Over the years, the world was not paying strict attention to the

impact of rapid growth in plastic use. This has led to unprecedented

amounts of mixed types of plastic waste entering the environme

2. Packaging

In the modern world, packaging of goods is essential from their

inception, through their processing and handling right up to the end
of their lifecycle. In developed countries, packaging accounts for
about 2% of the gross national product and the majority of
packaging materials is used in the food industry [26]. In the year
2000, the global packaging market was at USD 383 billion and is
expected to reach USD 980 billion in 2020 [27]. Materials used in
packaging serve to preserve, protect, merchandise, market and
distribute foods in a cost effective manner to the satisfaction of
industry and consumers as well as minimise negative impact on the
environment [28,29].
Packaging solutions are a product of years of design
improvements where some developments were by unintended luck.
In the early years, humans would consume food at the source and
the societies were self-sufficient and only made or caught what they
used and thus materials for packaging were not needed [30]. When
the need for packaging came, nature provided the first materials to
be used for packaging in the form of hollowed logs, woven grasses
and animal organs [30,31]. Newer materials with unique shapes
were used for specific needs as civilisation developed, these
materials included ceramics, glass, metal and paper [31]. Packaging
materials can be either rigid or flexible. Rigid packaging includes
bottles, jars, cans and tins, whilst flexible packaging includes plastic
films, papers, foil, cloth and sacks.

2.1. Types of Packaging

There are three types of packaging namely primary, secondary

and tertiary [29,32,33,34,35];
1. Primary packaging is one that is in direct contact with
products and will be handled by the consumer.
2. Secondary packaging groups individual units (primary
packages) together for transportation and can be designed to be
shelf-ready where it can display primary packaging for
advertisement in retail outlets.
3. Tertiary packaging is for storage and handling of the
secondary packaged products.

2.2. Plastic Packaging

The packaging industry requires materials that are lightweight

so as to reduce the amount used to package a product, thus
reducing product weight for transportation cost savings as well as
reducing amount of end of life packaging waste material. Plastics
have managed to fulfil this role very well and have remained
unchallenged. As an example, one study by Marsh [36] revealed
that the replacement of glass bottles with plastic bottles for
beverage packaging in airlines resulted in savings of over USD 1
million in fuel costs as a result of the weight loss.
Fossil fuels are the main raw material used in the manufacture
of plastics and in 2009 it was reported that up to 8% of world oil is
channelled towards their production with 50% of it serving as
feedstock and the other 50% as fuel for the conversion process
[6,17]. In 2019, 10 years later, 10% of global oil production was
used for plastic production with 40% of it dedicated to making single
use plastics [37]. The annual growth of plastics consumption shows
that the estimated global plastic consumption by 2050 will be
standing at 500 million tonnes of which single use products will be
the major consumer [38,39]. The most used polymers for packaging
are thermoplastic accounting for 84% of the plastic market share
[36,40]. The following Table 1 shows some uses of thermoplastics
in packaging of food.
Table 1. Food packaging application from thermoplastics. Adapted
from [41].
 Petroleum based polymers which include polypropylene (PP),
polystyrene (PS), polyvinylchloride (PVC), polyethylene (PE) and
polyethylene terephthalate (PET) have been used extensively for
packaging as a result of their light weight, good mechanical
performance, good barrier properties among many other properties
[41,42,43]. Many of these end up in landfills where they take
centuries before they degrade [44]. They are responsible for a great
amount of environmental pollution as they are nonbiodegradable
[40,45].
The packaging industry has begun using recyclable plastics in
their designs as a means of reducing waste disposed into the
environment. However, recyclers must maintain contaminants in the
reformed plastic to sufficiently low levels acceptable for intended
use of the resulting packaging [31]. This has proved difficult, time
consuming and costly since the collected plastic waste consists of
different plastic types that have to be sorted and separated. After
which, the plastic wastes may have to be washed clean to remove
the different contaminate residues from products they were
packaging [22]. Additionally, plastic additives such as the popular
phthalates have been shown to be persistent in recycled plastic and
continue posing health problems as they have low molecular weight
and can easily migrate from plastics into packaged food or water
[46].

