This literature review supports the following project: Life cycle analysis of distributed polymer recycling
Kuczensk, Brandon, and Roland Geyer. "LCA and Recycling Policy — a Case Study in Plastic." 1 Oct. 2001. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. [1].
- 11 states have bottle bills (MI included)
- producing 1 kg PET requires 206 g Natural Gas for ethylene, 588 g crude oil for xylene, Liquid oxygen, and water
- 1kg diverted from land fill saves 1kg disposal +.78kg primary production
- buy back centers/source separated processors: .044MJ primary energy per 1kg PET
- curbside collection: .65-.8 MJ primary energy per 1kg PET
- materials recovery center: .38 MJ primary energy per 1kg PET
- each additional kg recycled reduced primary energy 46.2-56.3 MJ
NOTES: good diagrams/flowcharts, necessary info for CA only
Lofti, Ahmad. "Plastic / Polymer Recycling." Web. 11 Oct. 2011. [2].
- 1:PET (highly recyclable)
- 2:HDPE (highly recyclable)
- 3:PVC (not recycled)
- 4:LDPE
- 5:Polypropylene (not recycled)
- 6:Polystyrene (not recycled)
- 7:Other/mixed (no recycling)
- usually a single re-use
- can't mix PET and PVC in recycling
- steps: collection, sorting/seperating, processing, manufacturing
NOTES: outdated
The ImpEE Project: Recycling of Plastics. The Cambridge-MIT Institute. 11 Oct 2011. [3]
- embodied energy analysis via input/output instead of thermo
- energy in/kg PET out
- energy in/bottles out
- LCA preformed on milk carton
- comparison of different materials (PET, glass, aluminum, steel)
- LCA of recycling PET into fleece
- chart of embodied energies and prices of polymers
- embodied energy and price of recycled material is half of virgin material (lower quality)
- "Transport does not have a great impact on the energy life cycle of this product."-slide 8
NOTES: great diagrams, equations
Britz, David, Yohsi Hamaoka, and Jessica Mazorson. "Recology: Value in Recycling Materials." MIT Sloan Sustainability Lab, 13 May 2010. Web. 13 Oct. 2011. [4].
- studied virgin material market, environmental impact, and recycling of virgin material
- used LCA databases
- materials flow and embodied energy
- energy input=energy stored product+energy stored in waste+energy released
- recycled material uses 80% less energy than virgin material
- producing 1 kg recycled PET uses 42-55 MJ/ 1kg virgin PET uses >77 MJ
NOTES:check sources 12-14
"Embodied Energy Coefficients." Web. 13 Oct. 2011. [5].
- coefficients in MJ/kg and MJ3
- ABS, HDPE,LDPE, polyester, pp, ps, polyurethane, PVC
- compares local data to worldwide data
- sourced
Embodied Energy Table
Table 1: Embodied Energy per kg material
Material | Embodied Energy (MJ/kg) | Embodied CO2 (/kg) | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
ABS | 111 | From Franklin Associates Ltd. | |
HDPE | 103 | ||
LDPE | 103 | ||
Polyester | 53.7 | ||
Polypropylene | 64 | ||
Polystyrene (expanded) | 117 | ||
Polyurethane | 74 | ||
PVC | 70 |
References
[1] Kuczensk, Brandon, and Roland Geyer. "LCA and Recycling Policy — a Case Study in Plastic." 1 Oct. 2001. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. [6]. |- [2] Lofti, Ahmad. "Plastic / Polymer Recycling." Web. 11 Oct. 2011. [7]. |- [3] The ImpEE Project: Recycling of Plastics. The Cambridge-MIT Institute. 11 Oct 2011. [8] |- [4] Britz, David, Yohsi Hamaoka, and Jessica Mazorson. "Recology: Value in Recycling Materials." MIT Sloan Sustainability Lab, 13 May 2010. Web. 13 Oct. 2011. [9]. |- [5] "Embodied Energy Coefficients." Web. 13 Oct. 2011. [10].