Plastic in Sweden – from production to recycling
To be able to achieve sustainable plastic use, we must reduce consumption of plastic, reuse more products and recycle more plastic. It requires more knowledge about how the plastic is used and what happens to the plastic waste.
Many plastic flows today are relatively linear with a cradle to grave-principle where a big part goes to incineration. The goal is to make the plastic flows more circular where more plastic products can primarily be prevented, reused, or material recycled to prevent new fossil plastic raw materials from being produced.
Via various plastic flows, with the help of registers, measurement methods and follow- up, it is possible to follow how different types of plastic are produced, distributed, consumed, used and finally taken care of within different areas of use, products and industries. Depending on the type of plastic, product and area of use or industry, the flow looks different in both the amount of plastic being used and what becomes waste. Even the processing condition the plastic has when it is considered to have reached its end of life can vary. The methods of waste treatment that is used today for plastic is primarily material- or energy recycling.
How much plastic waste is generated?
Plastic that is produced and used will in the end be worn out and become waste, that must be collected and treated. Within different plastic flows various amounts of, and different types of plastic waste are produced. Of the mapped-out product groups with specific flows, not mixed ones, the total amount of waste is 644 000 tonnes. In the mixed flows the plastic is estimated to be between approximately 690 000 and 1million tonnes and comes mainly from households and businesses.
The specific flow generating most plastic waste is packaging generates with approximately 320 000 tonnes in 2020, not including recyclable PET- bottles.
The construction industry is a major user of plastic and generated in 2020 around 120 000 tonnes plastic waste, followed by the vehicle- and tire industry which generated 94 000 tonnes of plastic waste in 2020. These flows are the largest that can be traced to a product category or source.
There are also flows that generate larger volumes of plastic waste, but they come from multiple and more difficult sources to define. For example, generates the category “mixed operational waste and sorting residues” around 600 000 tonnes plastic waste and “sorted plastic waste from the manufacturing industry” generated 241 000 tonnes.
How is plastic waste handled?
The treatment method for plastic waste varies depending on the type of plastic, type of product and conditions for sorting and collection. Certain plastic types and products are designed and have qualities suited for material recycling into become new plastic products. Plastic streams that include products suitable for material recycling are for example packaging, some building products and plastic details of vehicles. They often consist of the polymer PP (food packaging, car parts), soft or hard PE (agricultural film), PET (bottles) or some types of PVC (floors and pipes). In 2020 approximately 120 000 tonnes of plastic waste was recycled.
One method for material recycling that is available today is mechanical recycling, which is the most common method and means that the plastic waste is sorted by plastic type, washed and ground into flakes or granules that can be melted down and made into new products.
Another method, chemical recycling, where the polymer chains the plastic consists of are broken down so they can be put together again into new polymers is being developed. This technology is often optimized depending on the plastic flow that is being treated.
Another treatment method is energy recovery, which means that the plastic waste, often mixed with other types of waste, is incinerated and the energy is then used for district heating or in production. The waste that goes to energy recovery is material that has not been sorted into fractions for material recycling often due to the fact that the material cannot be separated or that it is contaminated. Examples are disposable items from healthcare, scrap waste from the construction and demolition sector, car tires and mixed waste from businesses. In 2020 more than 1100 000 tonnes of plastic waste went to energy recovery and around 76 000 tonnes of plastic and rubber waste was used in the cement industry.