The disposal of everyday use plastic products is one of the most highly debated topics in today’s age since there is not adequate solution because of the polymers high durability. With the Earth’s population increasing comes increased amounts of waste. In Europe, some studies suggest that a single person is currently producing half a ton of waste per year. For example, in 2010 the total waste production in the European Union amounted to around 2.5 billion tons. An increase in population is not exactly the increase in plastic waste. More people are making more money which they are spending on more day to day items that will end up as waste in a very short term. As well, there are much more products in the market which are designed to be disposable while they are not disposable at all. If all this waste were to be put into landfills, soon earth would be covered completely by waste. While if it were all incinerated, all pollution would completely destroy the planet’s climate. The only temporary answer to this issue is recycling. (PDF)
Plastic all have different lifespans and are disposed in a variety of ways, which all have a different recycling rate. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency or EPA, in 2009, plastics made up 12% of the municipal solid waste in the United States by weight. Furthermore, 7% of all plastics that were disposed as municipal solid waste were recovered for recycling purposes. Of all total plastics, about 93% of them end up in landfills or are incinerated. The problem with incineration is that when plastic is burned, 1kg of plastic products produces an average of 2.8 kg of carbon dioxide. While the overall recovery of plastics for recycling was only about 7%, some plastic containers have a more significant percentage. For example, Polyethylene terephthalate or PET soft drink bottles were recovered with a success rate of 28% in 2009. While milk packaging and water bottles were also estimated to have a recovery rate of about 29%. (Science daily)
The European Union has recently introduced a variety of policies forcing the countries of the union to reach certain recycling quotas by 2020 and in order to meet this quota a lot of countries have had to change their disposal systems completely. If these are actually met this would be a giant step forward regarding plastic disposal. In present day, the rate of Germany’s landfill waste is the lowest in the European Union, while they produced the largest amount of European plastic waste. In Germany a more sustainable approach has been taken into managing the distribution of waste. The German Dual System or the DSD was established in 1991. In order to liberate industrial firms and retailers from their take-back obligations under the German Packaging Ordinance the DSD put into action a dual disposal system. This DSD consists of private households in Germany receiving yellow bags or barrels where they can put every packaging. The companies pay for the disposal of the packaging beforehand if they want to participate in this German Dual System. It is the first system of this kind worldwide and it works to collect packaging material from manufacturers who pay a license fee to this DSD. The payers of this fee can add a Green Dot logo to their package in order to indicate that it should be separated into the respective yellow bags. Because of this, the population is relieved from the charge of the waste in the bags, it is a huge motivation for separating waste. In 2001 the amount of plastic packaging waste that was recovered or recycled was only 51.8%, this quickly increased and in 2013 it was already 99.6%. Currently there are 68 incinerating plants in Germany, which all have a capacity of 20 million tons of waste. All the plants are strictly regulated to restrict the abundance of emissions and to avoid water and air pollution. (PDF)
In our present day, the most sustainable alternative we have for plastic waste management and disposal in general is considerably recycling. Recycling is a promising strategy for plastic products that can no longer be used. It is relatively slow compared to incineration and throwing the waste into landfills but it will make a really positive environmental impact. When materials are recycled, less energy is lost to feedstock or to plastic use in general as compared to incineration. (PDF)