recycling

Recycling Plastics – Is it So Easy? | Aftan Sustainability Consultants

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Recycling Plastics Presents Challenges

Pennsylvania-based Sustainability and Lean 6σ Continuous Process Improvement Consultant and Lean 6σ Black Belt Lisa Peterson
Lisa Peterson is President of Aftan Engineering. Lisa is an expert Sustainability and Continuous Process Improvement Consultant with extensive experience in the plastics industry.

In the spirit of being environmentally responsible, we want to recycle our plastic waste.  But there are some challenges that we can face.

Recycling

  • for many products has a limited lifetime until the quality of the recycled material has fallen below acceptable levels.;
  • can take more energy and water than using virgin materials; and
  • lastly, facilities may be located far away resulting in huge transportation impacts even to get the products to the recycling facility.

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Reducing, Reusing, Recycling Waste… Sounds easy, but is it?

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Pennsylvania-based Sustainability and Lean 6σ Continuous Process Improvement Consultant and Recycling Expert Lisa Peterson
Lisa Peterson is an Expert Sustainability and Lean 6σ Continuous Process Improvement Consultant and Lean 6σ Black Belt.

Many times we think about the 3Rs (reducing, reusing and recycling waste) as the answer to sustainability and circularity.  But wait, it’s not so simple.

First, think about all the stakeholders involved across this topic.  There are many players

  • manufacturers;
  • supply chain;
  • customers;
  • infrastructure to handle the reuse such as transportation and sterilization;
  • infrastructure to handle recycling such as sorting and washing;
  • landfill infrastructure; and
  • lastly, energy recovery (trash-to-steam) infrastructure.

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