TY - JOUR
T1 - Operational Framework to Quantify "Quality of Recycling" across Different Material Types
AU - Roosen, Martijn
AU - Tonini, Davide
AU - Albizzati, Paola Federica
AU - Caro, Dario
AU - Cristóbal, Jorge
AU - Lase, Irdanto Saputra
AU - Ragaert, Kim
AU - Dumoulin, Ann
AU - De Meester, Steven
PY - 2023/9/12
Y1 - 2023/9/12
N2 - Many pledges and laws are setting recycling targets without clearly defining quality of recycling. Striving to close this gap, this study presents an operational framework to quantify quality of recycling. The framework comprises three dimensions: the Virgin Displacement Potential (VDP); In-Use Stocks Lifetime (IUSL); and Environmental Impact (EI). The VDP indicates to what extent a secondary material can be used as a substitute for virgin material; the IUSL indicates how much of a certain material is still functional in society over a given time frame, and the EI is a measure of the environmental impact of a recycling process. The three dimensions are aggregated by plotting them in a distance-to-target graph. Two example calculations are included on poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) and glass. The results indicate that the recycling of bottle and container glass collected via a deposit-refund system has the lowest distance-to-target, at 1.05, and, thus, the highest quality of recycling. For PET bottles, the highest quality of recycling is achieved in closed-loop mechanical recycling of bottles (distance to optimal quality of 0.96). Furthermore, sensitivity analysis indicates that certain parameters, e.g., the collection rate for PET bottles, can reduce the distance-to-target to 0.75 when all bottles are collected for recycling.
AB - Many pledges and laws are setting recycling targets without clearly defining quality of recycling. Striving to close this gap, this study presents an operational framework to quantify quality of recycling. The framework comprises three dimensions: the Virgin Displacement Potential (VDP); In-Use Stocks Lifetime (IUSL); and Environmental Impact (EI). The VDP indicates to what extent a secondary material can be used as a substitute for virgin material; the IUSL indicates how much of a certain material is still functional in society over a given time frame, and the EI is a measure of the environmental impact of a recycling process. The three dimensions are aggregated by plotting them in a distance-to-target graph. Two example calculations are included on poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) and glass. The results indicate that the recycling of bottle and container glass collected via a deposit-refund system has the lowest distance-to-target, at 1.05, and, thus, the highest quality of recycling. For PET bottles, the highest quality of recycling is achieved in closed-loop mechanical recycling of bottles (distance to optimal quality of 0.96). Furthermore, sensitivity analysis indicates that certain parameters, e.g., the collection rate for PET bottles, can reduce the distance-to-target to 0.75 when all bottles are collected for recycling.
KW - circular economy
KW - decision-making
KW - recycling
KW - secondary materials
KW - substitutability
U2 - 10.1021/acs.est.3c03023
DO - 10.1021/acs.est.3c03023
M3 - Article
SN - 0013-936X
VL - 57
SP - 13669
EP - 13680
JO - Environmental Science & Technology
JF - Environmental Science & Technology
IS - 36
M1 - 100003
ER -