between 15% to 99% of the cell walls. This raw material is
particularly used by the plastic industry for making cellulose acetate,
celluloid, cellophane, or Rhodoid, and is extracted using a sequence of various
mechanical and chemical treatments that separate the cellulose (mainly by
grinding and purification) from the plant’s other components (sap, lipids, wax,
etc). Further plastic-treatment processes (whitening, drying, formatting) can
then be applied, depending on the desired type of product or the client’s
needs. Cellulose fibres are used in many industrial sectors, such as the
textile and paper industry, farming, or construction (particularly for
insulation material).
Numerous Human Usage, while discouraging
Plastics that are very difficult to reuse or recycle. Starting where the
polymer manufacturing process stops, before the plastics are sold, consumed and
recycled, their use requires the plastic resins to be converted into finished
or semi-finished products. And while the operations change according to the
nature of the products, there are several main methods of use by industrial
companies. Such use
of these materials is special, since parts made of thermosetting plastic become
insoluble and infusible during transformation. Industrial manufacturers mainly
use cast moulding (liquids poured into a heated mould), compression moulding
(powder similarly compressed in a heated mould) or injection moulding (as for
thermoplastics; a moving screw or piston injects the material into a closed
heated mould and it takes the shape of the mould).
Growing in line with the local collection process, the recovery of household plastic
waste increases every year, these materials can amount to as little as 10% of
total household waste collected and 40% of post-consumption plastic waste. In
the same period, numerous recyclable PET (polyethylene terephthalate), another
plastic compound from the petrochemical industry, bottles and other plastic
containers can be collected for plastic recycling, making these materials the
main types of household plastic waste treated by companies in the sector.
Household waste recycling starts by identifying flows of materials (often
placed in plastic collectors) are recovered by local authorities, taken in
household waste skips to plastics storage of sorting centres, baled and then
collected by recycling companies, which then identify the materials and
transport them to factories specializing in waste treatment.
Methods and Processes to Recycle, in the plastics
industry, is primarily based on its manufacturing process. It is interesting to note that the heat of
combustion necessary for recycled plastic is equivalent to that produced by
fuels (coal and petrol), which is why energy recovery is an important part of
the plastic recycling industry. Over half of plastic packaging (mainly plastic
bags and films, but not bottles) are made from polyethylene. With progress in
package sorting, recycling of PE material has greatly increased and with the
recuperation of plastic lids also leads to a lot more recycling, specifically
the recovery of high-density PE (PEHD).
Noting that, approximately 38% of a plastic
bottle’s composition is recyclable PET. Its recycling rate has greatly
increased over the last decade (up to 51%), thanks to the sorting of household
waste, but also thanks to the building of factories specializing in the
recovery of plastic waste. The chemical recovery of PET allows recyclers to
create material that is almost identical to the original plastic. Currently,
about 30% of plastic bottles in circulation are made from recycled material. The
petrochemical industry makes three other recyclable plastics: polystyrene, PVC,
and polypropylene.
Research & Written
by:
Disclosure & Declaration:
Mr. Jennings has
written and presented a Strategic Plan, Waste Management for Collection to
Recycling, for the School Maintenance, Training & Security Company
Limited (MTS).
Mr. Jennings has
written and presented Strategic Plans, Bricks from Waste Factory Operation,
Biogas Electricity Generation Operation, Medical Waste Treatment
Operation, each for Independent Clients.
