3 Major Ways For Waste Plastic Recycling

With the increasingly serious global plastic pollution problem, waste plastic recycling has become an important issue that needs to be solved in today’s society. Plastics, as a cheap and easy-to-produce material, are widely used in people’s daily lives. However, the non-biodegradability of plastics makes it difficult to handle a large amount of waste plastics, which seriously affects the environment. In order to effectively meet this challenge, the recycling of waste plastics has become the focus of global attention. The three major ways of recycling of waste plastics are mechanical recycling, chemical recycling and energy recycling.

1. Mechanical Recycling

Mechanical recycling is currently the most common way to recycle waste plastics. Plastic recycling machines are used to crush, clean, melt, granulate and other waste plastics to convert them into reusable raw materials. In this process, waste plastics are sorted, cleaned and crushed, and then processed into granular plastic raw materials and put back into the production process.

Mechanical recycling is the most widely used, especially in the packaging industry, building materials industry and textile industry. For example, after recycling, waste PET bottles can be reprocessed into new products, such as plastic sheets, fiber cloth and car interiors.

2. Chemical Recycling

Chemical recycling is a recycling method that uses chemical methods to convert waste plastics into raw materials or other valuable products. Chemical recycling includes technologies such as pyrolysis, dissolution, and catalytic cracking of plastics, which decompose the chemical bonds in waste plastics and convert them into useful chemicals such as oil, gas, and olefins. Pyrolysis is a commonly used technology in chemical recycling. It decomposes waste plastics at high temperatures to generate reusable liquid and gas fuels.

However, the technology of chemical recycling is still under development, with high costs, and still faces some technical challenges, such as how to improve recycling efficiency, reduce energy consumption, and reduce environmental pollution. But with the advancement of technology, chemical recycling is expected to become an important direction in the field of plastic recycling in the future.

3. Energy Recycling

Energy recycling refers to the conversion of waste plastics into energy, such as electricity, heat or gas, through combustion, gasification, pyrolysis and other methods. This method uses the high calorific value of waste plastics to recycle them as energy resources. By incinerating waste plastics, not only can the amount of garbage be reduced, but it can also be converted into useful energy for industrial production or heating.

The advantage of energy recovery is that it can handle all kinds of waste plastics that cannot be recycled, including mixed plastics, low-value plastics, etc., thereby reducing the negative impact of waste plastics on the environment. At the same time, this method does not require complex sorting and processing processes, and can efficiently achieve waste treatment and resource utilization.

However, there are also some problems with energy recycling, such as the combustion of waste plastics may produce harmful gases and pollute the air; at the same time, the recovered energy is relatively low and cannot replace traditional energy production methods. Therefore, energy recovery is suitable for some scenarios where waste is more complex and efficient material recovery is not possible, but emission control and environmental protection should be emphasized.

Conclusion

The three major directions of waste plastic recycling – mechanical recycling, chemical recycling and energy recycling, each have their own advantages and limitations. In practical applications, it is often necessary to comprehensively select different recycling methods based on the type, quality and maturity of waste plastics recycling technology. If you have any questions on plastic recycling, feel free to contact us. We will provide you the perfect solutions according to your needs.