Swedish researchers say plastic recycling delivers benefits

A plastic recycling company and a research institute say new research they have conducted “reveals major differences in climate benefits between different ways of recycling plastic packaging,” with mechanical sorting and recycling offering advantages.

The Stockholm-based IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, plastics recycling firm SvenskPlaståtervinning (Swedish Plastic Recycling) and life cycle analysis researcher Tomas Ekvall say material recycling through advanced sorting has a "significantly lower climate impact" than material recycling without sorting, or "downcycling."

“In fact, downcycling has almost as much climate impact as incinerating the plastic,” the consortium says.

The groups’ new report has been designed to highlight the need for stricter requirements and more adequate policy instruments.

The Swedish organizations call the study the first of its kind to compare different recycling methods for mechanical recycling through a comprehensive life cycle assessment, focusing on emissions throughout the plastics value chain,, including raw material extraction, material production, waste management and energy production.

The researchers compared what they call high-quality recycling through advanced sorting of different types of plastics against downcycling.

“The calculations of carbon dioxide emissions have been made based on three scenarios for the handling of plastic packaging from Swedish households (excluding deposit-covered PET)," they say.

The study is based in part on data from Svensk Plaståtervinning’s Site Zero facility in its headquarters city of Motala, Sweden, which the organization says is the world’s largest and most advanced sorting facility for plastic packaging.

“The results indicate that downcycling only reduces the climate impact by 4 percent compared to the reference scenario of incineration without material recycling,” the consortium says.

“When high quality recycling through advanced sorting is compared to the reference scenario, the climate impact is instead reduced by 27 percent,” adds Svensk Plaståtervinning and its allies.

“The results of the study show that high-quality recycling through advanced sorting is better for the climate than down cycling,” says Rickard Jansson, a development engineer at Svensk Plaståtervinning. “In addition to reducing emissions from incineration, this method makes it possible to reuse large parts of the recycled material in new plastic packaging or other high-quality plastic products. This reduces the need for new plastics from fossil raw materials, leading to more resource-efficient plastic use.”

The current regulatory framework for recycling discarded plastic packaging in Sweden prioritizes recycling over incineration but does not consider how different recycling methods affect the climate, resource efficiency and the possibility of increased circularity, say the study’s backers.

“Recognizing this, we urgently need to tighten requirements and introduce adequate instruments,” says Mattias Philipsson, CEO of Svensk Plaståtervinning. “High-quality recycling through advanced sorting must become the norm, otherwise we will lock ourselves into a linear economy with high climate impact and waste of resources.

“This will be crucial for Sweden to meet its climate targets, and for us to be able to supply the market with recycled raw material in accordance with EU requirements (such as the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, or PPWR). High-quality recycling through advanced sorting is a prerequisite for a circular plastics economy.”

The Swedish researchers say the report’s conclusions are relevant internationally, where it says the EU has already recognized that future recycling requirements need to be steered towards "high-quality recycling.”

The report, “Comparing high-quality recycling and downcycling of plastics - Calculating carbon footprints using a basket of functions approach,” is available through the IVL (Swedish Environmental Research Institute) website.