WaPiC - Waste Plastics in Chemical recycling

塑料和塑料垃圾已经成为我们社会关注的主要问题。自BBC的《蓝色星球》节目播出以来，公众、媒体、名人、政府、非政府组织和企业都把焦点放在了我们日常生活中使用的塑料的去向上。尽管这些高度关注，英国的塑料回收水平总体上仍然很低，大部分被填埋或焚烧。对于某些类型的塑料，如软包装，很少有这种材料被收集、分类和回收。与此同时，对再生塑料的需求也在不断增加，产品制造商积极寻找英国合适的再生塑料供应，以取代原始聚合物和昂贵的进口。由Fiberight公司交付的WaPiC（废塑料化学回收）项目将评估并展示塑料问题的解决方案。Fiberight将合并、分类和测试净化策略，以从混合废物中生产需求清洁的可回收塑料流；帮助英国在实现净零目标的前提下增加资源回收。虽然有必要增加塑料的机械回收，但这种途径有局限性，因为；承接市场规模、回收利用的最终用途范围狭窄、监管障碍、技术再制造挑战以及公众对某些产品中的废物来源材料的接受程度。因此，WaPiC将探索从混合废物流中回收塑料，作为化学回收的合适投入，并作为机械回收过程的补充技术。这一战略将使从残余废物中回收和循环利用更大一部分塑料。化学品回收被价值链中的许多人视为克服机械回收相关挑战的一种方式。主要的好处是：能够产生相当于原始的再生塑料，用于广泛的最终用途应用，包括食品接触包装；并回收更广泛的塑料材料（柔性和刚性塑料），用于增值应用。

Plastics and plastic waste have become a major concern for our society. Since the BBC's Blue Planet programme, the public, media, celebrities, governments, NGOs and businesses have all turned the spotlight on to what happens to the plastics we all use in our daily lives. Despite these high levels of concern UK recycling levels for plastics remain low overall, with the majority being landfilled or incinerated. For some types of plastic, such as flexible packaging, very little of this material is collected, sorted and recycled. In parallel there is increasing demand for recycled plastics, with product manufacturers actively searching for UK supplies of suitable recycled plastics to replace virgin polymer and costly imports.The WaPiC (Waste Plastics in Chemical recycling) project, delivered by Fiberight, will assess and demonstrate a solution to the plastic problem. Fiberight will amalgamate, sort, and test purification strategies for producing in-demand clean plastic recyclable streams from mixed-waste; helping the UK to increase resource recovery within the net-zero ambition.Although a necessity exists to increase mechanical recycling of plastics, this pathway has limitations due to; off-take market size, narrow range of end-use applications for the recyclate, regulatory hurdles, technical re-manufacturing challenges and public acceptance of waste-derived materials in certain products.WaPiC will therefore explore the recovery of plastics from mixed-waste streams as a suitable input for chemical recycling and as a complementary technology to mechanical recycling processes. This strategy will enable the recovery and recycling of a larger portion of plastics from residual waste.Chemical recycling is being seen by many in the value-chain as a way of overcoming the challenges associated with mechanical recycling. Key benefits are: the ability to generate virgin-equivalent recycled plastics for use in a wide range of end-use applications including food contact packaging; and recycling of a wider range of plastic materials (flexible and rigid plastics), for value-added applications.