Chapter 3 – Plastic Waste

Plastics are ubiquitous materials with application in all parts of our life and economy. They find use in agriculture, aviation, railways, telecommunication, building construction, electrical, electronics, medicine and health, automotive, packaging, toys, and others. Characterization of plastics and technologies for plastic waste management are discussed in this chapter. Material recovery, mechanical recycling, and feedstock recycling methods are listed. Energy recovery by coprocessing in cement kilns and heat and power generation are described briefly. The use of plastic waste in road construction and the processes in recycling/recovery of multilayer/laminated plastic packaging waste and polyethylene terephthalate (PET), such as the chemical recycling process and closed-loop recycling, are presented.