Kahlert Sebastian, Bening Catharina R
Group for Sustainability and Technology ETH Zurich Zurich Switzerland.
J Ind Ecol. 2024 Dec;28(6):1926-1939. doi: 10.1111/jiec.13578. Epub 2024 Oct 28.
To fight plastic pollution and reach net-zero ambitions, policy and industry set goals to increase the recycling of plastics and the recycled content in products. While this ideally reduces demand for virgin material, it also increases pressure on recyclers to find suitable endmarkets for the recyclate. This may lead to two effects: a multiplication of recycled content in applications already made of plastic and a substitution of non-plastic materials with cheap, low-quality recyclate. Both areas of application may be sources of microplastic (MP) pollution. Combined with the inherent degradation of recyclate during its lifecycle, but also during recycling, we expect the increase in recycled content will subsequently lead to an increase in MP pollution. We propose a framework to investigate the risk of MP generation through plastic applications throughout their subsequent lifecycle of production, use phase, and end of life. We apply the framework to two prominent examples of recyclate endmarkets, that is, textiles and wood-plastic, and point out where the degradation effects can cause higher release. To conclude, we outline a research agenda to support policymakers in their decision making on specifying targets for recycling and recycled content.
为应对塑料污染并实现净零目标，政策制定者和行业设定了增加塑料回收利用及提高产品中回收材料含量的目标。理想情况下，这会减少对原生材料的需求，但同时也给回收商带来了压力，要求他们为回收物找到合适的终端市场。这可能会导致两种影响：一是在已由塑料制成的应用中，回收材料的使用量增加；二是用廉价、低质量的回收物替代非塑料材料。这两个应用领域都可能成为微塑料（MP）污染的源头。再加上回收物在其生命周期内，以及在回收过程中本身就会发生降解，我们预计回收材料含量的增加随后将导致微塑料污染的增加。我们提出了一个框架，用于研究在塑料应用从生产、使用阶段到生命周期结束的后续整个过程中产生微塑料的风险。我们将该框架应用于回收物终端市场的两个突出例子，即纺织品和木塑材料，并指出降解效应可能导致更高微塑料释放的地方。最后，我们概述了一项研究议程，以支持政策制定者在确定回收利用和回收材料含量目标方面的决策。