3. Food Packaging Waste

There are high amounts of food packaging waste entering the

environment causing pollution. Snack food packaging is one good
long term case of a visually irritating example of environmental
pollution [47]. Most food packaging plastics culminate in waste
streams within a short time after purchase especially for single use
packaging applications used in short lived goods [6,15,22,46]. This
is as a result of an increase of on-the-go consumption of food and
drinks that is driving the growth of single use plastic packaging
[48,49]. In some locations, the challenge of low availability of bins
can lead to increased littering [14]. A large proportion of food
packaging plastics easily end up in open spaces as litter, municipal
waste, landfills and even in oceans, whilst a few can be recycled.
This is as a result of the human throw away culture [50] which is
more prevalent in developing countries. When consumers purchase
food on-the-go, after consuming they more often throw away the
packaging at any location where they finished eating or drinking the
packaged food. This culture can also be linked to social trends and
individual behaviours which can be quite complex to deal with.
Waste collection systems are seemingly failing to deal with waste
resulting from this culture. Poor waste management systems also
compound to this problem or nonexistence of enforcements or
absence of substitute materials [41].
Globally, there are low recycling rates for single-use plastic
packaging materials with only 14% of plastic packaging being
collected for recycling and only 5% of it being successfully recycled
into new plastic [51,52]. The common single-use plastic packaging
waste materials polluting the environment in order of quantity
include drinking bottles, bottle caps, food wrappers, grocery bags,
lids, straws, stirrers and foam take away containers [18,53]. The
food industry is encouraged to adopt the reduce, reuse and recycle
waste control options rather than adopt the easy direct disposal
method. This waste that is disposed in landfills results in methane
gas creation, a greenhouse gas that surpasses carbon dioxide by
more than 2000% in causing global warming [54].
Global plastic waste generated in 2015 had packaging
contributing about 50% [18]. This figure has remained high with
food packaging estimated to be more than a third of the world total
packaging market [55]. A 12% annual growth is being experienced
by the food packaging industry raising more environmental
concerns including greenhouse gases and greater carbon footprints
[56]. Annually, Europe alone produces 23 million tonnes of plastic
packaging and current projections will see 92 million tonnes by the
year 2050 [3]. The European union has championed amendments to
directives of packaging waste to demand that 75% of it be recycled
by the year 2030. A comparative lifecycle study to investigate the
extent of recycling that can yield favourable impacts on the
environment has been done [57]. Results showed that recycling can
greatly reduce environmental burdens posed by food packaging
waste. Therefore, to deal with food packaging waste, there is need
for integrated waste management schemes that can sustainably
control waste generation without compromising the needs of the
society and those of the environment.

4. Plastic Waste Disposal

After their use, products made from plastic can be disposed,

recycled or incinerated. Up to 1980, almost all of plastic waste was
discarded as recycling and incineration were negligible [19].
Incineration as a method for plastic waste management started
growing from 1980 and in 1990 recycling started to be appreciated
as well. In 2015, approximately 6300 million tonnes of cumulative
plastic waste had been generated and about 9% was recycled, 12%
was incinerated, and 79% was accumulated in landfills or in the
natural environment [20]. From these three routes of plastic waste
disposal, incineration was the only permanent route of eliminating
the waste and this thermal treatment involves combustion.
Most synthetic plastics that are disposed in nature have a very
unreasonably slow degradation process that takes long periods
spanning hundreds to thousands of years [18,54,58,59,60]. When
plastics are thrown away by consumers, some are blown off by wind
to cover more area and some are washed away by rains to even find
their way into water bodies. Plastics are one of the biggest
pollutants of oceans [10,61,62,63,64,65]. Living creatures like sea
animals, birds and livestock have even been affected by the plastic
waste that is being dumped in water bodies and on land. Figure
1 displays the cumulative plastic waste generated and disposal.
Figure 1. Generation and discarding of plastic waste [20] (Available
online: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (acces
sed on 25 November 2020)).
The solid lines show historical data from 1950 to 2015 whilst
dashed lines show projections up to the year 2050 based on
historical trends. Following these projections, environmental
pollution with plastic waste is set to rise to alarming levels. Pollution
from plastics is a global challenge requiring a complete paradigm
shift on how to produce, use and dispose of plastics [66].

