How COVID-19 Could Change the Economics of the Plastic Recycling Sector

Abstract

The price of oil has a great influence on prices of recycled plastics and, therefore, plastic recycling efforts. Here, we analyze the effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on crude oil price and how this, in turn, is likely to affect the degree of plastic recycling that takes place. Impulse response functions and variance decompositions, calculated from the structural vector autoregression, suggest that changes in crude oil prices are key drivers of the price of recycled plastics. The findings highlight that because plastics are made from the by-products of oil, falling oil prices increase the cost of recycling. Therefore, the price of recycled plastics should be supported using taxes while encouraging sustained behavioral changes among consumers and producers to selectively collect and recycle personal protective equipment so that they do not clog our landfills or end up in our water bodies as plastic waste.

A systematic review on plastic waste conversion for a circular economy: recent trends and emerging technologies

“…Photoreforming, a technology that utilizes sunlight, water, and a photocatalyst to break down plastic waste into H 2 or other chemicals like acetic acid (CH 3 COOH), is another potential recycling technology. 59,60 The activated photocatalyst converts the substrate, which serves as an electron donor, to other organic compounds. 61,62 After being transmitted from the photocatalyst to a co-catalyst, the photogenerated electrons convert water to H 2 and this is shown in Fig.…”

The Role of Carbon Pricing in Promoting Material Recycling: A Model of Multi-Market Interactions

“…Nevertheless, to the extent that the recycled material and primary material are substitutes, the price of recycled material (P r ) can also be influenced by the price of its primary counterpart (P v ). For example, the price of recycled plastics may increase after a positive shock to the price of crude petroleum (Weinhagen, 2006;Issifu et al, 2021).…”

“…Meanwhile, energy price variations can also lead to delayed price changes for recycled materials. For example, as plastics are made from oil by-products, falling oil prices during the COVID-19 pandemic increased the cost of recycling by decreasing prices in recycled markets and reducing the cost of producing virgin resin (Issifu et al, 2021).…”

A brief review on polyvinyl chloride plastic as aggregate for construction materials

“…Figure 6 shows the distribution of plastic waste according to plastic type and the recycling rate for plastic waste. The plastic production and the plastic waste generated are majorly by polypropylene (PP) and low density polyethylene (LDPE) [17,18]. On the recycling point of view, polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) are classified as the easily recyclable plastics and other types of plastic is classified as non-recyclable plastic waste (see Fig.…”

“…7) [4,19]. In contrast, PP and LDPE are categorized as not commonly for recycled treatment according to data collected in 2015 [17,18]. It is expected that the evolution developed in recycled technology has wider the range of plastic type for recycling.…”