Plastics Recycling and The Need For Bio-Polymers
By: Almitra H.
Indians have a remarkably small
ecological footprint compared to citizens in advanced countries.
Non-biodegradable waste in large Indian cities averages just 50 – 100 gm per
capita per day, compared to 1-2 kg in the West. Sadly, this is often disparaged
as “backwardness” or under-development, rather than recognizing and
appreciating the natural conservation culture of Indians, who will repair and
use appliances and cars for years, hand down clothing to relatives or servants,
waste no food, and even save paper and string for re-use. However, the sheer
abundance of thin-film plastics has broken this habit. The sheer availability
of not just carry bags, but bread wrappers, packaging of fresh foods and
provisions like rice, dal etc, shrink-wrap, micro-packs of cosmetics and pan
parag etc is far beyond the need or capacity of families to re-use them. So
they get thrown away, and this has overwhelmed the ability of cities to handle
this waste. Only low gauge low-value plastic is a problem, as milk pouches etc
are rarely thrown away; they still find their way directly to waste buyers.
Organic waste has been a
valuable resource for centuries, returning nutrients and micronutrients to the
soil in a sustainable cycle. For this reason, the composting of biodegradable
municipal waste is now mandatory for every urban local body under the MSW Rules
2000. But thin-film plastic packaging is creating a major problem.
In 1993 it was estimated that
1.5-2% by weight of municipal waste reaching the dumpsites and compost plants
is thin-film plastic. Some recent estimates are as high as 7-9%. What is worse
is, that regardless of the weight content in waste, by volume thin plastics are
equal to or even more than the volume of compost produced. The capital cost and
operating cost of machinery to separate out plastics from processed waste
currently makes the compost unaffordable high-priced for farmers.
Almost all plastics are in fact
recyclable, but are not recycled in practice. Why not? We need to study this,
and see whether, where and how biodegradable plastics can substitute the
RECYCLING GIVEN LEGAL
Waste picking is a
well-established urban-survival tactic in mega-cities that act as magnets for
the poorest, and recycling is a flourishing business in the informal sector in
India. It supports up to 0.5 % of the population in million-plus cities, and
saves the city 10-15% of its total waste management costs through reduction in
waste volumes handled. Yet small-scale cottage industry recycling is still a
mostly unauthorized twilight activity as recyclers often operate behind closed
windows and doors and avoid registration.
WHAT IS RECYCLED?
i) Thin-film plastic
Today, India’s landscapes are
littered with so much thin plastic that many citizens desire a total ban on its
use, with some initial success that fades with time. Since a few hundred
carry-bags are required to make a kilo of saleable scrap, it is simply not
economical for waste-pickers to collect such ultra-thin waste, even if it is 20
micron or more, so it remains in the garbage in increasing quantities.
This will change as soon as
higher prices for waste-pickers are possible, say Rs 5 per kg to a rag picker.
This may happen because the year 2002 has seen an exciting new use for such
waste. The KK Process chops thin-film road-waste into tiny flakes, and its
customized dosing machine can introduce this light fluff uniformly into viscous
bitumen in hot-mix plants. Tests at Bangalore and the Indian Road Research
Centre proved that resultant roads will have as much as three times better life
and resistance to both heat, cold, rutting and cracking.
ii) PET bottles
Globalisation has flooded
Indian cities with packaging that is theoretically recyclable but is not in
practice recycled. PET bottles for soft drinks and mineral water are the
biggest problem, as they end up in gutters and block surface and underground
drains, causing flooding in low-lying areas and enormous economic loss
annually, especially to the poorest that normally live in the worst-affected
areas. The US and EU have stringent laws for take back of such wastes, so they
dump their PET waste almost free in India for recycling mainly by IOC’s Futura
Industries at Chennai. They recycle this and post producer waste from PET
bottle factories, leaving our own post-consumer waste uncollected and
unrecycled, because we have no laws at present to prevent such waste dumping
into the country.
WHAT IS NOT RECYCLED?
These popular and convenient
multi-film juice cartons, made of cardboard-plastic- film-metal-foil
combinations are hard to recycle conventionally. Worldwide, Tetrapaks are
converted into a hardboard product in very many countries.
