How waste management can help tackle the environmental impact of plastics

Written By yellowsack.com

More than a century ago, the Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland developed Bakelite: the first mass-produced synthetic plastic. Today plastic is all around us, making up so many of our products from car parts to clothes, in our household, even in carpet fibers. Crucially it makes its way into our environment, causing catastrophic damage to our wildlife and our ecosystems. We are on the verge of, or perhaps already in, a global crisis. We look at how plastic affects our world and what we can do to minimize its impact through new economic models and better waste handling.

WASTING PLASTIC EVERYDAY

Once thought of as a wonder material that could transform into anything, plastics (or most polymers) are indeed very versatile. The word plastic means malleable, and by using various chemicals, manufacturers can rearrange the molecular structure of plastic for many purposes. We manufacture different types of plastic for multiple uses throughout every industry. There are two main plastic categories: thermoset and thermoplastic. Thermoset plastic has a rigid chemical structure and cannot be reshaped or changed after the initial molding. We use Thermoset plastics in products like automobile parts due to their stability and durability. Thermoplastics can be melted and reformed, making them the most widely used type of plastic for most plastic products and packaging.

However, did you know that a plastic product loses 95% of the material value after a single use in many cases? Water bottles and coffee cups are often single-use products that we throw away rather than put in recycling systems; these are just two small examples of a much bigger problem. While globally, we have recognized the damage plastic is causing, we are still in the midst of the 'Take, Make Waste' economic model.

Environmental organization Plastic Soup reports that up to 2015, 6.3 billion tons of plastic has become waste. It is also estimated that around 3% of all plastic produced every year ends up in the ocean. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF), if we don't act now to reduce plastic recycling by 2050, more plastic will be in the sea than fish. The foundation aims to create a ‘new normal’ for plastic packaging by eliminating single-use packaging materials, increasing the amount of reused and recycled products and innovating to ensure 100% plastic packaging is reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025. Currently, only 9% of waste plastic is recycled, and 12% is incinerated, with the remaining 79% ending up in landfills or the environment where they will remain forever because plastic does not decompose. EMF also recently reported that just 2% of products sold by the world’s biggest consumer goods firms in 2020 came in reusable packaging.

These alarming figures should prompt people and companies to act before it's too late, and while many are striving to play their part through recycling programs, we are simply not moving fast enough to make the necessary changes. U.K newspaper the Guardian states that America alone generates 34.5m tons of plastic waste each year, which is sufficient to fill Houston's Astrodome stadium 1,000 times. Plastic soup reports that we have produced about half of all the plastic on earth in the last thirteen years. And we currently throw away more plastic than we clean up or recycle.

THE HUMAN AND ANIMAL COST

All businesses in the plastics chain have a social and environmental responsibility to make a significant change because plastics are overfilling our land and affecting our planet and our health. The manufacturing process for some plastics involves heating the plastics that can result in harmful fumes that, when inhaled, can lead to increased risk of heart disease, respiratory side effects such as asthma, skin irritation, damage to the nervous system, headaches, and even organ damage.

Non-biodegradable plastics do break down, but not entirely; they just become micro-plastics that are no longer visible to the naked eye. A single plastic bag falls apart into millions of pieces, continually breaking down, and these nano plastics can spread throughout the body, possibly reaching organs and even the brain. The concentration of plastics in the environment increases exponentially along with the amount in animals and humans. Much of the plastics detected in the human digestive system comes from textile microfibres found in drinking water. And according to Plastic Soup - 'Research has already shown that we probably ingest microplastics at a rate of 11 particles per hour.'

We must also think about the rights and safety of the personnel that works in the waste handling industry. There are significant health consequences to those handling waste in developing countries. A 2019 article in the U.K. newspaper The Guardian discovered that not all U.S. plastics go to recycle stations in the United States. Instead, many hundreds of thousands of tons are 'shipped every year to poorly regulated developing countries around the globe for the dirty, labour-intensive process of recycling. The consequences for public health and the environment are grim.' In 2019, 68,000 American plastic recycling shipping containers were exported from the U.S. to developing countries. Countries such as Bangladesh, Laos, Ethiopia, and Senegal offer cheap labor and limited environmental regulation. But many of these nations are overwhelmed with international waste, resulting in thousands of tons of plastic waste being stranded in the United States. Even China, which at one time handled more than half of the U.S. plastic (recycling and selling it back as products), also closed its doors to almost all plastic waste by 2017.

MAKING CHANGES

We cannot rely solely on cleanup efforts and recycling measures to stop the massive amount of plastic entering our ecosystem; we must rethink the model from linear to circular and redesign while recycling and reusing the plastic we have already produced. We need to change the lifecycle of plastic in every way from the inception and design of products, infrastructure, standardization, and waste management.

We recently covered the benefits of a circular economy for construction businesses. But for all of us, plastics are one of the most significant environmental areas to focus our efforts. If we adopt the circular approach to plastics, we can substantially benefit our economy, job creation, health, and the environment.

We must:

  1. Design out waste

  2. Keep plastic products and materials in use

  3. Help to protect and restore the environment

DESIGN OUT WASTE

Ways to reduce plastic waste begin with design; we must think about packaging and delivery methods, eliminate plastics that contain harmful polymers that cannot be recycled, and only design products that are 100% recyclable and reusable. Ultimately Good design and engineering help products last longer.

