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VSRD TECHNICAL & NON -TECHNICAL JOURNAL

IN TERNA TI ONA L JOUR NAL

VSRD-TNTJ, Vol. I (1), 2010, 30-34

ISSN No. 0976-7967

REVIEW ARTICLE REVI EW ARTICLE

PLASTIC WASTE AND ITS RECYCLING

1

Ashutosh Dubey*, 2Anurag Tewari and 3M.K. Chaturvedi

ABSTRACT
Plastic is one of the most used materials in today's world because of its properties as lightweight and durable material. Its popularity, however, is also its curse. We are using more plastic products than ever before and filling our landfills with plastic waste that does not biodegrade for centuries. Most common recyclable plastic products are beverage bottles used for water, soda and juice, plastic bags and plastic containers that come with many food products. Recycled plastic products save energy that would have been used to make plastic products from virgin materials. Manufacturing plastics from recycled plastic products uses only two-thirds of the energy used to make plastics from virgin materials. Keywords : Plastics, Biodegradable, Recycling and Waste Products

INTRODUCTION
Plastics are one of the major constituents of municipal solid waste (MSW).they are generally non biodegradable materials and cause severe problem in landfills. Numerous disadvantage of landfill sites containing plastics have been documented over the years. Plastics constitute approximately 3-7% of municipal waste. Presently, municipal garbage disposal departments bury the plastics along with the other materials in landfill without recognizing the ill effects. Landfills occupy large tracts of land and leach ate causes ground water pollution. Slow disintegration of materials. Gaseous emission odors, fire and explosion hazards are some of the problems associated with the land filling of plastics. Plastics waste could originate from four sources namely: residential, commercial, institutions, and industrialized country. Polymer or Plastics made up of polymers which are generally large molecules characterized by the repetition of monomers units. The repetitive monomers could be same type or differ and could be arranged in a systematic or random fusion. The applications of plastics depend up on its chemical and physical properties depend up on its chemical and tolerance for the environment. Polymer can be natural, altered natural or synthetic. Typical examples of natural polymers are cellulose. The basic fibrous material of wood, paper, cotton, linen, rubber and starch, Rubber finds numerous applications in automotive industry. Starch is main source of energy to human and could become basic raw material for manufacturing several industrial products such as corn syrup. Natural polymers could be processed to get biodegradable industrial plastics. Polymers generally are organic compounds. Alkanes such as ethane are subjected to severe heat treatment, raising thermal energy to such level that two hydrogen atoms are released and another unsaturated compound ethylene is formed. Ethylene molecule under heat and pressure react with each other to form polyethylene
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Research Assistant, UPCST Project, Department of Chemistry, Pranveer Singh Academy of Technology, Kanpur, 2Assistant Professor, Principal Investigator UPCST Project, Department of Chemistry, Pranveer Singh Academy of Technology, Kanpur, 3Scientist, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Nagpur, Delhi Zonal Lab, New Delhi *Correspondence : ashutoshdubey.2010@gmail.com

Ashutosh Dubey et. al / VSRD Technical & Non-Technical Journal Vol. I (1), 2010

-(-CH2CH2-)n-. Polyethylene (LDPE) and high density Polyethylene (HDPE), depending upon the reaction pressure and temperature.

SOURCES OF PLASTIC WASTE

There are many sources of plastic waste, municipalities are one of them. The term municipal solid waste (MSW) describes those waste materials that are collected by the municipality itself or by the authorized organization. The municipal solid wastes come from residential, commercial, institutional and industrial sources MSW consists of waste materials such as news paper, cans and bottles, food waste, food packaging, clothing, appliances, yard wastes, household hazardous waste, corrugated boxes, office papers and plastics film etc. MSW normally does not include processing residuals from the industry as this material has residual value and most of the industries will know the commercial method to dispose this material of some value. The respective part of each category in the MSW stream differs in various communities. Plastic wastes and plastic recycling can be classified as follows: Waste Plastic: Consists of plastic resin or product that must be reprocessed or disposed of Industrial Plastic: waste is generated by various industrial consumers. Post consumer Plastic: waste is generated by the consumer. Nuisance Plastic: Wastes are those that can not be processed under the existing knowledge and technology. Scrap Plastic: Waste is generated by fabricators or converters and can be re-processed. Waste plastics are recycled by four methods viz. primary recycling, secondary recycling, tertiary recycling and quaternary recycling is the processing of scrap plastics in to same or similar types of products of scrap plastics in to plastic goods with less demanding properties. In case the plastic wastes does not posses requisite quantity; tertiary processing of the waste done to recover chemicals. Unrecyclable waste is finally converted in to energy under controlled conditions. Fig-1 shows the flow of plastic waste, most of the plastic wastes generated by the resin manufacturer, compounder, fabricator, converter, distributor and recyclers. The consumer generates only nuisance plastics generated by industrial sectors in land fills or in incinerator.