Presently there is no recycling
market for Tetrapaks. There are already machines which pulp and strip the paper
portion of the LDPE films for recycling them, but the foil layer interferes
with recycling of either the paper or the plastic layers. It is worth exploring
whether metallised biopolymer films can substitute for the existing layers, to
make the whole multi-film product more recyclable. This application should be
technically easy, because the bio-polymer is sandwiched between other layers
and is not exposed to liquids or light.
ii) Multi-film packaging,
Metallised-film packaging for
biscuits, chips and namkeens are a similar major problem waste. The problem is
made worse by hundreds of products packaged in tiny 5-10-gram pouches, mostly
metallised or heavily printed, that are physically impossible to collect at
all. If trials prove that BOPP (like unrecyclable Coke-Pepsi labels) or
metallised BOPP can also improve the tackiness and durability of asphalt roads,
a better street price may make them worth collecting. Micro-packaging sachets
are the most needed and most promising mass market for biopolymers. This is
technically a difficult application that requires research, because these
sachets are invariably hung up for display and exposed to light and perhaps
rain. Their shelf life is also fairly long, posing a challenge to biopolymer
EPS or Expanded Poly-Styrene is
rarely recycled in India, mainly because so much of this ends up as dispersed
bulky waste thrown out from homes or offices that buy equipment packaged in
this. Worldwide, the foamed polystyrene packaging for TVs, computers, washing
machines etc is being replaced by pulp shapes, or ingeniously folded cardboard
shapes, or bubble-plastic, or, literally, packets of biodegradable popcorn.
This is in response to a ban on the use of polystyrene packaging in 20 US
States, with Europe following. If biopolymers can be foamed, this is a
worthwhile niche worth exploring.
iv) Use-and-throw Catering
Tea-and-coffee cups, ice cream
and yoghurt cups etc are made of HIPS (high impact poly-styrene), which is
recyclable. The problem here is not the recyclability, but the sheer bulkiness
of scattered cups, which again are not worth a rag picker’s effort to collect
and sell. The problem is even worse for railway meals, where all such cups get
thrown out of the windows all along the tracks. This is an application that
badly needs biodegradable plastics. It is technically very easy, as the
products are exposed to light and liquids for a very brief period. It is also
important to promote or even require the use of biopolymer disposables at
tourist spots, in sanctuaries etc.
v) e-Waste from the
Recycling mobile phones,
computer hardware and the control panels in equipment like washing machines is
an extremely complex recycling issue, and technically very difficult, because
of the tremendous range of equipment involved and the huge number of different
materials that are made into the composites which go into a single piece of
equipment, or even a single chip. Currently, most e-Waste is burnt in bulk to
recover the trace quantities of gold, silver, platinum, copper etc present in
different components. In the process, the PVC coating on very thin connecting
wires gets burnt too, forming deadly dioxins. Non-chlorinated substitutes for
PVC insulating coatings do exist, but are not used because they are somewhat
costlier than PVC. In spite of this, their use should be made mandatory in
order to improve the eco-friendly recyclables of the products, which use such
Biopolymers could be explored
if any exist that have good insulating properties, are cost-effective, and can
be disintegrated in acidic or alkaline media to recover the copper wires
WHERE NOT TO USE
A moneymaking racket is going
on in cities like Pune, where degradable bags are required to be used for
biomedical waste management. Since this is destined for almost immediate
incineration, it is totally meaningless to insist on or require the use of
either degradable or biodegradable bags. The bags only need to be chlorine-free
like the usual LDPE or HDPE bags. Such unethical commercial exploitation needs
to be put a stop to, otherwise it will give biopolymers in general a bad name.
On the technical front, some
research is currently going on to make PVCs degradable through the blending of
biopolymer components. This is disastrous, and the question needs to be asked,
Why PVC items need to be made degradable. PVCs and similar chlorine or halogen
containing polymers, when in contact with organics in soil, generate dioxins in
situ. This will get accelerated if the PVC is broken down over time into minute
fragments. Presently there is hardly any PVC to be found in general municipal
waste because (like milk pouches) it fetches a high price from waste-buyers (kabadiwalas)
and is very extensively recycled.
ECO-LABELLING NEEDS REFORM
India launched ‘Ecomark’ as a
voluntary eco-labelling scheme from 1992 onwards for up to 14 industry
categories to encourage industry to adopt eco-friendly production methods and
consumers to pursue sustainable consumption patterns. Unfortunately, not a
single Indian or foreign industry has “volunteered” to sign up.
There is need for streamlining
and reforming the whole Ecomark procedure. Once it catches on, biopolymers can
find a place in the packaging of Ecomark products, because their packaging
aspects also figure in the granting of the Ecomark.
India urgently needs policy
concepts and legal requirements like those in the EU countries and USA to
prevent its cities from drowning in non-biodegradable waste. There is need for
new legislation and market strategies in the Indian context to promote product
stewardship, producer responsibility and waste minimization. Many lessons can
be drawn and adapted from similar legislation around the world. It is only a
matter of time before India is required to adopt waste minimization and
eco-friendly packaging rules. So there is a need to study the US, EU and other
world legislation on biopolymers and draft suitable legislation for
consideration by our lawmakers from now.
Mrs. Almitra H Patel is a
Member, Supreme Court Committee for Solid Waste Management, 50 Kothnur, Bagalur
Rd, Bangalore 560077