Recycle

Recycled vs Virgin materials

Recycled materials informs about the part of any material made from recycled materials.

Recyclability

Materials are recyclable if collected, sorted, reprocessed, and ultimately reused in manufacturing or making another item. This is about the part of a material that can be recycled.

Even though many materials can be (partly) recycled in theory, many materials do not get recycled in practice. There are many different reasons why materials do not get recycled. Mostly it is because it is too difficult to recycle or it costs too much money or energy.

Different types of recycling

Recycling is a process where a product that is considered trash gets partly or totally processed into a new product. Recycling is used as a general term for reusing products.

Upcycling

Upcycling is a form of recycling where the product has the same or even better quality after the recycling process. An unusable product gets processed in a new product like for instance a new bag made out of old denim. Upcycling is about the raw materials that are used for a product as well as the total product.

Downcycling

Downcycling is a type of recycling where the quality of the recycled material and products are lower than the original product made of virgin materials. Downcycling consists of quality loss and also when only a part of the total product gets recycled. Downcycling also consists in pollution in the waste stream. For example glass. Glass can be recycled and keep its quality, however, when there are to many different colours of glass mixed only brown glass can be made out of recycled glass. Therefore brown glass due to pollution in the waste stream is considered downcycling because a part of the total value is lost due to the recycling process.

Recycling Codes

Many materials have a symbol which is called a recycling code. The recycling code is a number that indicates what material the product or part of the product is made from. The materials are sorted on how they should be recycled. Not all materials have a recycling code. For example, rubber does not have a recycling code. However, rubber can be recycled. The recycling codes make the recycling process easier for recycling facilities. Also when a material does have a recycling symbol does not mean that the material can be recycled. Recycling numbers 1-6 are plastics that can be recycled. Number 7 is for all the other plastics and these plastics do not get recycled, they get burned.

These are all the recycling codes that are being used at the moment:

• Plastics
  • 1. PET
  • 2. HDPE
  • 3. PVC
  • 4. LDPE
  • 5. Polypropylene
  • 6. Polystyrene
  • 7. All other plastics, including bioplastics

• Batteries
  • 8. Lead
  • 9. Alkaline
  • 10. Nickel-Cadmium batteries
  • 11. Nickel metal hydride
  • 12. Lithium batteries
  • 13. Silver oxide batteries
  • 14. Zink-carbon batteries'

• Paper
  • 20. Corrugated fiberboard
  • 21. Non-corrugated fiberboard
  • 22. Paper

• Metals
  • 40. Steel
  • 41. Aluminium

• Biomatter/Organic Materials
  • 50. Wood
  • 51. Cork
  • 60. Cotton
  • 61. Jute

• Glass
  • 70. Clear Glass
  • 71. Green Glass
  • 72. Brown Glass
  • 73. Dark Sort Glass
  • 74. Light Sort Glass
  • 75. Light Leaded Glass
  • 76. Leaded Glass
  • 77. Copper Mixed Glass
  • 78. Silver Mixed Glass
  • 79. Gold Mixed Glass

• Composites
  • 80. Paper and miscellaneous metals
  • 81. Paper + plastic
  • 82. Paper and fibreboard/Aluminium
  • 83. Paper and fibreboard/Tinplate
  • 84. Paper and cardboard/plastic/aluminium
  • 85. Paper and fibreboard/Plastic/Aluminium/Tinplate
  • 87. Biodegradable plastic Laminated
  • 90. Plastics/Aluminium
  • 91. Plastic/Tinplate
  • 92. Plastic/Miscellaneous metals
  • 95. Glass/Plastic
  • 96. Glass/Aluminium
  • 97. Glass/Tinplate
  • 98. Glass/Miscellaneous metalseous metals

Reycling challenges, projects and solutions

Recycling multi-layer and multi-compound packaging

Problem

Multi-layer packaging is very important and effective when it comes to the protection of goods, prologue shelf life and to optomise managing food waste. However, the structure of multi-layer packaging is very complex making it nearly impossible to recycle, leading yo a growing amount of packaging and especially plastic waste.

Project and solution

Terminus is an organisation that tries to solve the recycling problem of multi-layer packaging. 'Terminus aims at unlocking the recycling of multi-layer packaging via a range of smart enzyme containing polymers with triggered intrinsic self biodegradation properties' (Terminus)

The polymers that act as an adhesive in multi-layer plastics are what make it difficult to recycle en separate the layers. The technology that Terminus uses will be applied to biodegradable PUR-based adhesives. COntrolled bio-degradation of these adhesives and tie layers would enable the separation of the different layers of the packaging, which can then be recycled using conventional recycling methods.

Increasing the recyclability of multi-layer packaging will significantly aid the efforts of reaching the European plastics and packaging recycling targets, as well as contribute towards the establishment of a circular economy for packaging.

project impact fo Terminus: 15% improvement in economic efficiency 55% reduction of plastics in landfills 65% overall CO2 footprint reduction 80% reduction of multi-layer plastic packaging in landfills

Sources

Wastenet recycling, upcycling, downcycling