5. Management of Food Packaging Plastic Waste

Packaging plastics have a short lifecycle ranging from a day up

to 3 years [67,68]. Examples of 1 day lifespan include disposable
cups, plates and take away containers which can be referred to as
single-use plastics. Several strategies from plastic ban, taxes,
extended producer responsibility to recycling have been used in the
management of plastic packaging waste. Given the fact that a
dramatic amount of plastic packaging is still in use to date, recycling
is a very important method that can contribute positively to the
alleviation of plastic packaging waste pollution. Collecting, sorting
and processing are the three main steps of the food packaging
recycling process carried out under strict monitoring to prevent
contamination [69,70].
In the attempt to recycle plastics, chemicals added during
plastic production including the finishes like dyes for printing and
coatings present unique challenges [6,51]. In addition, recycling of
food packaging plastics also requires the waste plastics to be clean
from food contaminants as well as desorption is required of any food
substances that may have found a way into the packaging
polymers. Plastic recycling processes are largely focused on primary
and secondary recycling methods thereby calling for growth in
adoption of other recycling processes to improve the recycling
capacity and efficiency [71]. It is worth noting that as the plastic
waste is continually recycled using these methods, it loses its
physical and chemical properties resulting in low quality end
products warranting incineration at this point [41,54,71]. Recycled
plastics of good quality would cost 60–70% of the price of virgin
plastic but this value drops as properties are compromised from
repeated recycling [72].
The food and drug administration (FDA) has noted with concern
the recycling of plastics for food contact packaging [1,73]. As such,
these primary packaging plastics may be best incinerated or
chemically recycled. Secondary and tertiary packaging have less
material variation and thus are easily sorted for recycling or reuse
unlike primary packaging that is assorted, contaminated and
habitually damaged and hence presents problems in sorting,
recycling and reuse [8,25,74].
In comparison, developed countries generally have better
plastic management policies, for example in Europe, recycling and
energy recovery rates have increased over the past decade
resulting in reduction of landfilling [22]. The packaging sector in
Canada has the highest plastic waste recovery rate [67]. Whilst
developing countries do not have waste infrastructure to cope with
the rising plastic waste [51].
The fate of global plastic packaging materials is depicted
in Figure 2 which shows that most of the packaging waste ends up
in the environment. This high amount of unrecycled plastic
packaging is a cause for concern. The impacts can be reduced by
sustainable waste management systems that recover materials and
energy [55].

Figure 2. The fate of plastic packaging materials. Data from

[51,75].

