Collecting and sorting waste is the first step in recycling - industry experts explain why this is so important.
Recycling offers the opportunity to give end-of-life plastic a second life
In an ideal world, it all begins with pre-sorting, with every household sorting their recyclable waste into different bins according to material, ready to be collected and taken to facilities for further sorting and recycling. However, this process varies from country to country and even from region to region, depending on local regulations, available infrastructure and services, and consumer behavior. For plastic waste, the next step involves mechanical sorting, separation by material type and purification at dedicated facilities, followed by mechanical or chemical recycling. Mechanical recycling uses physical processes (e.g., sorting, shredding, washing, melting) to transform waste materials into feedstock for new products.
When mechanical recycling – which is preferable from a carbon emissions perspective – cannot be used, chemical recycling offers an alternative. This uses chemical processes (e.g., pyrolysis, depolymerization) to transform end-of-life plastic into virgin-quality new plastics, allowing hard-to-recycle materials to still be kept in the loop.
Both approaches allow us to transform waste into valuable feedstock which can be used to create new products. For instance, Borealis’ Borcycle™ M technology can transform polyolefin based, post-consumer waste into high-quality, versatile materials. We call this model of retaining and reusing precious materials ‘the circular cascade’. This sustainable cycle of consumption stands in stark contrast to the traditional linear model of consumption. Recycling is necessary for us to shift away from the linear model of consumption, in which raw materials are extracted, turned into products which are used often only once, and then disposed of at the end of their lifetime. A linear model has many environmental impacts, from degradation of the environments from which raw materials are extracted to carbon emissions from incineration. Meanwhile, the circular cascade allows us to capture waste and turn it into circular feedstocks, avoiding the extraction of, for instance, crude oil to make new plastic products.
The critical first steps
The circular cascade opens up countless environmental and economic opportunities. At the moment, however, we are not making the most of these opportunities – leaving potentially valuable materials to be incinerated or sent to landfill simply because they are not collected and sorted.
“That is where it all starts,” says Joachim Amland, Head of TOMRA Feedstock. “If you’re not collecting and sorting, you are not able to start the whole [recycling] process.” TOMRA Feedstock specializes in developing advanced sorting facilities to recover high-quality plastic waste. TOMRA Feedstock is a part of TOMRA, a market leader in Near Infared (NIR) sorting and deposit return schemes.
Separate collection ollection and pre-sorting are absolutely essential for recycling. These are the critical first steps that provide the stream of materials to be turned into new feedstock. “The more sorting you do, the easier it is to establish the circular economy,” says Amland. However, he adds that the biggest opportunity for closing the loop is found in the residual bin – the household bin dedicated to anything that can’t be recycled or reused – where much valuable material is wrongly put by consumers. Since disposals from these bins are normally sent straight to incineration or landfill, these resources are lost. To unlock the potential of reyclables in mixed waste streams, an automatic sorting step before incineration needs to send these resources are sent back into the circular economy. An additional benefit of this sorting step is the reduction in CO2 emissions, as valuable materials are not incinerated.
The reality of recycling
There are plenty of opportunities to improve collecting and sorting and help move away from the linear model of consumption. In some markets, there is little or no option to separate recyclable materials for collection. In others, recyclable materials are mixed for collection. Even in markets in which bins are provided for every type of recyclable material imaginable, there is still human error: recyclable waste is put in the residual bin; residual waste is put in the recycling bin.
In practice, then, extensive mechanical sorting is carried out in after collection. There are many technologies being used to separate mixed materials automatically – from the humble magnet to capture metals to AI-powered image recognition to differentiate between types of plastic. All this adds to the cost of recycling.
According to Christian Abl, Managing Director at Reclay Group: “In an ideal case, we would have a very high degree of separate collection with minor impurities, so the material can be swiftly processed without additional cost-generating processes in between.” Reclay Group specializes in packaging and disposal management, developing take-back systems for various materials, and providing consulting services to help industries and governments achieve their recycling goals.
Working together for circularity
The accumulation of waste in our environment is undoubtedly a challenge – but there is reason for optimism. Technologies already exist to recycle a tremendous range of materials, turning waste into feedstock. Meanwhile, regulations to enforce commitment to circularity, industry initiatives, and small changes to consumer behaviour can all help shift towards circularity.
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a policy approach which makes dealers and producers financially responsible for the costs associated with managing their products through their entire lifecycle to their end-of-life, rather than leaving the responsibility for the treatment and disposal of the waste product entirely with the local government. EPR is already implemented in Europe for (paper and cardboard, glass, metal and plastic) packaging waste. The existing infrastructure and services for the separate collection of packaging waste (including yellow bins for plastic packaging waste) are financed by the EPR fees paid by producers and retailers. The upcoming EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) will strengthen this approach by establishing harmonized EPR obligations across Europe based on the design of packaging, allowing dealers and producers who switch to more sustainable packaging to benefit from lower fees – reflecting the increased ease of recycling.
Industry players can strengthen the circular economy by collaborating across value chains to understand their partners’ needs, and by committing to investing in recycling infrastructure.
For instance, OMV has invested in and recently started operations at our ReOil® plant which uses our proprietary chemical recycling technology to convert plastics into circular feedstock for the production of chemicals, such as those used for new plastic products. Additionally, OMV and Interzero have established a joint venture to build and operate one of Europe’s largest sorting facilities for chemical recycling, with a capacity of up to 260,000 tonnes per year in Walldürn, Germany.
Meanwhile, consumers can play their role in circularity with small changes in habit – sorting their recyclable waste for collection where the opportunity exists. “The producer is producing. The retailer is selling. But if the consumer does not collect and sort, you lose 100 per cent [of the materials],” says Abl. “This is why it is a key part of circularity.”
A circular economy is possible when everyone works together to give waste materials life after life. We are proud to be playing our part in this transformation.