Recycling Facts and Statistics

Recycling Facts and Statistics

By: Okeke Uchechukwu C. - Global Sustainability Advisor

i. Since 1950, close to half of all plastic has ended up in landfill or dumped in the wild, and only 9% of used plastic has been adequately recycled. On the one hand, developed economies with regulations that encourage it have recycling rates around 30%. On the other hand, developing economies with a minimal industrial base have recycling rates close to 0%. (1)

ii. Every year, it is estimated that 4 to 12 million metric tons of plastic waste ends up in the oceans. (1)

iii. A recent study from the University of Georgia estimated that 8 million metric tons of plastic trash enters the ocean every year. That's like putting five bags filled with plastic on every foot of coastline in the world. That's a LOT of plastic in the ocean, and it's there because... well, we put it there! (2)

iv. One survey conducted by the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) suggests that 66% of Americans would NOT recycle a product if it’s not easy or inconvenient to do so. The recycling rate of aluminum cans is around 63.6 percent. (3)

v. The amount of worldwide e-waste generation is expected to exceed 50 million tons by 2020, with an annual growth between 4% and 5%. This quantity includes 16.8 million metric tons of small equipment; 9.1 million metric tons of large equipment; 7.6 million metric tons of temperature exchange (freezing and cooling) equipment; 6.6 million metric tons of screens and monitors; 3.9 million metric tons of small IT,; and 0.7 million metric tons of lamps. (4)

vi. With rapid economic development and urbanization, a large number of primary resources are consumed and accumulate in society as recyclable resource, which causes great pressure on the environment. The development of the resource recycling industry (RRI) can reduce environmental impacts and achieve sustainable development and green growth. (5)

vii. The quantities of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) generated are high and/or on the increase. IT and telecommunications equipment seem to be the dominant WEEE being generated, at least in terms of numbers, in Africa, in the poorer regions of Asia and in Latin/South America. Handling of WEEE in developing countries is typified by high rate of repair and reuse within a largely informal recycling sector. (6)

viii. Global amounts of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) will continue unabated for some time due to emergence of new technologies and affordable electronics; informal recycling in developing nations has the potential of making a valuable contribution if their operations can be changed with strict safety standards as a priority; the pace of initiating and enacting WEEE specific legislation is very slow across the globe and in some cases non-existent; and globally, there is need for more accurate and current data on amounts and types of WEEE generated. (6)

ix. While current research into solar panels has focused on how to improve the efficiency of the production capacity, the dismantling and recycling of end-of-life (EOL) panels are seldom considered, as can be seen, for instance, in the lack of dedicated solar-panel recycling plants. (7)

x. An assessment of material waste disposal methods in the nigerian construction industry revealed that landfilling is the most common method of waste disposal, which is closely followed by reuse as backfill and recycling. (8)

xi. As a consequence, the production of plastics has increased markedly over the last 60 years. However, current levels of their usage and disposal generate several environmental problems. Around 4 per cent of world oil and gas production, a non-renewable resource, is used as feedstock for plastics and a further 3–4% is expended to provide energy for their manufacture. (9)

xii. Recycling of packaging materials has seen rapid expansion over the last decades in a number of countries. Advances in technologies and systems for the collection, sorting and reprocessing of recyclable plastics are creating new opportunities for recycling, and with the combined actions of the public, industry and governments it may be possible to divert the majority of plastic waste from landfills to recycling over the next decades. (9)

xiii. Current European waste policy does not mainly aim to treat waste streams but rather place in the foreground of interest the complete supply chain of a product. Waste prevention and re-use do have the highest priority and they take effect before the end-of-life phase of a product or a material is reached. Recycling only takes the third place whereas recovery and disposal represent the least favourable options. (10)

xiv. Recycling can help to decrease the consumption of primary resources but it does not tackle the causes but only the symptoms. In principle, recycling processes require energy and will generate side streams (i.e. waste). (10)

xv. Even if China incinerates a considerable fraction of waste (15%), 82% of the waste is still landfilled (to a large extent on open dumps. (11)

xvi. Out of 60 only 18 metals (i.e. 30%) exhibit a recycling rate higher than 50%, whereas on the other side, 34 metals (i.e. 57%) are recycled by less than 1%. (12)

xvii. It is striking that all rare earth elements are within in the group below 1% recycling. It is evident that a significant improvement of recycling technologies for rare earth elements is absolutely necessary. (13)

