The reuse of plastic waste has always been an important challenge for the renewable resources industry. With the rapid development of the plastics industry, the utilization of waste plastics has become an important means of effective energy saving, emission reduction and environmental protection, and has received attention at home and abroad.
Recycled plastic refers to the re-making of plastic raw materials by physical or chemical methods such as melt granulation and modification after pretreatment of waste plastics, cleaning, sorting, etc., which are applied to textiles, food and beverage packaging, home building materials and other fields, which is one of the ways of sustainable development of plastics to achieve the purpose of energy conservation and environmental protection.
When developed countries promote the utilization of waste plastics, the dual carbon strategic plan clearly regulates the behavior of enterprises and individuals through legislation on the one hand, and improves the public's awareness and activities of environmental protection and development through social publicity on the other hand.
The recycled plastic industry chain is mainly divided into three links: front-end plastics, mid-end plastic recycling and back-end recycled plastic utilization. Among them, the front-end includes professional merchants and community pointsMid-end players include carriers, equipment vendors, etc.;There are many participants in the back-end recycled plastic utilization process, including manufacturers of various types of plastic products.
At present, global plastic production has consumed 4%-8% of global oil consumption, and petroleum-based degradable plastics cannot be regenerated after being decomposed into carbon dioxide, methane and water, which is a waste of non-renewable resources such as oil. Plastics and some petroleum-based degradable plastics are the back-end products of petroleum, and plastics can be reused into all aspects of production through physical or chemical means after regeneration, and the consumed petroleum raw materials can be recycled.
The treatment of waste plastics and the treatment of waste plastics will help solve the shortage of raw materials and environmental pollution in our country. There is a shortage of plastic raw materials in China, a large amount of imports, and a very low utilization rate of waste plastics. With the continuous improvement of China's domestic waste treatment system and the popularization of harmless treatment technology, filling and combustion are no longer an important way to deal with waste plastic products, and the proportion of incineration power generation will also be greatly increased, so that the possibility of plastic products utilization has been further increased.
At present, the most important treatment methods for waste plastics at home and abroad mainly include landfill, energy (incineration), physical utilization and chemical utilization. Only through physical and chemical utilization can the whole life cycle of "plastic raw materials, plastic products, consumption, and recycled plastics" be realized.
Among them, physical technology is the core of the current plastic utilization industry. In view of the current mature and emerging 9 first-class utilization technologies in the industry, focusing on applicability, product performance, efficiency and sustainability, integration, scope and scalability, etc., extraction technology and catalytic cracking technology will be the main development direction of the future first-class technology.