{"id":10443,"date":"2020-07-24T09:02:26","date_gmt":"2020-07-24T06:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=10443"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:31:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:31:10","slug":"a-circular-economy-in-the-plastic-sector-is-possible-heres-how","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2020\/07\/24\/a-circular-economy-in-the-plastic-sector-is-possible-heres-how\/","title":{"rendered":"A Circular Economy In The Plastic Sector Is Possible, Here\u2019s How"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The world is going through a plastic pollution crisis that is affecting not only the environment but the health of humans and all animals as well. From&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.intelligentliving.co\/burning-plastic-health-problems\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">burning plastic causing severe health problems<\/a>&nbsp;in people to marine creatures turning up dead and birds being found with bellies full of plastic, the situation is critical. In Europe alone, 60 million tons of plastics are produced, but only&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-climate-change-plastics\/european-countries-recycle-less-than-a-third-of-plastic-waste-research-firm-idUSKBN1YF24W\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">30%<\/a>&nbsp;of them are recycled. Worldwide,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/advances.sciencemag.org\/content\/3\/7\/e1700782.full\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">79%<\/a>&nbsp;of all the plastic waste that\u2019s been generated has ended up as litter in the natural environment or a landfill like a stain on the planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People are starting to become more aware of the problems caused by plastic, and societies are planning out how to transition to a more circular economy where materials, like plastics, are reused at the end of their life. For this, new recycling technologies will play an important role. A few are being tested now that can take used plastic items and give them more than just a second life \u2013 they\u2019re making the material as&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/horizon-magazine.eu\/article\/how-hard-recycle-plastic-being-made-good-new.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">good as new<\/a>. Things such as single-use food packaging, mattress foam, and even fiber-reinforced car parts can be broken down into the building blocks of plastic, which is then used to create something new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Garcia Armingol, who is involved in the project, said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s challenging to recycle plastic because the packaging is often made up of different types of plastic. For example, some foods are packaged in a container with a protective film and a lid, all of which are made from various plastics. To recycle the package, the film, lid, and container have to be separated. The process is costly and time-consuming. These are the sort of items that end up in the landfill.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.intelligentliving.co\/circular-economy-plastic-sector\/\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The world is going through a plastic pollution crisis that is affecting not only the environment but the health of humans and all animals as well. From&nbsp;burning plastic causing severe&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}