xviii. Waste trafficking is a major issue and causes severe environmental and health problems. On the one hand, waste from industrialized countries is exported into third-world countries. On the other hand, a transfer of production and the associated waste generation is transferred into third-world countries (‘indirect’ trafficking). Both forms of waste export show distinct environmental and social disadvantages. (14)

xix. The Zero Waste International Alliance states that, ‘over 90% diversion of waste from landfills and incinerators are considered to be successful in achieving zero waste, or darn close’. (15)

xx. Commonly in waste management only the ‘classical’ options, namely recycling, incineration and landfill, are taken into account. As a matter of fact statistics report the amount of waste materials that are recycled, incinerated or landfilled. (16)

xxi. We estimate that 8300 million metric tons (Mt) as of virgin plastics have been produced to date. As of 2015, approximately 6300 Mt of plastic waste had been generated, around 9% of which had been recycled, 12% was incinerated, and 79% was accumulated in landfills or the natural environment. If current production and waste management trends continue, roughly 12,000 Mt of plastic waste will be in landfills or in the natural environment by 2050. (17)

xxii. Plastics’ largest market is packaging, an application whose growth was accelerated by a global shift from reusable to single-use containers. As a result, the share of plastics in municipal solid waste (by mass) increased from less than 1% in 1960 to more than 10% by 2005 in middle- and high-income countries. (18)

xxiii. The Aluminum Association, an industry group, says that almost 75 percent of all the aluminum ever produced to date is still in use today. Recycling aluminum saves about 90 percent of the energy it takes to make new aluminum, which is great since mining bauxite ore and turning it into aluminum is pretty environmentally destructive and energy-intensive. (19)

xxiv. The Aluminum Association says that each year, Americans send more than $700 million worth of aluminum cans to landfills. (19)

xxv. The total generation of municipal solid waste (MSW) in 2018 was 292.4 million tons or 4.9 pounds per person per day. Of the MSW generated, approximately 69 million tons were recycled and 25 million tons were composted. Together, almost 94 million tons of MSW were recycled and composted, equivalent to a 32.1 percent recycling and composting rate. An additional 17.7 million tons of food were managed by other methods. (20)

xxvi. In addition, nearly 35 million tons of MSW (11.8 percent) were combusted with energy recovery and more than 146 million tons of MSW (50 percent) were landfilled. (20)

xxvii. The paper industry is encouraging 8.800 communities that already pick up recyclables — such as newspapers, cans and bottles at curbside — to also pick up paper grocery bags. Then, if each family in those communities would set out just one paper grocery bag a week for recycling, Americans could recycle more than a BILLION BAGS a year. (21)

xxviii. The recycling rate for all textiles was 14.7 percent in 2018, with 2.5 million tons recycled. Within this figure, EPA estimated that the recycling rate for textiles in clothing and footwear was 13 percent based on information from the American Textile Recycling Service. The rate for items such as sheets and pillowcases was 15.8 percent in 2018. (22)

xxix. The total amount of textiles in MSW combusted in 2018 was 3.2 million tons. This was 9.3 percent of MSW combusted with energy recovery. (22) GSA – Okeke Uchechukwu C. Green Earth Sustainable Solutions 3 | P a g e

xxx. Landfills received 11.3 million tons of MSW textiles in 2018. This was 7.7 percent of all MSW landfilled. (22)

xxxi. A record 53.6 million metric tonnes (Mt) of electronic waste was generated worldwide in 2019, up 21 percent in just five years. The new report also predicts that global e-waste (discarded products with a battery or electrical plug) will reach 74 Mt by 2030 — almost a doubling of ewaste tonnage in just 16 years. This makes e-waste the world’s fastest-growing domestic waste stream, fueled mainly by higher consumption rates of electric and electronic equipment, short life-cycles, and few options for repair. (23)

xxxii. Only 17.4 per cent of 2019’s e-waste was collected and recycled. This means that gold, silver, copper, platinum, and other high-value, recoverable materials conservatively valued at US $57 billion — a sum greater than the Gross Domestic Product of most countries — were mostly dumped or burned rather than being collected for treatment and reuse. (23)

xxxiii. According to the report, Asia generated the greatest volume of e-waste in 2019 — some 24.9 Mt, followed by the Americas (13.1 Mt), Europe (12 Mt), Africa (2.9 Mt), and and Oceania (0.7 Mt). (23)

xxxiv. Recycling one million laptops saves the energy equivalent to the electricity used by more than 3,500 US homes in a year.For every million cell phones we recycle, 35 thousand pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold and 33 pounds of palladium can be recovered. (24)

xxxv. 10 million metric tons of glass is disposed of every year in the US, 33% of waste glass gets recycled in the US, 90% of disposed glass gets recycled in several European nations, on average, and 40% of glass thrown into single-stream recycling collections actually gets recycled. 90% of glass put into multi-stream collections gets recycled, 5% of CO2 emissions are cut for every 10% of glassmaking mix substituted with cullet. (25) 

References

1) Woldemar d’Ambrières, « Plastics recycling worldwide: current overview and desirable changes », Field Actions Science Reports, Special Issue 19 | 2019, 12-21.

