Sustainable End-of-Life Options for Plastics in New Zealand

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Land-filling is the dominant end-of-life option for plastics at the moment in NZ. In the future, our landfills may be mined for recyclable plastic material as the cost of plastic raw material increases, so land-filling would have to take place with this purpose in mind. However, as mentioned in the ‘measure of degradability’ section, polymers need to be stored in a way that ensures the recyclability or compostability of the polymer is maintained. If there is degradation of the polymer, it could affect the environment. Degraded or partially degraded polymers may not be able to be used. 4.5 Key Points • Recycling is the preferred end-of-life option for plastics, followed by energy recovery for nonrecyclable materials (such as contaminated food packaging); and composting (for 100% degradable material) as a separate option. • There need to be systems in place to prevent contamination between plastic recycling and composting streams. Partially degradable plastics may need to be diverted to energy recovery facilities if/when they are established. • Degradable plastics are becoming increasingly common in NZ. Standardisation and labelling systems are required to assist communication and ensure degradables end up in the right end-oflife stream. • Commercial energy recovery facilities have not been developed in NZ as yet, (in contrast to Western Europe where 22% of plastic waste is used for energy recovery) but trial plants and studies at Universities have been conducted. It is possible that energy recovery will be operating commercially in the future following considerable research into environmental impacts and international best practice. • Some material types, such as PVC, are not suitable for energy recovery. • Storage is an intermediate stage between collection and reprocessing rather than an actual endof-life option. 35 Sustainable End-of-Life Options for Plastics in New Zealand
5. Factors Influencing Recovery 5.1 The Drivers There are a number of key drivers for material recovery, such as: • public demand for recycling • the New Zealand Waste Strategy • the requirement for Waste Management Plans in the Local Government Act 2002 • initiatives such as the Packaging Accord and associated targets, backed up by Government’s preparedness to consider regulation should these prove ineffective • multi-national companies operating in NZ being pushed to meet international recovery benchmarks •recovered material as a potential resource as raw material prices increase •procurement policies requiring recycled content in products • prices offered for recovered material, • the associated competition between commercial recyclers • lack of communication, and • increasing landfill charges, particularly for EPS. 5.2 Lack of Information Discussions with manufacturers indicate that there is material available for recovery but data on this is not collected and collated. More specific detail is needed, identifying the sources and quantities of the various product types (such as a breakdown of quantities of plastic packaging by product type and typical disposal location). Schemes could then be arranged for commercial recyclers to collect the material from dispersed locations. 5.3 Contamination 5.3.1 Contamination at Source Recovery levels fall when the material is contaminated. Pre-consumer industrial material is less likely to be contaminated than post-consumer industrial and domestic material. Therefore the scrap/rejects available for recovery at the pre-consumer stage (small amounts from numerous dispersed manufacturing companies) will have a higher purity and, in turn, be more valuable to end-market customers. Post-consumer industrial material has a different source characteristic, in that there is more contamination involved, but a greater amount of material available 5.3.2 Contamination from Products Collected non-recyclable materials incur landfill fees on disposal; therefore the sorting stage is extremely important, as it is usually the last chance to remove any contaminated material before the separated material is on-sold for reprocessing. Factors Influencing Recovery 36
Page 1 and 2: Research Project Report Sustainable
Page 3 and 4: Executive Summary The purpose of th
Page 5 and 6: Acknowledgements Special thanks are
Page 7 and 8: 4.2.5 Measure of Degradability ....
Page 9 and 10: Introduction In 2003 the New Zealan
Page 11 and 12: Results 1. Plastic Material in NZ 1
Page 13 and 14: From the 2005 PNZ Mass Balance Surv
Page 15 and 16: 2. Statistical Analysis of Plastic
Page 17 and 18: 2.3 Breakdown of Recovered Plastic
Page 19 and 20: 2.5 Breakdown of Colours and Produc
Page 21 and 22: 2.5.4 PVC Approximately 2,412t of P
Page 23 and 24: 3. Assessment of the Current NZ Inf
Page 25 and 26: Figure 16: Implementation of kerbsi
Page 27 and 28: Figure 18: Other material recovered
Page 29 and 30: 3.3.3 Forms of End-Market Material
Page 31 and 32: 4.2.4 Cons • The cost of deriving
Page 33 and 34: 4.2.8 Viability of Composting Plast
Page 35: Strict regulations have been set in
Page 39 and 40: Commercial recyclers operating unde
Page 41 and 42: 5.9 Key Points Voluntary industry a
Page 43 and 44: Recommendations R.1 Improve Informa
Page 45 and 46: Appendices Appendix 1: Supplementar
Page 47 and 48: Appendix 2.8 Forms of Plastic End-M

Sustainable End-of-Life Options for Plastics in New Zealand

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?