Assessment: Recycling Does Not Always Lead to Recyclable Products: A Statistical Entropy-Based...

[NNadir]

I came across this paper while catching up on back issues of a journal I regularly read but in which I am behind: Using Recyclable Materials Does Not Necessarily Lead to Recyclable Products: A Statistical Entropy-Based Recyclability Assessment of Deli Packaging Cristina Moyaert, Yanou Fishel, Lorenz Van Nueten, Oliver Cencic, Helmut Rechberger, Pieter Billen, and Philippe Nimmegeers ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering 2022 10 (36), 11719-11725

(The full title of the paper didn't fit into the title spaces allowed by DU.)

As I'm behind on my reading and have been wasting time with arsonists complaining about forest fires, I won't have much time to discuss the details, but thought I'd quote an excerpt quickly to raise a point that should be obvious, but isn't.

To wit, from the text of the paper:

Plastics are the preferred material in a wide range of applications, involved in almost every aspect of our daily lives. Their commercial success is due to their unique functionality and low manufacturing cost. Plastics have great corrosion resistance, degrade slowly, and their properties can be tailored to meet specific requirements by incorporating composites or additives. This incorporation of composites or additives and the large number of different polymer types raises the complexity of plastics, making them challenging to recycle and challenges the transition toward a plastics circular economy. (1,2)

Nowadays, product designers are shifting from plastics toward resources that are perceived as more environmentally friendly, like paperboard. Deli packaging is an excellent example of products that have undergone such modifications. However, deli packaging still requires the use of plastic for food preservation by creating moisture and oxygen barriers due to the poorer properties of paperboard. As a result, various types of deli packaging exist, ranging from all-plastic packaging to paperboard-plastic composites, with the latter being advertised as the most environmentally friendly.

State-of the-art quantitative sustainability assessment methodologies such as life cycle analysis (LCA) and techno-economic assessment (TEA) (or combinations) are limited in quantifying the recyclability of products, as these rely on detailed information that is only valid for a specific system boundary and subject to a background system including a specific set of technologies, in a certain region and under other specific assumptions. In addition, as highlighted in a recent review, (3) most such studies contradict each other due to these specific assumptions.

To overcome the above-mentioned limitations, we hypothesize as in Nimmegeers et al. (2021) (4) that recyclability can be quantified by merging information on the compositional complexity of deli packaging in terms of their chemical substances (quantified by statistical entropy-based calculations) with the energy required to separate the products into their chemical substances (quantified by generic energy calculations originating from generic sorting and separation processes). In essence, recycling is an entropy-reducing activity, for which energy is required.

The novelty of this explorative study lies in the validation of a generic recyclability assessment method based on the combination of statistical entropy calculations with energy calculations on collected deli packaging products. This methodology is a paradigm shift in current recyclability thinking and requires further attention and developments in research. In addition, it is the first time this method has been applied to real-life experimental data...

I added the bold to emphasize the point I wished to raise.

I have taken to stating here, in response to all the nonsense rhetoric that continues even as the atmosphere is obviously in collapse about batteries and hydrogen and other absurd attachments to the absurd garbage thinking that wind and solar energy will save the world, that people should be required to have at least a primitive understanding of the zeroth, first, and especially the second law of thermodynamics to graduate high school.

The problem with so called "renewable energy" is that it is unreliable, and extreme measures to make these intrinsically unreliable systems into reliable energy will all fail, just as so called "renewable energy" has already failed to address climate change.

Almost all of the tragedy before us now with respect to the environment, notably but not limited to climate change, derives from public ignorance of, in particular, ignorance of the second law, which simply states that no energy transformation from one form to another can take place without a loss of energy to heat, heat being an expression of disorder. (A corollary that may be less obvious is that it is not possible to separate two different materials without the use of energy.)

Ironically the best use of closed material recycling for materials such as those described in this paper (Deli packaging waste) is almost certainly pyrolysis and/or steam (or dry) reforming. Here the energy provided would be in fact, heat itself.

Enjoy the rest of the evening.