2) https://oceantoday.noaa.gov/trashtalk_plastics/welcome.html

3) https://www.rts.com/blog/recycling-facts-statistics/

4) https://www.rts.com/blog/recycling-facts-statistics/

5) Wang M, Liu P, Gu Z, Cheng H, Li X. A Scientometric Review of Resource Recycling Industry. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019 Nov 22;16(23):4654. doi: 10.3390/ijerph16234654. PMID: 31766728; PMCID: PMC6926864.

6) Ongondo F.O., Williams I.D., Cherrett T.J. How are WEEE doing? A global review of the management of electrical and electronic wastes. Waste Manag. 2011;31:714–730. doi: 10.1016/j.wasman.2010.10.023.

7) Xu Y, Li J, Tan Q, Peters AL, Yang C. Global status of recycling waste solar panels: A review. Waste Manag. 2018 May;75:450-458. doi: 10.1016/j.wasman.2018.01.036. Epub 2018 Feb 19. PMID: 29472153.

8) Ogunmakinde, Olabode E., William Sher, and Kim Maund. 2019. "An Assessment of Material Waste Disposal Methods in the Nigerian Construction Industry" Recycling 4, no. 1: 13. https://doi.org/10.3390/recycling4010013

9) Hopewell J., Dvorak R., Kosior E. Plastics recycling: Challenges and opportunities. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 2009;364:2115–2126. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2008.0311. 10)Bartl A. Moving from recycling to waste prevention: A review of barriers and enables. Waste Management & Research. 2014;32(9_suppl):3-18. doi:10.1177/0734242X14541986

11)Zhang, DQ, Tan, S, Gersberg, R (2010) Municipal solid waste management in China: status, problems and challenges. Journal of Environmental Management 91: 1623–1633.

12)Graedel, TE, Allwood, J, Birat, J. (2011) What do we know about metal recycling rates? Journal of Industrial Ecology 15: 355–366. Reck, B, Graedel, T (2012) Challenges in metal recycling. Science 337: 690–695.

13)Binnemans, K, Jones, PT, Blanpain, B. (2013) Recycling of rare earths: a critical review. Journal of Cleaner Production 51: 1–22.

14)Bartl A. Moving from recycling to waste prevention: A review of barriers and enables. Waste Management & Research. 2014;32(9_suppl):3-18. doi:10.1177/0734242X14541986

15)Zero Waste International Alliance: (2012) ZW Definition. Available at: http://zwia.org/standards/zw-definition/ (accessed July 2 2022).

16)Eurostat (2013) Municipal waste generation and treatment, by type of treatment method. Available at: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/refreshTableAction.do?tab=table&plugin=1&pcode=tsdpc 240&language=en (accessed 25 June 2022).

17)Roland Geyer and Jenna R. Jambeck and Kara Lavender Law, Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made, Science Advances. 2017, Vol 3, Num 7, 10.1126/sciadv.1700782, https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/sciadv.1700782

18)J. R. Jambeck, R. Geyer, C. Wilcox, T. R. Siegler, M. Perryman, A. Andrady, R. Narayan, K. L. Law, Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean. Science 347, 768–771 (2015).

19)https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/12/20862775/aluminum-recycling-water-tech-plasticmanufacturing-cocacola-pepsi-apple

20)https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national-overviewfacts-and-figures-materials

21)https://www.munciesanitary.org/departments/recycling/misc-recycling-facts/paper-facts/

22)https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/textiles-materialspecific-data

23)Forti, Vanessa, Balde, Cornelis P., Kuehr, Ruediger and Bel, Garam, The Global E-waste Monitor 2020: Quantities, flows and the circular economy potential, (Bonn, Geneva and Rotterdam: United Nations University/United Nations Institute for Training and Research, International Telecommunication Union, and International Solid Waste Association, 2020).

24)https://www.epa.gov/recycle/electronics-donation-and-recycling

25)https://cen.acs.org/materials/inorganic-chemistry/glass-recycling-US-broken/97/i6

26)https://unu.edu/media-relations/releases/global-e-waste-surging-up-21-in-5-years.html#info