Advanced plastic sorting key to reduce emissions, finds report

Downcycling of plastic has limited climate benefit in terms of emissions, claim researchers in Sweden.

High-quality material recycling through advanced sorting has a significantly lower climate impact than material recycling without sorting, also known as downcycling, according to a new report.

Co-authored by the Swedish Plastic Recycling Institute and lifecycle assessment (LCA) researcher Tomas Ekvall, the assessment finds major differences in climate benefits between the various approaches to mechcanically recycling plastic packaging.

The results indicate that downcycling reduces the climate impact against direct incineration by only 4%, compared to high-quality recycling that reduces it by 27%.

The environmental research institute claims to be the first to compare different methods for mechanical recycling through an LCA that focuses on emissions throughout the plastics value chain.

Carbon dioxide emissions have been calculated for three scenarios of handling plastic packaging from Swedish households, excluding deposit-covered PET.

1. Reference scenario: Direct incineration with energy recovery
2. Downcycling: Mixed plastic waste is recycled without sorting into railway sleepers
3. High-quality recycling through advanced sorting: Sorting of mixed plastic waste to recycle each plastic type, based on what is technically and practically possible