A Novel View Of Chemical Recycling Of Plastic Waste

Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi synthetic materials which is extremely versatile and ideal for wide range of applications. However, the improper management of plastic waste has caused irreversible losses for the environment. The continuous accumulation of waste plastic into landfills is a huge problem. According to PlasticsEurope, in 2018 global plastic production almost reached 360 million tonnes. In Europe, plastics production has reached almost 62 million tonnes by 2018. Since 2006, the amount of plastic sent to recycling has doubled but 25% of it is still sent to landfill as of 2018. The major current recycling processes are energy recovery and mechanical recycling of the waste plastic. The more recent alternative for mechanical recycling is chemical recycling. Chemical recycling is a relatively new method of recycling and it aims to produces valuable products such as monomers or petrochemical feed stocks. This paper focuses on the practical applications on chemical recycling of plastics in recent times.