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NOTES: outdated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

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