5.1. Collecting and Sorting

In recycling of plastics, the first and most important steps are

collection and sorting. Plastic waste is generally collected through
“bring schemes” and kerbside collection [68]. Sorting involves the
selection of waste which is suitable for recycling using manual or
automated means. This can be done at the source of the waste and
by using separate collection systems or at facilities by mechanical
processing and sorting of mixed waste [76]. It is reported that the
recycling industry is operating at 40% capacity due to lack of
differentiated collection and separation at source that affects the
raw material supply [67]. Thus, packaging sorting plants have a
crucial role in waste management and material recovery systems
[76]. There are several techniques that can be applied to separate
and sort plastic solid waste and these should be applied in the most
efficient way during a short period of time so as to be cost effective
[6,77]. Different machines including near-infrared (NIR) sorting
machine can be used in new plants together with colour or induction
sensors [76]. More techniques can employed for sorting that include
laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, triboelectric separation, X-
ray fluorescence, Fourier transformed infrared technique and froth
flotation method [11,54]. Another upcoming promising technique
for monitoring the separation of plastic waste and process quality
information is ultrasound technology [11].
Plastic waste comprising mixed plastic types is difficult to
recycle and not cost effective [17]. Additionally, intensive sorting
technologies are not economically attractive [78]. For recycling to
be effective, source separation and separate collection of the waste
are the best routes to follow [76,79]. Food packaging waste sorting
right from household waste at source forms a crucial part of waste
management systems [55,80]. A study by Nemat et al. [81] showed
that food packaging design possesses the potential to influence
consumer behaviour when making decisions on disposal post use,
however current food packaging is not adequately doing so.
Through properly communicating to the consumer, packaging can
convey specific information with regards to separating and sorting
of the packaging post use. Household waste comprises several
mixed products of different types, shapes and colours. Black plastic
food packages are not easily detected by sorting machines as a
result of the carbon black that makes them invisible [67]. This is
because most sorting technologies for household plastics use NIR
[80] and carbon black, the most common black colourant for
plastics, absorbs NIR [70].
The quality of the feedstock material into recycling has a
bearing on the suitable recycling process, efficiency of recycling,
quality and application of the resultant product. Food packaging
plastic waste can be characterised using four levels as shown
in Figure 3 in order to determine the recycling route. Visual
inspection can be done to identify the product type. Polymer
identification and food contact labelling can be useful tools to
separate the wastes. Technologies can also be utilised to identify
the polymers so as to separate the wastes. The different sorting
methods have been widely used and are now being investigated for
optimisation [71]. State of the art sorting technologies have proved
capable to process mixed waste of sizes as small as 2 mm [11].
Figure 3. Four levels of plastic waste characterization for recycling.
Data from [80].
Germany is developing a tracer-based sorting for post-consumer
packaging waste [82]. They are employing trivalent lanthanide
elements to serve as photoluminescent tracer materials that have
bright emission lines in green, red, and NIR when subjected to
electromagnetic irradiation. These tracer elements are applied in
the part per million application range directly on the packaging
material or in printing inks used on labels. This technology will
outperform current NIR sorting capabilities as it can separate food
from nonfood packaging even if they are all made from the same
polymers. This will go a long way in improving recycling rates. It is
important to separate food packaging waste from nonfood related
products as they do not adhere to mandatory requirements
expected of packaging thus can compromise the quality of recycled
products [80].

5.2. Reducing Materials

The reduce principle aims at lowering the material quantities

used in products and processes [25]. It is also referred to as
downgauging [68]. In food packaging, this translates to the
reduction of the amount of material used to make a package but
still maintaining the optimum function of the packaging. Material
reduction principles can result in packaging products with
considerably lower environmental impacts [83]. Packaging
reduction should be carefully carried out not to compromise the
overall product system [84]. Coca cola has managed to reduce the
material used in making bottles and is now making use of
redesigned smaller bottles with shorter necks [51]. The target is to
eventually make 100% recyclable packaging by 2025 [78]. In
addition, their plastic usage comprises up to 10% recycled plastics
[51] and this figure is projected to rise to 50% in 2030 [78].
In addition, the reduction of use of nonbiodegradable materials
and uptake of biobased biodegradable polymers for food packaging
plastic material is a viable option with so much research interest
and potential to yield a sustainable circular economy in food
packaging [33,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94].

5.3. Reusing

This involves the use of discarded plastic packaging waste for

several more times [95]. Source reduction by lowering demand and
consumption of virgin raw materials can be achieved by reusing
packaging material which otherwise would have been disposed [96].
This is the most preferred route as it involves less energy and
resources to carry out [6]. Through reuse, waste materials can find
a secondary route to obtain value rather than be disposed [41].
Reusable plastic packaging can also give the benefit of reducing
packaging cost and can be used for primary, secondary and tertiary
packaging [97]. The packaging can be reused as many times as it
can retain its functional requirement before it is disposed or
recycled. However, reused plastic packaging may be contaminated
from their use as such, to avoid migration of contaminants to food
during reuse packaging may be washed first [73]. As a result, the
reuse principle is not very common for primary packaging [25].
A study by Del Borghi et al. [84] on food crates made from
different materials showed that by using the life cycle assessment
(LCA) the multiuse plastic crate had better environmental
performance if it was reused many times. The LCA was done
according to product category rules for crates for food using
environmental indicators and impact categories that included global
warming potential, cumulative energy demand, human, marine and
terrestrial toxicity. Another study by Popovic et al. [98] developed a
reusable X-bin container to replace wooden crates and single-use
packaging. The success of the reuse model in primary food
packaging is largely dependent on consumers as it requires a
change in habits [25]. In real life applications, reusable and
disposable packaging both generally present advantages and
disadvantages with regards to environmental emissions, cost and
logistics complexity. Thus, some food packaging application
scenarios may require a compromise. A biobjective model was
proposed by Bortolini et al. [99] that can provide a quantitative
method to optimise the forward and reverse logistics of
multipackaging of fresh fruits and vegetables. The model can
minimise costs and environmental impacts in the fresh food supply
chain network. A trial of the model in the Emilia-Romagna region in
Italy yielded results that proposed a mix of reusable and disposable
packaging containers at a ratio of 47.7% to 52.9%, respectively, so
as to achieve optimum results that saw a carbon dioxide emission
saving of 45.1%. However, further research is needed to create
models that also consider the social dimension and effect on the
product quality presented by the packaging choices.

