December 3, 2024

Reimagining the Plastics Ecosystem for Circularity

By Benjamin Porter, Sustainability Business Development Manager

The chemical industry is undergoing a seismic shift. Driven by a confluence of new regulations and industry-led initiatives, the path toward a circular economy is becoming a reality. Some of these drivers include the European Green Deal, Ecodesign for Sustainable Product Regulation, the imminent End-of-Life Vehicle Directive, and Plastics Europe’s Plastics Transition roadmap. Amid this convergence, it is becoming increasingly clear that recycling is a cornerstone to building a more sustainable future, and that collaborations are necessary to the transition to a circular economy.

At Trinseo, we are actively fostering new circular business models, including hosting roundtable innovation days with our value chain and potential new partners, such as waste collectors, recyclers, converters, confectioners, and OEMs. These open dialogues between those interested in creating circular business models based on local feedstocks have helped us forge new pathways for recycling technologies, including exploring new pilot projects. We are starting to realize that collaboration amongst the value chain requires a more cooperative and collaborative approach than in the past: Only together can we work on building new circular ecosystems.

Closing the Loop

Europe generates 4.9 million tons of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)-based each year, but less than 2% of this plastic components are reintroduced as feedstock for new products. With today's recycling set-up for WEEE waste, it is challenging to recapture plastics, in particular obtaining plastic fraction, that have been subjected to shredding and consequently cross-contaminated with foreign material (metals, glass, textiles, wood, etc.).

At Trinseo, we have identified new opportunities to capture and better valorize the plastic fraction by adjusting our established recycling processes. New approaches like dissolution-based recycling or depolymerization play a vital role for polymers such as polystyrene, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, polycarbonate and polymethyl methacrylate. In our eyes, these new recycling routes complement mechanical recycling. Depolymerization and dissolution – in particular the latter - require little sorting and treatment and can enable us to select the polymer of choice WITHOUT touching other components (like PCBs, copper cables, magnets, etc.) or even other polymers. This could open up a new cascading approach.

Ultimately, these complementary technologies will support a circular economy that enables us to recycle a complete end product, not just a single material solution. In a circular economy, a final product – like a refrigerator or computer – could be disassembled in a controlled, cascaded manner at its end of life, then sorted per material category so more raw materials are separated and reintroduced to make new or even closed-loop products.

Our current linear system is not set up to support this shift. As we look to create more circular models, we need to think about what partners might be missing from the existing value chain and forge new partnerships.

Evolving Waste Regulations

While creating a circular economy does rely quite heavily on partnerships, it also depends on regulations that could spark or inhibit innovation. Recapturing waste is one of the biggest challenges we face, especially in Europe.

Hazardous waste shipment is regulated at the national or even at a regional level, which means that waste (and the different types of waste) must be managed on a country-by-country basis, with increased bureaucracy burdens for transport to recycling facilities in other regions of the continent. An example of this is WEEE plastic fraction, which is classified as hazardous waste under current UNEP regulations (Stockholm & Basel conventions).

As the chemical industry continues to work toward a more circular economy, we need to build new circular ecosystems that are no longer reliant on linear models. This can only happen if we consider harmonizing regulations so that sustainability directives are synchronized, reducing fragmentation.

Building these circular ecosystems will require out-of-the-box thinking, new partnerships and advocating for unified legislation. But the drive to innovate and develop recycling technologies is there. We have seen this with Trinseo’s value chain partners, who are eager to work together to explore new pathways and partnerships.

However, it is going to take more than our industry and our existing partners. We need to think about the end markets we serve and take a holistic approach to circularity so that more materials can be recycled. There is much work to do in the coming years to build the ecosystems that will support broader recycling. Only together can we revolutionize our industry for a more sustainable future for plastics.