Chemical Engineering Department, University of Alicante, San Vicente del Raspeig Road, s/n, 03690 San Vicente del Raspeig, Alicante, Spain.
Olax22 SL, Artesanos Street, 4A, 03690 San Vicente del Raspeig, Alicante, Spain.
Waste Manag. 2018 Jul;77:413-425. doi: 10.1016/j.wasman.2018.04.023. Epub 2018 Apr 22.
Plastic flexible films are increasingly used in many applications due to their lightness and versatility. In 2014, the amount of plastic films represented 34% of total plastic packaging produced in UK. The flexible film waste generation rises according to the increase in number of applications. Currently, in developed countries, about 50% of plastics in domestic waste are films. Moreover, about 615,000 tonnes of agricultural flexible waste are generated in the EU every year. A review of plastic films recycling has been conducted in order to detect the shortcomings and establish guidelines for future research. This paper reviews plastic films waste management technologies from two different sources: post-industrial and post-consumer. Clean and homogeneous post-industrial waste is recycled through closed-loop or open-loop mechanical processes. The main differences between these methods are the quality and the application of the recycled materials. Further research should be focused on closing the loops to obtain the highest environmental benefits of recycling. This could be accomplished through minimizing the material degradation during mechanical processes. Regarding post-consumer waste, flexible films from agricultural and packaging sectors have been assessed. The agricultural films and commercial and industrial flexible packaging are recycled through open-loop mechanical recycling due to existing selective waste collection routes. Nevertheless, the contamination from the use phase adversely affects the quality of recycled plastics. Therefore, upgrading of current washing lines is required. On the other hand, household flexible packaging shows the lowest recycling rates mainly because of inefficient sorting technologies. Delamination and compatibilization methods should be further developed to ensure the recycling of multilayer films. Finally, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies on waste management have been reviewed. A lack of thorough LCA on plastic films waste management systems was identified.
由于其轻便性和多功能性,塑料软膜在许多应用中越来越受欢迎。2014 年,在英国生产的所有塑料包装中,塑料薄膜的比例达到了 34%。随着应用数量的增加,柔性薄膜废弃物的产生也在增加。目前,在发达国家,约 50%的生活垃圾是薄膜。此外,欧盟每年产生约 61.5 万吨农业用柔性废弃物。为了发现缺点并为未来的研究制定指导方针,对塑料薄膜的回收进行了综述。本文从两个不同的来源综述了塑料薄膜废物管理技术:工业后和消费后。清洁且均匀的工业后废物通过闭环或开环机械工艺进行回收。这些方法的主要区别在于回收材料的质量和应用。进一步的研究应集中在闭环上,以获得回收的最大环境效益。这可以通过在机械过程中最小化材料降解来实现。关于消费后废物,对农业和包装领域的柔性薄膜进行了评估。由于现有的选择性废物收集路线,农业薄膜和商业及工业用柔性包装通过开环机械回收进行回收。然而,使用阶段的污染会对回收塑料的质量产生不利影响。因此,需要升级现有的清洗线。另一方面,家庭用柔性包装的回收率最低,主要是因为分拣技术效率低下。应进一步开发分层和增容方法,以确保多层薄膜的回收。最后,综述了关于废物管理的生命周期评估(LCA)研究。发现对塑料薄膜废物管理系统的全面 LCA 研究还很缺乏。