Recycled plastic and its challenges

Plastic is an extremely versatile material, making it a popular choice in many applications.

However, it is also a material that takes a long time to decompose in nature, making its disposal a major problem. Recycling is one of the most effective solutions to reduce environmental impact, but the recycling process presents many challenges.

There are a wide variety of plastic materials, and before they can be recycled, they need to be separated by material and processed in different ways.

Different chemical compositions can be found within the same material, which makes it difficult to recycle in many cases. In addition, some plastics contain additives that make recycling difficult.

Beyond the composition of the plastics, another problem is that they may contain dirt, product residues, adhesives, glue, etc. Most plastic recycling programs require that this cleaning be properly carried out before recycling can begin. In many cases, it is not possible for companies to carry out these tasks, and the transport of plastic material to equipped facilities increases costs and reduces efficiency.

One material that cannot be used for the food sector if recycled is polypropylene, as it is not viable in terms of production.

There are cases of technical recycled materials such as ABS or ASA, which historically could not be used for the automotive industry and are slowly being promoted for this use.

At SCT-Straw this is a problem that we are very aware of and we are in a process of continuous learning and change to improve step by step.