5.4. Landfilling

This is the conventional waste management approach

[7,100,101,102]. Studies report municipal solid waste (MSW)
generation would rise from 2.4 billion tonnes in 2018 up to 2.6 by
the year 2025 [103]. Plastics form a significant portion of MSW and
these plastics include a considerable amount of packaging waste
[54].
Landfilling is the worst waste management strategy [68]
although is it considered indispensable for accommodating
nonrecyclable and noncombustible waste [96]. Most plastics end up
in the environment as landfills and this is highly undesirable as they
can follow greener recycling routes. Landfill space is also becoming
limited and expensive. Packaging plastics disposed of into landfills
have poor biodegradability and generate explosive greenhouse
gases such as methane [104]. Over the years, legislative pressures
have and still demand that the waste to landfills must be reduced
until there is no waste that is thrown away.

5.5. Re-Extrusion
 This is the primary recycling of plastic solid waste which is a
closed loop method that feeds plastic scrap into the extrusion
process. This method is often used by industries to recycle polymer
waste from their production process as it is easily identifiable and
the waste is generally uncontaminated [105]. The recovered plastic
is made into goods with similar performance to those from virgin
plastics [72]. The recycled plastic is generally made into a product
that serves the same function as the original plastic [11,106].
However, the quality of the scrap reintroduced has a bearing on the
performance of the resulting product. The process becomes almost
impossible to carry out effectively and efficiently as it requires clean
or semiclean scrap, strict scrap sorting so not to mix different
plastics and this increases the cost of the process and thus
compromises its effective application [6,54].
Closed loop recycling primarily depends on the inertness of the
polymer and as well as on the sorption properties and diffusion
behaviour of a polymer which will affect the interaction between the
packaging and the product [73]. Clear bottles and milk bottles from
PET and HDPE polymers, respectively, are the primary materials
that were first identified to be recovered [68,107]. However, HDPE
is more difficult to clean and is prone to sorption of contaminants
[108]. Clear PET is more widely recycled for reuse in food contact
application as a result of development of super clean grades of PET
[109]. The recycling feed stream usually receives up to 5% of
nonfood PET as a result of the collection systems and in some
instances it can go up to 20%, however, it does not pose a risk to
the consumer as was assessed on the basis of Threshold of
Toxicological Concern and Cramer classification tools [110]. Other
polymers presenting appropriate properties for reuse in packaging
are polyethylene naphtholate (PEN) and rigid PVC [73].
It is generally a simple process and popular among
manufacturers utilising technologies such as injection moulding
[54]. Another downfall of this process is the limit in number of
cycles a material can be processed [73]. Nanoadditives are being
looked into to eliminate the impact recycling has on the physical–
mechanical properties of recycled polymers [75]. Many
nanoadditives have been investigated including nanocellulose, zinc
oxide, titanium dioxide and silicone dioxide resulting in
improvements of the resultant nanocomposites for food packaging.
Additionally, nanoparticle migration is generally below the limit
allowed for food contact material opening up opportunities for
increase in uptake of nanomaterials in producing packaging
materials from recycled food packaging plastic waste.

