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1. INTRODUCTION
Now global warming attack our earth, it is caused by green house effect, air
pollution, waste disposal, waste paper, etc. That causing give an impact in our environment
namely climate change and rare plants. But in a little scale what we should do for saving our
earth is recycling waste disposal such as solid waste, liquid waste, radioactive waste, etc.
So, the writer wants to give an information how does the recycling of plastic? And how
importance recycling of plastic to our environment?
Plastics are synthetic organic polymers, mainly made from petrochemical feedstocks.
Since the invention of the first plastic or polymer in the early 1900s (i.e. Bakelite), and the
development of polyethylene in the 1930s, the number of plastics has increased
dramatically, and so has their use. As society has steadily increased its use of plastics, plastic
waste management has become a growing concern around the world. Today, about 280 Mt
of plastics are produced annually. The key producers of plastics are China (23%), Europe
(21%), North America (20%) and the rest of Asia (excluding China; 21%). Plastics offer many
advantages for specific applications. Plastics are easy to shape, do not corrode or
decompose only slow ly a nd the characteristics can be adap ted to the specific needs by
using composites or adding specific layers or additives. From that recycling of plastics is one
of the key strategies to reduce the enviromental problems related to plastic waste. And
plastic recycling will reduce reliance on fossil fuels [1].
In this chapter, we will first discuss trends in plastic consumpti on, and types of
plastics used. This is followed by a description of the current situation with respect to
plastics in the waste stage and recycling. We primarily focus on the effect to enviroment,
using of the key recycled plastics as an example PET, and we end with some concluding and
opportunities of plastics recycling.
2. USE OF PLASTICS
There is a huge kind of plastics, and the applications are extremely wide. In the EU15 member states, packaging are dominant user of plastic (38%), followed by building and
construction, household wares, automotive, electronics, and a variety of application. It will
show in the figure 2.1 about distribution of application of plastics. There are many types of
plastics. Plastics can be divided in thermoplast and thermosets. Thermoplast do not make a
chemical change when heated and can be molded again. The kind of thermoplast are
polythylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). PE can
be classified in high density polyethylene (HDPE), low-density polyethylene (LDPE), and
linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE). Thermosets can melt and take shape once, e.g.
after solidification they stay solid. Polyyurethane (PUR) is one of the most used thermosets.
Recycling thermosets is harder and can only be done in a chemical process. Figure 2.2
depicts the key plastics types used in the EU-27. Some plastic types are used predominantly
in spesific applications. For example, the use of PVC in packaging has been reduced in many
countries but in the packaging markets PE, PP, PET, and PS dominate. It is showed in Table
2.1.
4. CONCLUSIONS
From that research we can conclude plastic recycling is still limited compared to
the most other bulk materials. Many countries around the world is increasing the
rates of recycling of plastics. The mean lifetime of plastics in most applications is
found to be approximately 7.1 years and characteristic time for phasing in the
recycling scheme is 5 years. Finally, currently a large part of the recovered plastic
is down cycled, or used as fuel to generate energy in industrial processes.
5. REFRENCES
From web (2015, March 15) http://www.leeds.gov.uk/residents/Pages/How-to-useyour-green-recycling-bin.aspx
From web (2015, March 15) http://www.recyclenow.com/what-to-do-with/paper