Discover how one city is tackling some unique and some not so unique challenges in recycling and how they plan for the future of recycling.

The virtual workshop will give business and sustainability professionals a deeper understanding of how plastics recycling works through a “Crash Course in Plastics Recycling” presented by the REMADE Institute. It will also serve as an introduction to some of the programs and resources available to New York State companies looking to make plastics recovery a part of their business strategies.

An introduction to the global waste plastics problem and contrast linear versus circular economy for plastics. These polymeric materials are currently recycled at low rates in the U.S., but are among the largest volumes of polymeric materials that are recyclable.

More than eight billion tons of plastic waste has accumulated worldwide over the past 50 years. The majority (80%) of the waste goes directly into landfills and 3% ends up in the oceans. At the current rate, we will end up having more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050. Plastics are persistent in the environment and degrade slowly (over a century), releasing fragments, microplastics, and toxic chemicals into our lands, rivers, and oceans. In particular, single-use packaging, textile, and composite plastic such as e-waste are attributed to more than 50% of the plastic waste.

This webinar will discuss:
1) The bottleneck of conventional plastic recycling;
2) State-of-the-art emerging chemical recycling methods (e.g., pyrolysis, chemolysis, and hydrothermal processes)
3) Case studies about using chemical recycling to reuse the end-of-life waste.

With global concerns over single-use plastics waste, there is an urgent need to understand these flexible materials and how to improve their collection, sorting and reprocessing.

This webinar will cover the composition and structure of typical flexible packaging types, discuss current options for recycling these materials, and share recent results from REMADE-funded work on this topic.

The webinar will present an introduction to the global waste plastics problem, (PET and olefin plastics - polyethylene, polypropylene) contrast linear versus circular economy for plastics and summarize the REMADE exploratory project goals and tasks.

These polymeric materials are currently recycled at low rates in the U.S., but are among the largest volumes of polymeric materials that are recyclable.

Join REMADE Institute’s thought leader and expert in polymers and recycling, Brian Riise, as he shares his perspective on the technology of plastic recycling in the US. Less than 10% of the plastics discarded in the US are recovered for recycling, with the remainder (over 30 million tons per year) ending up in landfills.

In this webinar, you'll learn more about:

• Technologies available to recycle waste plastics.

• Review existing and emerging technologies available for cleaning, separating, purifying and compounding these waste plastics into high quality pellets suitable for use in new products.

• Address the limitations of mechanical recycling and areas where chemical recycling might be viable options.