5.6. Mechanical Recycling

Recognized as secondary recycling, also, is a process of reusing

plastic waste in plastic manufacture using mechanical means. It can
be carried out successfully when using single polymer plastics only
[6,111]. The recovered plastic makes products with inferior
performance characteristics compared to virgin plastics [68,72]. As
such, the recycled plastics are made into different products from
those which the original plastic was used to make [11,106]. As an
example, the primary recovered polymer PET can be processed to
give PET fibres, and HPDE from milk bottles can be converted to
make crates and bins [68]. Additionally, PP is another widely used
polymer in consumer applications including food packaging where it
has found application in making yogurt containers that can be
recycled to make consumer products like toothbrushes [112].
The steps involved in secondary recycling include
cutting/shredding, contaminant separation, floating, milling,
washing, drying, agglutination, extrusion and quenching. Virgin
polymer and/or additives may be added to the recycled material
during the grinding and melting stages [41]. It can make use of
readily available plastic processing methods like screw extrusion
and blow moulding [54]. Mechanical recycling is a low cost process
and thus ideal for developing countries [113]. It is also the most
favoured currently [22,78,114] as it is efficient [73]. However, it
shares the same disadvantage as primary recycling of polymers
having a limited number of cycles [73].
Studies are ongoing to improve properties of mechanically
recycled food packaging materials. As an example, blends of virgin
and recovered PET were investigated by Masmoudi et al. [115] to
achieve an optimum blend that can be used in food contact
applications. After mechanical recycling, rheological analysis
showed degradation results with PET decreasing in viscosity.
Blending recycled PET to virgin polymer showed improvement of
mechanical and thermal properties with an optimum blend
comprising 30% recycled and 70% virgin PET. The migration tests
performed on the blends proved they can be used for primary food
packaging as they conformed to the EFSA standard.

5.7. Biological Recycling

This applies chiefly to biodegradable plastics that have recently

attracted consideration. Biological recycling is a form of tertiary
recycling also described as organic recycling [68]. The
biodegradable plastic industry is still small but growing [7]. These
plastics can be attacked by microbes and broken down within short
periods of time, thus entering the biological cycle. Biodegradable
plastics are envisioned to find successful application in food or
catering industries [3,104]. However, users may be misled to
carelessly throw away more of the biodegradable packaging
material into the environment and thus increasing plastic litter.
There is carelessness in marketing of biodegradable or compostable
plastics with some of them proving to have grave impacts on the
environment as do nonbiodegradable petroleum based plastics
[51,116]. Food packaging alternative materials should be analysed
so as to assess their effect on the entire product system [84]. A
mixture of biodegradable plastics with nondegradable plastics will
pose further sorting and waste management problems.
It is reported by Kosior Mitchell [70] that biobased products may
not be effectively handled by current end-of-life waste management
options. Only drop-in bioplastics which can be used with current
technologies are seen as ideal and these include bio-PE, bio-PP and
bio-PET. However, other biobased polymers like polylactic acid can
be used alone or with organic fillers to make compostable food
packaging composites presenting opportunities for green packaging
materials that can be biologically recycled. Compost bins may be
used to allow for home composting of biodegradable food packaging
waste [79]. However, care must be taken to note some products
require industrial composting and will not compost in home
composting conditions. For example, polylactic acid polymer has
been widely believed to easily biodegrade in landfills or home
composts or even in aquatic environments. This is not true as the
polymer does require an industrial composter and as such should be
referred to as compostable [116,117,118,119,120].
Some natural and designed microbes are reported by Drzyzga
and Prieto [121] to be showing potential for possible application to
biodegrade problematic petroleum-based plastics. Another new field
of study reported is in the use of enzymes engineered for plastic
degradation. Studies of PET, LDPE, linear-low density polyethylene
(LLDPE) have been carried out. Further research is envisioned in the
biological recycling field to employ microbes, fungus and enzymes
in the degradation of plastics.

