Recycling and the Chemical Industry

This new Safe & Sustainable Chemicals Series report discusses the recycling market in several major chemical industry areas including carbon dioxide, catalysts, electrical and electronic chemicals (including battery recycling), functional fluids, glass, metals, paper, plastic resins, rubber, and other industries. It includes coverage of the current status and future outlook for recycling in these industries, as well as government regulations and societal issues creating the need for change, and the impact of recycling on production of virgin chemicals for these industries.

The global market for chemicals is roughly $3 trillion. Accounting for the overall impact of recycling on the chemical industry requires making a great number of assumptions about amounts and values of recycle streams, but the overall assessment of this report is that several tens of billions of dollars' worth of virgin chemical use during 2008 was replaced by recycled secondary materials. But this is only part of the story. Much of the end use of recycled chemicals and polymers is in new markets and applications that do not displace virgin raw materials. It is difficult to estimate the value of these products, but as a first approximation, it is likely somewhat less than the value of virgin materials displaced.

One of the major thrusts of industry today is sustainability. There has been much published on what constitutes sustainability including definitions in other reports in this SRI Consulting series. But suffice to say here, sustainability involves all actions that assure the continued survival—indeed prosperity—of an entity indefinitely. This usually encompasses continued financial health and a continued positive interaction with the social network surrounding the operation, with no harm to the environment.

This is a big order. For most companies, getting to this ideal is a long time in the future. However, most companies are taking some actions to accomplish this now. For many, recycling is an aspect of sustainability plans.

Recycling affects the chemical industry in many ways but can generally be grouped into these major categories:

• Business opportunities for profiting from recapturing the value of waste chemicals and polymers
  • Postindustrial
  • Postconsumer
• Business opportunities for cost avoidance through safe disposal of waste products

But it should also be noted that recycling is one aspect of a green manufacturing system incorporating several methodologies including the following:

• Design for minimal materials use
• Design for component reuse
• Design for minimal generation of toxic materials
  • During manufacturing
  • During disposal
• Increased use of materials with common recycle methodologies

Recycling is not without its shortcomings. A number of attributes of recycling can actually exacerbate waste problems. This does not necessarily mean that recycling in these cases shouldn’t be done, but rather that efforts to alleviate these negative attributes must be undertaken. Some of these issues are as follows:

• Toxic product may be generated or concentrated during recycling of materials
• Similarly, waste streams from recycling may be more problematic than the unprocessed waste stream
• Infrastructure may need to be developed to accommodate certain recycled materials
• Recycled materials may perform inferiorly to virgin materials and need to be carefully segregated from virgin materials at user plants
• Imbalances in supply/demand for recycle streams can create significant problems with the overall economics of recycling
• Government regulations may inadvertently create situations where oversupply in recycling raw materials and recyclates exists

Various conclusions about the role of recycling and its impact on chemicals can be drawn from information presented in this report and other observations.

Economics is—no surprise—an important determinant of what materials are recycled and what are disposed of in a nonbeneficial way. During times of low energy and raw material costs, there is less incentive to recycle materials, as the cost of recycling may not be as elastic as the price of competing virgin materials. This has been clearly shown with recycling rates of various products plotted against general price trends for virgin materials. But the relative prices of the virgin and recycled materials are not the only component of the overall economic equation for the decision to recycle.

Recycling affects the chemical industry in several major ways. It reduces the net consumption of certain chemical inputs to manufacturing by returning recycled materials to the value chain. In order to recycle some chemicals and materials, certain other chemicals will be required. Some of these are similar to reagents and reactants used in the production of the original polymer, chemical or material, but others are used expressly for the recycling of various materials and recovery of these values. New markets are created by recycling materials. These may be chemicals derived during the recycling process or chemicals used to facilitate the use of these new products.

Efforts to reduce the use of toxic materials are longstanding. A high percentage of regulations over the years has been focused on reducing or eliminating the use of toxic materials, be they a component of the item of commerce or a necessary by-product of the process used. With increased emphasis on recycling a larger range of products, the removal of these materials will continue. While much progress has already occurred, more attention will necessarily be focused on the potentially toxic products of various recycling processes and steps taken to ameliorate these issues.

Nonetheless, recycling rates are generally forecast to increase over the next decade due to growing scarcity—and increasing prices—for many metals and concern over new mining activity, among other things. But for the immediate future, virgin production will also grow—probably at least as fast as increases in recycling rates. This will probably hold more true in the industrialized countries than in areas where recycling is not now highly practiced.

This new Safe & Sustainable Chemicals Series report discusses the recycling market in several major chemical industry areas including carbon dioxide, catalysts, electrical and electronic chemicals (including battery recycling), functional fluids, glass, metals, paper, plastic resins, rubber, and other industries. It includes coverage of the current status and future outlook for recycling in these industries, as well as government regulations and societal issues creating the need for change, and the impact of recycling on production of virgin chemicals for these industries.

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