Q. Is recycling plastic bottles to make chairs the way to #BeatPlasticPollution and save the planet?
A. No.
Copyright: Australian Government
While the announcements by the Australian Government of opening many recycling plants for recycling plastics may be seen to be commendable, the accompanying images of recycled plastic bottles to make chairs actually demonstrate deficient knowledge in global developments about getting rid of plastic.
The UN Environment Programme works hard on projects designed to help eradicate plastic which is ‘choking our planet’ and runs a specific #BeatPlasticPollution campaign. A recent report by the agency made recommendations about essential inclusions into the global instrument to end plastic pollution, an instrument which Australia calls out its involvement in developing.
The UNEP said:
We must reduce the amount of plastic we produce and use. …recycling and enhancing waste management alone are insufficient to tackling this crisis.
Getting rid of plastic is not an easy task given the estimated growth of the market for PET products globally for both virgin plastic and recycled plastic.
But in addition to the UNEP directive there are some lessons and experiences to date which are strong indicators that the Australian Government focus needs to be on reducing and replacing plastic rather than recycling it.
What is PET? PET is most commonly used plastic
The most used virgin plastic material is made from oil and petrochemicals, called polyethylene terephthalate (PET), and used in 2 iterations:
- hard plastic for food and beverage packaging. Water and carbonated soft drink containers use this the most frequently;
- soft iteration for synthetic fabrics like polyester. More than 65% of fibres used in the fashion industry are polyester.
PET is advantageous to industries for numerous reasons like its durability and flexibility but it has significant environmental impacts.
PET products both hard and soft are not biodegradable. In landfill they leach toxic chemicals into the soil and release methane into the atmosphere, and they end up as pollutants in oceans and waters.
Polyester is a major contributor to microfiber pollution —tiny particles of plastic are shed into the air and waterways when polyester clothing is washed and worn.
Recycling of PET plastic
Closed loop recycling
PET plastic containers can be recycled 3 or 4 times into new bottles or containers without losing strength or durability. This is ‘closed loop’ recycling. The name given to recycled PET plastic is rPET.
In Australia there are a number of recycling projects set up by Governments- Commonwealth States and Territories – and by industry for different types of plastics and other materials.
For recycling PET products into similar products in ‘closed loop recycling’ which they call ‘bottle-to-bottle recycling’ there is Circular Plastics Australia (PET). It is a joint venture between Pact Group, Cleanaway, Asahi Beverages and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners and supported by funding from the Commonwealth Government, NSW Government and Victorian Government. In operation is a PET recycling facility in Albury-Wodonga NSW which commenced operations in March 2022. Under construction is a facility in Altona North in Victoria and scheduled for completion in 2023.
The website for the Albury-Wodonga plant states:
The plant recycles the equivalent of about one billion 600ml PET plastic bottles each year, turning them into new bottles and food packaging.
The plant has been in operation for just 18 months and the website contains no report about the actual productions from the plant or meeting the ‘one billion bottles each year’ target.
Overseas experience indicates that meeting ‘bottle-to-bottle’ targets is difficult because it is dependent on:
- consumers placing their used plastic bottles where they can be collected and recycled; and
- the quantity of rPET available for recycling into new plastic bottles being sufficient
In Europe, 58% of plastic bottles are recycled into rPET and going forward there is the view there will not be enough rPET available for recycling into new plastic bottles. The low quantity is attributed to the increasing number of clothing brands globally using rPET for making fabrics called ‘recycled polyester’ (‘open loop recycling’ discussed below) which are claimed to be sustainable and as evidence of the fashion industry ‘going green’:
Open loop recycling
Using hard plastic bottles and containers to recycle into different plastic-based products, such as soft textiles for fashion, is ‘open loop recycling’.
The first important point to note is that the fashion industry is using hard plastic rPET to make fabrics because recycling ‘textile to textile’ is not possible as the technology to do it has not been developed.
The sustainability claims of rPET for fashion as a positive step for the environment are regarded as questionable by many and potentially ‘greenwashing’:
- taking PET bottles away from being recycled into other bottles is breaking the ‘closed loop’ of recycling PET and reducing the amount of plastic bottles available for the bottle industry for recycling
- turning PET into rPET textile for clothes, accessories and other products is not good for the environment:
- the products are textile waste themselves.They are not recyclable, not biodegradable, most likely destined for landfill or oceans
- the problem of microplastics with polyester made from virgin PET does not go away with rPET The rPET fashion piece leaks microplastics into the environment
A recent announcement by toymaker Lego provides unequivocal support for ending ‘open loop recycling’ of PET. Lego is committed to making its plastic bricks, which are currently made with an oil-based product, in sustainable material by 2032. It has spent years testing rPET from plastic bottles as the replacement.
It recently announced its abandonment of rPET because making bricks from rPET, in addition to requiring investment in new expensive equipment, required a production process that would cause more emissions and ‘more plant-heating pollution than the status quo’.
Conclusion
Recycling plastic bottles to make chairs is not the way to #BeatPlasticPollution and save the planet. Recycling plastic bottles to make textiles for fashion brands is also not the way to go.
The focus of the Australian Government should be on technical and regulatory actions by industry to replace plastic rather than recycle it:
- eradicating plastics from polluting the environment requires developing the technologies to developing the materials to replace plastic materials
- as textile-to-textile recycling capacity is not currently possible, the attention should be on developing the technology for textile-to-textile recycling
- the need for Government regulation to rid plastic from industries and the environment, rather than an ill-researched reliance on ‘reycling’ and industry self-regulation, should be examined as a requirement for replacing plastic
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