The World in 2030

The World in 2030 155
plastics 299 – polyethylene terephthalate and high-density
polyethylene. IX This is one reason for the selectiveness of
recycling programmes used in most countries.
As the Economist reported in June 2007:
Plastics, which are made from fossil fuels, are somewhat
different. Although they have many useful
properties – they are flexible, lightweight and can
be shaped into any form – there are many different
types, most of which need to be processed separately.
In 2005 less than 6% of the plastic from America’s
municipal waste stream was recovered. And of that
small fraction, the only two types recycled in significant
quantities were PET and HDPE. For PET,
food-grade bottle-to-bottle recycling exists. But plastic
is often ‘down-cycled’ into other products such as
plastic lumber (used in place of wood), drain pipes
and carpet fibres, which tend to end up in landfills or
incinerators at the end of their useful lives.
Even so, plastics are being used more and more, not
just for packaging, but also in consumer goods such
as cars, televisions and personal computers. Because
such products are made of a variety of materials and
can contain multiple types of plastic, metals (some
of them toxic), and glass, they are especially difficult
and expensive to dismantle and recycle. 300
IX
It is also possible to recycle other forms of plastics, e.g. PVC and EPS, but the ‘cherry picking’ approach
of the recycling industry currently offers fewer options for these materials.