Traded Plastic, Traded Impacts?: Designing Counterfactual Scenarios to Assess Environmental Impacts of Global Plastic Waste Trade

The global trade of plastic waste has raised environmental concerns, especially regarding pollution in waste-importing countries. However, the overall environmental contribution remains unclear due to uncertain treatment shares between handling plastic waste abroad and domestically. Here, we conduct a life cycle assessment of global plastic...

Mechanical Recycling of Autoclave Laminated Plastic: Towards Sustainable Waste Management

Introduction: The environmental impact of singleuse medical plastics is a growing concern. One such plastic component, autoclave laminated plastic (ALP), commonly used in medical sterilization pouches, is typically discarded after use, but it holds potential for recycling. This research paper investigates the feasibility and effectiveness of...

Integrated synthesis, modeling, and assessment (iSMA) of waste-to-resource alternatives towards a circular economy: The case of the chemical recycling of plastic waste management

The need to transform economic models to implement a circular use of resources is crucial due to the current waste accumulation crisis. New waste-to-resource alternatives are constantly emerging to close material loops; therefore, tools are needed to identify the best synergies to upcycle waste. An approach has been developed to identify and...

Environmental and Social impact of takeaway food waste: A case study in Chengdu, China

More than 3 billion plastic bags are consumed every day in China, posing a huge challenge for solid waste management. And scientists estimate that online food delivery businesses in China generated 1.6 million tons of packaging waste in 2017, nine times more than two years ago. This includes 1.2 million tons of plastic boxes, 175,000 tons of...

Extended Producer Responsibility to Reduce Plastic Waste Pollution: An agent-based analysis for Indonesia

Research background<br/>Plastic debris in the environment consists primarily of plastic consumer waste. One of its leading causes is the lack of waste collection systems in developing countries. Actions need to be taken to overcome this issue, and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) seems to be an effective solution for encountering plastic...

Assessing the impact of plastic waste accumulation on flood events with citizen observations: A case study in Kumasi, Ghana

This research assesses the impact of plastic waste accumulation on flood events with citizen observations in Kumasi, Ghana. In Kumasi, the fastest growing city in Ghana, flooding events have become more intense due to rapid urbanisation and land use intensification. Additionally, rapid population growth, urbanisation and lack of organised waste...

Enabling high-quality plastic recycling with the Virtual Chemist: A device that analyses the composition of plastic waste

In the past 40 years, an incomprehensible 8,3 billion metric tons of plastic has been produced and is primarily being discarded and incinerated, instead of being recycled. Only 10 per cent of this total amount has been recycled to date, therefore it was decided to focus on recycling of plastic waste to reduce plastic pollution which negatively...

Redesigning Waste: The Change of perception and implementation of (plastic) waste into the built environment.

The way the western society currently treats waste is hazardous and can threaten not only the public health but also (very delicate) eco systems. Annually over 87 million tonnes of plastic are being produced. Only 2 % is reintroduced into the original purpose. The rest of this plastic is downcycled, landfilled, burned or leaked into the...

Precious Plastic Creating awareness for plastic recycling in Bangladesh

DELTAP is a joint faculty research group from the TU Delft, searching for an integrative approach for smart small-scale piped water supplies in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta in Bangladesh and India. <br/>A part of the project, conducted by PHD candidate Prarthana Majumdar, is searching for products which solve water and hygiene related...

Make Lima Green Again!: Environmental Evaluation of Current and Alternative Treatments of Municipal Plastic Waste in Lima-Peru, using a Cradle-To-Grave Scope

From bottle to educational game: Upcycling plastic waste for educational purposes in Colombia

Within the scope of ‘circular economy in emerging markets’ the aim of this exploratory graduation project is to design a local application for educational purposes with the recycled PET filament that will be developed by Urban Mining in Colombia. A major issue in Colombia is the problem of plastic waste that often ends up in landfill as well as...

Standardization of solid recovered fuels through gravity separation and chemical based imaging techniques

The European politics is addressed, in their last years, more and more towards the abolition of landfills and oriented to verify the possibility to improve their recovery through actions of recycling, composting and energy production. Currently the European Directive 2008/98/EC, through the principle of End of Waste (EoW), is driving the...