5.8. Chemical Recycling

Branded as tertiary or feedstock recycling as well, here the

plastic polymers are broken down into individual useful components
such as monomers. This means there is chemical modification of the
polymer structure to generally produce liquids and gases to be used
as feed material in the creation of other petrochemicals and
plastics. Tertiary recycling contributes to the principle of energy
sustainability as it generates raw materials that were made to
create the plastic in the first place [54]. Chemical recycling offers
the advantage of handling mixed and contaminated polymers with
little pretreatment [6].
In feedstock recycling, pyrolysis has received notable attention
as it offers operational and environmental advantages as well as
financial benefits [122]. This is generally a thermochemical process
that makes use of temperature, pressure and time to achieve
desired hydrocarbons although the effect of pressure is reported to
be not well documented by Al-Salem et al. [122] presenting a future
research gap. There are many other methods of chemical recycling
that include cracking, gasification, hydrolysis, glycolysis and
chemical depolymerisation [54,73]. However, chemical recycling
may be unworthwhile for developing countries as it is capital
intensive and presents operational challenges [41]. Catalytic
pyrolysis presents better advantages over the thermal process
[106,122] and there is a need to research catalysts used by this
method to improve the overall efficiency and reduce energy
demand of the process by lowering operational temperatures
[11,71]. It is limited mainly to condensation polymers mostly for
PET [73].

5.9. Energy Recovery

Energy recovery is also referred to as quaternary recycling. This

is the burning of waste to attain or recover energy in the form of
heat, steam and electricity. It can serve to address the global
challenges of increasing energy consumption and plastic waste
generation per capita [103]. Plastics derived from crude oil possess
high calorific value and are thus sources of energy, for example,
polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene have 44.9, 46.5, and
41.9 mega joules per kg (Mj/kg) calorific value whilst petroleum has
42.5 Mj/kg [104].
After repeated recycling of plastics using primary and secondary
recycling methods that result in the loss of their desired properties,
they are discarded into landfills thereby contaminating the earth
[54]. The general approach at this point is the combustion of the
waste material thereby boosting energy supply [103]. Additionally,
incineration of waste results in volume reduction of up to 99% and
th
Governments worldwide have generally struggled for many
years to reduce plastic waste [16,51,65,129,130]. Plastic recycling
has attracted a lot of legislative attention unlike any other recycling
business [82]. Different policies and incentives can be looked at to
ensure the timely capture and sorting of packaging waste for
recycling and these include extended producer responsibility (EPR),
taxes and bans [67]. The responses from countries varies widely in
their policies and implementation of systems meant to remedy
plastic waste. This has resulted in recycling of only 9% of the 9
billion tonnes of cumulative worldwide plastic waste reported in
2018 [18]. In 2019, Jefferson [37] reported the figure to have
reached 10% and that it would continue to rise slowly.
As a result of the intricate recycling system for plastics,
manufacturers generally avoid investing in plastic recycling [78].
The EPR policy holds the manufacturers to be responsible for the life
cycle of their produced packaging material. As such, manufacturers
are motivated to design green materials and increase awareness on
handling of their product throughout its service life up to the
material recovery stage thereby forming a closed loop cycle. EPR is
still lacking in Africa and in southern Africa, it is under
implementation only in South Africa [67].
Extra charges like taxes can be imposed on packaging material
to deter irresponsible use of the materials. The most recycled
polymer is PET and Norway is reported by Maria and Leva [67] as
holders of the world record of having the highest PET bottle
recycling rates standing at 97%. This is attributed to a redeemable
fee that is charged when purchasing a PET bottle to discourage the
throw away culture. In the United Kingdom a tax was levied on
carrier bags and resulted in consumers opting to reuse the bags
rather than buying more and this resulted in almost 16 billion less
bags used by the consumers [70].
Plastic bans seem to have been a more widely used policy to
manage plastic waste. Several countries have introduced
regulations on plastic bags and Styrofoam products. However,
based on the experience of more than 60 countries, there is not
much information to draw conclusive information on the impacts of
the bans [131]. This could be attributed to the failure of enforcing
the regulations for one reason or another [131,132]. Inevitably, the
problem of plastic pollution would persist. The following Figure
4 shows the impacts of the bans.