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Practical ways to recycle plastic: current status and future aspects

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Abstract

With sky-rocketing demand and unrestricted global production, plastics have become an inseparable part of daily human life and the circular economy at large. Notwithstanding, it is crucial to consider that they lead to substantial economic losses, disrupt the ecological equilibrium, and cause environmental pollution. In this regard, several strategies have been employed in the past, such as recycling techniques, waste management systems, extended producer responsibility, reduction of incineration, plastic prohibition, and globular thinking. These methods work toward the more sustainable usage of plastics in the future, but so far, none have scaled up to the industries’ growing demands. It also reflects the current state of the art of these methods concerning the status of scientific research and gap areas in the recycling pathways. Chemical recycling seems to be one of the most efficient techniques, as it is less time consuming and the least waste is generated, but the requirement of efficient sorting makes it time consuming. While other methods generate waste and are comparatively more time consuming. Thus, each recycling method has its limitations, indicating that much work is needed to tackle the growing problem of plastic pollution. In addition, in the context of the present drawbacks of the methods, this review discusses a concomitant solution to the problem of plastic pollution via sustainable development by offering an alternative to fossil fuel-based plastic materials, i.e., biodegradable plastics.

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Abbreviations

PET/PETE:

Polyethylene terephthalate

PS:

Polystyrene

LDPE:

Low-density polyethylene

PP:

Polypropylene

PVC:

Polyvinyl chloride

HDPE:

High density polyethylene

CTA-POM:

CetylTrimethyl Ammonium-PolyOxoMetalate

FCC:

Fluid Catalytic Cracking

ZSM-5:

Zeolite Socony Mobil #5

iPP:

Isotactic polypropylene

PE:

Polyethylene

PU:

Polyurethane

BHET:

Bis (hydroxyethyl) terephthalate

DMT:

Dimethyl terephthalate

EDA:

Ethylenediamine

BAET:

Bis(2-aminoethyl) terephthalamide

PDK:

Polydiketoenamine

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Acknowledgements

This work was partly supported by the Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University) Varanasi’s Seed Grant Ref. No. IIT (BHU)/Budget/19-(14)/2021-22/2268 dated 06-July-2021 as well as Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India’s Project No. DST/SEED/SUTRA/2020/132(G) dated 24-June-2021, both to ASD.

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  1. School of Biochemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, 221005, India

    Kailash Pati Pandey, Jeetesh Kushwaha, Madhumita Priyadarsini & Abhishek S. Dhoble

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, Rajasthan, India

    Ujjwal R. Jha

  3. Department of Applied Chemistry, Laxminarayan Institute of Technology (LIT), Nagpur, Maharashtra, India

    Siddharth U. Meshram

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Contributions

KPP: Conceptualization-Equal, Investigation-Equal, Data curation-Equal, Formal analysis-Lead, Methodology-Equal, Validation-Equal, Visualization-Equal, Writing—original draft-Lead; URJ: Methodology-Equal, Resources-Equal, Validation-Equal, Writing—review and editing-Equal; JK: Writing review and editing, Investigation-Equal, Data curation-Equal; MP: Writing review and editing, Investigation-Equal, Formal analysis-Supporting; SUM: Data curation-Supporting, Formal analysis-Supporting, Investigation-Supporting; ASD: Conceptualization-Lead, Data curation-Supporting, Formal analysis-Supporting, Funding acquisition-Lead, Investigation-Supporting, Methodology-Supporting, Project administration-Lead, Resources-Lead, Supervision-Lead, Validation-Lead, Visualization-Supporting, Writing—original draft-Supporting, Writing—review and editing-Equal.

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Correspondence to Abhishek S. Dhoble.

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Pandey, K.P., Jha, U.R., Kushwaha, J. et al. Practical ways to recycle plastic: current status and future aspects. J Mater Cycles Waste Manag 25, 1249–1266 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10163-023-01611-0

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