PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
The manufacture, use and disposal of plastics poses a significant environmental problem. Global plastic production has increased twenty-fold since the 1950s, amounting to 381 million tonnes in 2015, around half of which is used for single-use purposes and food packaging. Less than 30% of the 25.8m tonnes of plastic waste produced annually in Europe is collected for recycling, with landfill and incineration being common practice. An estimated 1.5% to 4% of all plastic produced worldwide ends up in the sea each year, where they make up 80% of marine litter. Around 95% of the value of plastic packaging materials (or 70-105 billion per year) is lost to the economy.
OBJECTIVES
The ABSolutely Circular project will convert post-consumer PS waste into r-styrene with properties equivalent to those of virgin styrene. This material will then be incorporated into ABrS, which will be demonstrated in a 24 Lego brick. These bricks will serve as a tangible jumping-off point for communication and dissemination efforts on the environmental benefits and vast potential of chemical recycling. Specifically, the project aims to:
Demonstrate for the first time the incorporation of r-styrene into ABrS. Building on the success of initial tests, it will show that r-styrene can be used on a broad range of styrenic copolymers, specifically by incorporating r-styrene within acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) to yield ABS with a total of 60% recycled content (ABrS); Demonstrate the production of Lego bricks using ABrS, the first ABrS pilot consumer product. Lego bricks are currently produced from non-renewable fossil fuel resources, but the company has introduced a social responsibility strategy that seeks to find sustainable ABS solutions and thus reduce the environmental footprint of its bricks. The r-styrene will make up 60% of the composition of ABrS, meaning that its replacement will boost the recycled content of Legos bricks by up to 60%; and Assess the environmental and economic viability of chemical recycling (specifically depolymerisation) as an important element in the transition to a circular plastic economy; Environmental and economic assessment will provide a foundation from which to boost the adoption of ABrS across sectors and the uptake of chemical recycling as a complementary approach to other recycling methods; and The long-term plan is to scale up production to achieve the chemically recycling of 100 000 tonnes of PS waste by 2029.
The project contributes to the European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy by supporting plastic recycling rates in the EU and helping increase the competitiveness and resilience of the plastics industry. It also contributes to the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (94/62/EC) by increasing the recycling of municipal plastic waste, and to the Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC) by reducing the amount of waste in landfills.
RESULTS
Expected results:
A fully operational, demonstration plant for the chemical recycling of PS waste (estimated capital expenditure of 35 million); Production of enough r-styrene (with 99.7% purity) to allow the production of 500 kg ABrS. An estimated 675 tonnes of pure r-styrene will be produced during the project, which will also be used to produce 30% recycled PS (rPS); 500 kg ABrS granulate incorporating 100% r-styrene; Lego bricks made of ABrS for testing, consumer studies and communication; LCAs, mass balance certification and an economic feasibility assessment demonstrating the environmental and economic viability of chemical recycling of PS; rPS (up to 1 414.77 t) with 30% recycled content for further testing by INEOS customers; and An estimated 1,700 kg of post-consumer PS waste diverted from landfill, incineration or leakage (environmental pollution) over the course of the project in order to produce r-styrene.
