The Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR) has published a report designed to understand how pyrolysis might fit within a scalable recovery system for residential film and flexible packaging (FFP).
The findings illustrate that scaling the recycling of residential FFP back into recycled plastic is feasible but expensive. It would require ‘comprehensive and unparalleled supply chain coordination and investment’, the US-based association said.
The report includes estimates of the cost of collecting, primary sorting, transport, and secondary sorting a mixed FFP waste steam suitable for a pyrolysis facility that could then turn it into recycled resin suitable for use in new products. The study does not consider the costs of the pyrolysis process itself.
FFP packaging includes a broad array of snack packaging, pouches, bread bags and many other applications. The US generated around 12 million tons of FFP in 2019, only 4% of which was recovered for recycling. Approximately 6.5 million of the 12 million tons was generated by households compared to the commercial sector. However, according to APR only an estimated 3 million tonnes currently meet pyrolysis feedstock specifications, as a large amount of FFP formants are multi-material or multi-resin containing metals, PET, or EVOH.
“We intentionally focused this report on FFP packaging used by consumers in the home as opposed to more homogeneous post-commercial streams,” said Greg Janson, co-chair of the APR Chemical Recycling Research Working Group.” We know this to be a policy focus and a very challenging packaging stream to collect, sort, and recycle due to its light weight, diversity of materials, sizes, and formats,” he added.
The APR calculated that by 2030 there could 1.2 million tons of FFP collected for pyrolysis. The association made ‘optimistic’ assumptions to get to that figure. It assumed, for example, that all US states that have or are considering EPR schemes fully implement them and that those systems collect FFP that has been designed for recycling through kerbside collections. It also assumed a 30% capture rate from households that have kerbside programmes and a 15% capture rate from households required to use retail take back programmes. The APR also calculated losses at each stage of the recycling value chain, assumed at 35% at the first sorting stage, and 9.5% at the second.
With those assumptions in place, the APR concluded there would around 930,000 tons of FPP available for pyrolysis after sorting, 35% of which would be suitable for mechanical recycling. It would cost approximately $827 million to get that material collected, sorted, and transported into pyrolysis facilities. The cost per collected ton would be $689 and $889 per ton sorted.
The APR host these cost estimates can be used to drive the comprehensive design, policy, infrastructure, and technology investments to reach a higher recycling rate of FFP.