Design team Duku work to create many products that incorporate plastic and rubber materials; they suggest considering these points when looking to design new products:

  • Can the components be reused, and if not, can they be made of recyclable material?

  • Must they be made of plastic?

  • Is there an alternative?

  • Does the product's design make repair almost impossible without a complete replacement of the part?

  • Will it prevent the recovery of any valuable elements at the end of the product's life?

  • Consider modularity with shared products and components.

  • Challenge design teams to imagine developing the product from scratch and ask what they'd do differently.

  • Ask suppliers if their materials are ethically sourced.

  • Plan for the end of life when designing a product.

  • Consider consumer concerns - end-users actively choose ethical companies over others, so showcasing ethical design and material sourcing help companies become more viable.

KEEPING PRODUCTS IN USE

Businesses can increase their value chain if they can work to reduce materials and optimize for circularity. Still, to do this, they must invest in systemic change to achieve reduction targets in every area of the value chain. Ultimately they should choose to use bio-based products, components, and materials for positive environmental and economic benefits. One example is products and stores that offer refillable packaging by sanitizing and reuse. If we cannot reuse, then we can recycle. Thermoplastics become soft upon heating, so crucially, they can be melted again and reshaped in many cases. These plastics can be recycled and found in film/wrap, bottles, clothing, polystyrene, and many more products. If we release either of these plastics straight into the environment, they will not break down fully unless under very exceptional circumstances. That is why it is crucial to ensure that we put as much of our plastic waste into recycling programs to be carefully channeled for repurposing, and if we cannot reuse them, they must be specially handled.

HELPING TO PROTECT AND RESTORE THE ENVIRONMENT

We must ensure that recycling, reuse, and composting are not just theoretical but 100% part of everyday processes, but this will take a lot of infrastructure changes. And though changes to infrastructure and operations may not seem cost-effective at the outset, businesses will see rewards moving forwards. There can be many benefits to business models when they adopt the reuse of packages. Companies offer better quality, more functional products through innovative design. By standardizing products and logistics and dividing production costs over many uses, production and the supply chain are more cost-effective. If we implement the above changes, we can impact plastic waste to landfills and the environment. Businesses can also globally impact and accelerate system changes by working together. We must ensure that we share information and integrate systems. How we distribute and handle recyclable plastic is crucial.

WASTE HANDLING

The EPA states that 'In 2018, plastics generation was 35.7 million tons in the United States, which was 12.2 percent of MSW generation.

Businesses have responsibilities beyond the inception and creation of products; they must contribute to infrastructure for collecting and recycling them once they have no further use. From the early stages of design, they need to consider the product's viability in terms of its effectiveness to be, collected, sorted, reused, recycled, or composted. Companies can offer recycling services where customers return the product to harvest reusable parts and onward disposal. The goal is to keep plastics in the economy and out of our environment as much as possible. And to altogether decouple plastics from a linear model that uses finite resources, we need to ensure that production, transportation, cleaning, and recycling are powered using renewable energy.

For plastics sent for recycling and reuse, customers should use a reliable waste handling facility that works in conjunction with recycling plants that understand the complexity of plastic components. For instance, not all bio-based plastics (made from plant materials) are biodegradable; it depends on their design. If they are designed to be structurally identical to petroleum-based plastics, they can last in the environment just as long as other plastics. And fully compostable plastics are not intended for recycling; they can contaminate the recycling stream if intermixed with petroleum-based plastics.

We can consider this in terms of C&D waste and also waste produced in the home. The EPA states that even if a plastic item is listed as compostable, you should not try to compost it at home. Compostable plastic must be treated at a commercial composting facility with higher temperatures and different breakdown conditions than typically found in homeowners bins. So, though recycling and reuse is the intended goal for plastics, their varied composition makes this process complex. For this reason, it is best to trust your local recycling program for general recyclable goods and a trusted waste handler for other goods like plastic renovation debris. Companies like Yellowsack will deliver plastic goods to a reputable recycling plant knowledgeable about plastics. Yellowsack works with trusted recycling plants like Zanker recycling, facilitating the recycling and reuse of all construction and demolition debris and plastics classified under mixed debris and recycled in their second facility in San Jose. We offer competitive prices for Greater Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay area, Orange County, and San Diego with our flexible dumpster bags. You can find mixed debris costings for your area here.

GOALS

Plastics surround us, and they are here to stay; it's how we continue to clean up, design, use, reuse, dispose of and recycle them that will make the difference. The Ellen McCarther Foundation calculates that if we start to make impactful changes now, by 2040, we could see:

  • A reduction in plastics entering our oceans by 80%

  • A reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 25%

  • An annual saving of over 200 Billion U.S. Dollars

  • Creation of 700,000 additional jobs

So not only will our efforts help the environment, it will boost our economy our health and help give families hope by getting people back to work in jobs that have a positive impact on us all.

Yellowsack's work is underpinned by its desire to provide an excellent service and its environmental impact on renovation and construction waste handling. So far, we have reached an 81% recycling rate, but we strive to make that higher. The more C&D waste and plastic we can defer from landfills, the better for us all. Using our service, you too can be sure you are impacting the plastics problem.

Together we move.

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