How to make plastic sustainable

New recycling methods are turning plastic, an environmental killer, into a valuable material. For example, the SynCycle project aims to recycle plastics an infinite number of times using a chemical recycling process. The aim is to return discarded plastic to the value chain and thus promote the transition to a circular economy.

Plastic waste threatens the livelihoods of many living creatures on our planet. We all have images in our heads of littered beaches and fish dying from microplastics in the oceans. But what to do with all the plastic, this waste material that is not only symbolic of our excessive consumer behavior?

One answer now comes from Austrian industry. A company in Carinthia has developed a technology with which plastic can be chemically recycled and thus further processed.

Recycling

It takes hundreds of years for plastic to decompose. This is why plastics such as plastic have been recycled and reused for some time now. In Germany, citizens are an active part of this recycling concept. They separate waste and dispose of plastics in the yellow garbage can. This means that the plastics can first be processed in the standard recycling process and can then be reused. The deposit system for PET bottles works in a very similar way. The current recycling process works mechanically and helps to avoid waste. However, there are limits to recycling. Heavily contaminated plastic and frequently recycled plastics are no longer recyclable after a certain point. The EU's ambitious goal of making all plastic packaging fully recyclable by 2030 is therefore difficult or impossible to achieve. Unfortunately, we cannot simply do without plastic as a raw material either.

SynCycle and chemical recycling

The company Next Generation Elements GmbH from Carinthia in Austria has developed a technology to chemically recycle plastic. By founding the overarching "SynCycle" project, the company and other companies from the region are pursuing the goal of recycling plastic an infinite number of times. The innovation consists of a chemical recycling process that reintegrates plastic that can no longer be used into the value chain. This mainly concerns plastics that are too dirty or moist to be mechanically recycled.

In the so-called pyrolysis process, the plastic is processed into an oil that can now be reused as a raw material for the production of high-quality plastic. In the process developed by SynCycle, the plastic is heated to a gaseous state at around 500 degrees and then processed into oil after cooling. Despite the high energy input, the new form of recycling also pays off in terms of energy in the end, explains graduate engineer Sven Wolf, CEO of Next Generation Elements GmbH: "Chemical recycling consumes less energy than the production of the raw material."

Even if waste materials continue to be produced, the chemical process would bring the industry closer to its long-term goal of creating an infinite recycling loop in which less plastic would have to be produced and possibly no plastic at all at some point. In the short term, SynCycle is already a success: The plastic that would previously have ended up in an incinerator, emitting additional CO2 and other pollutants, can now be efficiently returned to a circular economy. "Unwasting plastic" is not the credo of the SynCycle project for nothing. Plastic should become a valuable raw material, be more sustainable as a product and not simply remain waste.

Plastics cluster Carinthia

It is no coincidence that the technology was developed in Carinthia. In this industrial location in southern Austria, many companies and research institutions have committed themselves to the green transformation and are constantly thinking ahead in terms of the circular economy for plastics. The economic network is home to what is known as a cluster culture, in which sustainable technology solutions for the future are worked on together. This is why the location is also known as "Green Tech Valley".

SynCycle is another joint venture between regional industrial companies. The pilot plant developed for chemical recycling, for example, was built by Carinthian company KRUWE GmbH together with partners from Upper Austria. The entire region of Carinthia is striving for climate neutrality and is considered a European pioneer in the fight against climate change and for environmental protection. Innovations by local companies and close cooperation between research and industry are intended to help achieve this.

A valuable raw material?

The findings and innovations in the "circular economy" can help to better protect the climate and environment in the future. It is true that the most effective way to protect the environment is to avoid plastic waste and ideally not produce it in the first place. But mere avoidance strategies are only part of the solution. Condemning plastic in principle does not help.

We have to face up to the fact that plastic is in the world, says Next Generation Elements GmbH CEO Sven Wolf. The task now is to find ways to use the available raw material.

With its newly developed technology, the Carinthian company is helping to solve the question of how the flood of plastic can be better contained in the future. The process is still in its infancy. In order to be able to use the new approach on a large scale in other countries, European innovative strength is also required, says Wolf.