The Recycling of Plastic is a Controversial Issue

“The Recycling of Plastic is a Controversial Issue”


Plastic has become very popular in our society as it is mostly used for packaging and storage, for example, using them as grocery bags. Plastic is known to be the second most common culprit of “garbage crisis” as they were designed to be used once and then discarded. In contrast, although plastics account for less than 10% of the mass of garbage, they make up more than one-third of its energy content.
Recently, plastics have now been collected and recycled, especially by making manufactures legally responsible for recycling the plastic that they have made and used in their products. However, there has been a controversial issue about the unused, recently synthesized from fossil fuels, material used to make plastics is a low-cost material that is made relatively low-cost raw material, namely natural gas and crude oil. This, therefore, shows that the minimum amount of energy is used compared to the amount used to produce aluminum or steel from its raw materials. The cost of clean used plastic and converting it back into its monomers so it can again be polymerized is substantial compared to the current cost of oil. [1]
Many of those in the plastic industry claim that the natural way to dispose of the plastic is to simply burn them and make use of the energy created in the process, especially as everyday people burn the oil produced for vehicles, domestic furnaces, and power plants. Experiments that have been carried out conclude that a material in domestic garbage burn more cleanly, reducing the need for fossil fuels to be added. [1]
Some of the combustion processes of some plastics, such as Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), produce toxic compounds and releases’ hydrogen chloride gas, (HCL), which dissolves easily in water and is extremely corrosive when in-contact with moisture. If the hydrogen chloride gas attacks mucous membranes, which are very moist areas, it can damage the lungs when inhaled.
There are four main ways of recycling plastic. One way is to reprocessing the plastic by re-melting it or re-shaping it so that new, different products can be made from them. Another way is to depolymerize the plastic back to its component monomers by a chemical or thermal process so that it can be polymerized again to form new products. Transforming the plastics into a lower quality substance so that other products can be made is another way of recycling plastic This is done by wither heating the plastic at a high temperature or reacting the plastics with oxygen and steam to produce synthesis gas. The last way of officially recycling plastic is to burn it to obtain “energy recycling”.
Recycling plastic, in my opinion, has become a very issue in the United States and around the world. Many countries have very strict rules of disposing their garbage. In some states in the United States, people are paying a few extra cents for the plastic bottles they buy. However, if they return their bottles back to a bottle bank, they receive their money back. This encourages people to recycle, which I think is a very good idea. Also, industries have began to give each household separate garbage bins for different items. For example, in the United Kingdom, 32 sets of garbage bins are given as well as a box. One is for standard garbage and the other garbage bin is for gardening waste such as grass cuttings. The box is for recycling items such as plastics, glass bottles and paper. It shows that the procedure of recycling is beginning to work; however, some people still do not follow the directions given in recycling.


Synthesis Gas - is the name given to a gas mixture that contains varying amounts of carbon monoxide and hydrogen generated by the gasification of a carbon containing fuel to a gaseous product with a heating value. Examples include steam reforming of natural gas or liquid hydrocarbons to produce hydrogen, the gasification of coal and in some types of waste-to-energy gasification facilities. The name comes from their use as intermediates in creating synthetic natural gas (SNG)and for producing ammonia or methanol. Synthesis gas is also used as an intermediate in producing synthetic petroleum for use as a fuel or lubricant via Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and previously the Mobil methanol to gasoline process.


[1] Braid. Chemistry in Your Life. 2nd ed. New York, USA: W.H.Freeman and Company; 2006. pp 190-192.