Resin Manufactured Compounders Fabricators Converters Packagers/Assembler/ Distributor Consumer

Fig- 1: Sources of Plastic Waste

Scrap Plastic

Nuisance Plastics

CLASSIFICATION BASED UPON PHYSICAL NATURE The most common way of classifying polymer is outlined in fig-2 depending upon the molecular behavior with respect to the applied stress. They are classified in to three groups: thermoplastics, elastomers and thermosets.

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Polymers

Fig-2: Classification of Polymers

STRUCTURE OF THE PLASTIC INDUSTRY Everything in the plastic starts with crude oil or natural gas. Approximately 10% of crude oil processed is converted in to petrochemicals with half consumed in the fertilizers, solvents, lubricants and other industries. The remaining 5% are upgraded further in to monomers such as ethylene, styrene, polypropylene or vinyl chloride. The monomers are further upgraded in to polymers or plastic resins, such as polyethylene, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) and polypropylene.

Fig-3: Structure of Plastic Industry

Fig-3 shows schematically the structure of the plastic industry. The plastic industry consists of raw materials industry the polymers industry and the end products industry which are further supported by the chemical additives and fabricating equipment industry. Scrap plastics are processed with secondary resins by the secondary plastic industry sector. RECYCLING OF PLASTICS One of the great things about recycling is that this process helps to minimize the presence of waste materials in our environment. Because items such as glass, paper, and plastics are being reused to create new products, they do not end up taking up space in a landfill somewhere. Since most people are not interested in having a garbage dump located near their homes or offices, recycling make it possible to avoid creating newer and larger landfills that would otherwise be necessary to accommodate all the waste.

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While many people realize that recycling is good for the environment in terms of easing the demand on our limited resources, they may not realize that choosing to reuse and recycle items also make it possible to cut the cost of producing products significantly. For example, it takes anywhere from seventy-five to ninety-five percent less energy to produce aluminum cans from recycled products than it does to create them from raw materials. Thus, the importance of recycling not only extends to preserving raw materials but also to easing the energy needed to manufacture various goods. Another example of the importance of recycling has to do with the creation of new jobs. As more people recycle, the number of people required to collect, sort and process recycled items continues to grow. More jobs in the community means more money spent in local stores, more taxes collected for the city or town, and in general a healthier economy for everyone concerned. The importance of recycling also extends to maintaining a healthy balance in the ecology of the planet. By not having to mine raw materials in order to continue producing the same volume of products, there is less damage to our rivers, forests, and areas where wildlife is abundant. Since every form of life on the planet is dependent on the presence of another form of life, maintaining an ecological balance is the key to providing security for the generations to come or in other words sustainable development. In the first step of recycle operation, plastic waste is collected from various sources followed by separation. After separation, it is decided whether to follow primary or secondary recycle or go for tertiary or quaternary recycles. Fig-4 explains typical values of remaining waste to be land filled for the most common waste treatment technologies. It is important to understand that every solid waste treatment technology ends up with some remaining to be land filled. Think about all the reasons behind recycling the next time you begin to wonder if your meager contribution really makes a difference. The combined efforts of all people to recycle do in fact make a huge difference in our world.

Fig-4: Recycling of Plastics

REFERENCES [1] Anatole A. Klyosov, 2007, Wood-Plastic Composites John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.USA,. [2] ASTM Standard Standard D 638M-93, 2005, Test method for tensile properties of plastics,American Society for Testing and Materials, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,USA, [3] Cowie, J M G, Polymers: Chemistry & Physics of Modern Materials (2nd edition), 1991 p238-240

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[4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

Polymer Engineering and Science, 1995, 35 (2), p151-6 Journal of Applied Polymer Science, 1991, 43, p2147-50 Plastics, Rubber and Composites Processing and Applications, 1997, 26 (2), p83-90 Crawford, R. J., Cramez, M C., and Oliveira, M J., Journal of materials science, 1998, 33, p 4869- 4877. Modern Plastics, website url :- http://www.modplas.com/industry/outlook.htm, 1997. J. Utzig, M. Gebauer, 1997 A new perspective for plastic recycling to produce paraffin waxes from old plastic materials R97, Geneva, 5-2. [10] Plastic waste an alternative fuel source for cement production draft version, march 1997 (by: BCU, APME). [11] Waste Technology Waste to Energy Project in India, 2001, Asian and Pacific Centre for Transfer of Technology, New Delhi, Volume 5, Number 44,.

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