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Open Letter on the Benefits of Plastics Benefits Plastics energy efficient environmentally friendly

Benefits Plastics energy efficient environmentally friendly

P D Coates, H Benkreira, B R Whiteside, A L Kelly, Polymer Interdisciplinary Research Centre/ Faculty of Engineering & Informatics

S Rimmer, R Hamed, Polymer Interdisciplinary Research Centre/ Faculty of Life Sciences

A Sharif, U Sivarajah, Z Irani, J Mishra, Faculty of Management, Law & Social Sciences

All at the University of Bradford, Bradford BD7 1DP, UK

Contact author: p.d.coates@bradford.ac.uk

Web sites: www.polyeng.com   www.ceforplastics.uk

-We live in the plastic age and various excellent impacts on our life and planet continue to come from plastics.

‘Plastics’ covers a remarkable set of families of materials which we in the Polymer IRC research laboratories at the University of Bradford are helping to develop further.

Typically we use the manufacturing process to develop improved properties in plastics so achieving a ‘double whammy’ of making precision items and enhancing their properties at the same time. This has opened up new markets worldwide.

Some examples are products made by exploiting in a controlled way orientation of the molecules which make up solid plastics.Benefits Plastics energy efficient environmentally friendly

Our special energy-efficient and environmentally friendly stretching processes, such as drawing plastics through specially shaped metal dies, can raise the stiffness of a humble, low cost polyethylene up to 80 fold to match the stiffness of aluminium, whilst staying much lighter.Benefits Plastics energy efficient environmentally friendly

At the same time, other physical properties, such as thermal and barrier properties, are also enhanced.  Because of our detailed understanding of the orientation processes, we can tailor how much improvement in properties we need to make for different applications.

These include geogrids for land reinforcement e.g. Tensar products, wood replacement Materials – a spin out company Eotek in the USA has used our technology to develop building materials from talc filled polypropylenes, oriented to make superior property products to wood, which also exhibit hurricane resistance on impact; high precision oriented tubes of 100 µm wall thickness similar to hair thickness are made from a plastic, PLA, made from corn starch, which after laser cutting a pattern in are used to make bioresorbable, drug coated arterial stents (Arterius Ltd).

In some cases the orientation can be reversed by triggering for example at body temperature to cause shape change. We exploit this shape memory property for PLA Materials to be fixings for soft tissue to bone in orthopaedic repairs (initially with Smith and Nephew).Benefits Plastics energy efficient environmentally friendly

It has recently been shown that we can make shape memory PLA sutures which self tighten, with antimicrobial silver coating.Benefits Plastics energy efficient environmentally friendly

In a collaboration with Sichuan University, part of our extensive UK China Advanced materials for healthcare research community, we have found a bonus of our oriented PLAs is excellent resistance to blood cells sticking to the material because of the surface roughness created by our processes.Benefits Plastics energy efficient environmentally friendly

In other precision processing of plastics in our laboratory we are creating surface patterns which exhibit antimicrobial behaviour or we control surface features to make optical lens products and pain free micro-needles for drug delivery, plus precision dental root canal products.Benefits Plastics energy efficient environmentally friendly

The range of valuable-in some cases life-saving, and in many cases life enhancing- applications of oriented plastics is expanding.

Surgeons are excited about our shape memory fixations as of these can simplify keyhole surgery and benefit to patients; safe implants, including bioresorbable ones offer significant advantages to patients over conventional metal implants, including lighter weight and matching of properties with bone.Benefits Plastics energy efficient environmentally friendly

So many aspects of our lives are positively affected by plastics – we need them!  Accordingly we should also treat them with respect in the many other applications where their use is valuable such as food packaging to avoid food waste, but which get adverse press not through their usefulness but through poor, undefendable disposal practices.

Single use or multiuse, recycled or creatively employed, we can achieve superb properties and products with plastics – for good!

‘Waste Plastics – our treasure in the wrong place’

Meanwhile, whilst we should strongly promote the benefits of this remarkable family of materials, it is increasingly recognised that there is no ‘away’ so we can’t continue to be a “throw-away society”.

Polymers are too good to waste – they are chemically rich, made from the amazingly rich oil (over 90% of which sadly  we consume by effectively burning it, only a small fraction is turned into polymers – which contain the same calorific value as the oil they are derived from); it makes no sense to scrap polymers having invested in making these important and highly useful materials (that includes the ‘biodegradable polymer’ routes).

We therefore recognise the importance of communicating values – plastics waste is “our treasure in the wrong place” and our research at Bradford is part of the hope we must communicate, along with the encouragement of re-use and value-added ways of using waste polymer materials and hence in broader up-cycling, loop – and systems thinking within a circular economy context. Benefits Plastics energy efficient environmentally friendly

At Bradford we recognise the multi-disciplinary approach needed to address these issues, and bring together in our world-class Polymer IRC (polymer engineering, materials chemistry, life sciences) plus Management, where we link with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation – we are a recognised leading, and the first, Pioneer University in Circular Economy research and have the first MBA-level teaching programme in CE, Innovation & Enterprise. Benefits Plastics energy efficient environmentally friendly

We have strong industry and professional body links, seeking to work together to mitigate plastics waste, and promote the best practices for the use and reuse of plastics.

Background:

Plastic waste is of growing environmental, social and political importance in the UK – and globally. Over 300 million tonnes of plastics are produced annually; this has risen dramatically from 15 million tonnes in 1964 and is expected to double over the next 20 years [1].Benefits Plastics energy efficient environmentally friendly

Plastics have become key materials in many strategic sectors but generation of plastics solid waste (PSW) is a major problem. Of the 8.3 billion tonnes of plastics produced cumulatively worldwide, 6.3 billion tonnes of waste has been created [2].

Of this amount, only around 9% has been recycled, 12% incinerated and 79% accumulated in landfills or leaked into the natural environment – a clear loss of investment, with high value products not being used / reused / repurposed.

The ‘linear’ economy model (Take, Make, Dispose) has led to increasing environmental and political concerns – the amount of PSW entering the oceans has been estimated at 8 million tonnes per year and growing, which has a huge impact on marine ecosystems [3]. The recent decision by the Chinese government banning imports of plastic waste in 2018 puts further pressure on the UK [4].Benefits Plastics energy efficient environmentally friendly

A Circular Economy delivery is crucial – and we aim to help achieve this in our research: “zero waste” vitally requires both technical and behavioural changes.

Technically, in addition to reuse/ repurposing, end of life plastics may be recycled or used for energy recovery as alternatives to disposal by landfill, but recent policy reports [1,5] argue that waste plastics are a resource whose value can only be recovered by a closed loop approach, utilising more effective waste management and promoting recycling, using energy recovery as a complementary option.

Plastics recycling levels are increasing – in Europe the amount of plastics waste recycled overtook the amount of plastics disposed of by landfill for the first time in 2016.

However, whereas recycling routes are well established for large volume, relatively clean waste streams such as PET and HDPE bottles, many polymeric products are more difficult to classify, separate and recycle using conventional techniques.

These include multi-layered plastics, fibre reinforced plastics and cross-linked polymers e.g. thermosets and rubbers.Benefits Plastics energy efficient environmentally friendly

These materials constitute a number of high volume products such as packaging, waste tyres, and printed circuit boards.Benefits Plastics energy efficient environmentally friendly

There is an urgent need to develop economically and technically feasible routes of recovering these difficult to recycle polymeric materials. In parallel, there is need to develop – and strong interest in – renewably sourced virgin feedstocks, i.e. novel polymers from biomass by modification of biopolymers or from bioderived monomers (c.f. synthetic biology) – these could be capable of multiple recycles, with eventual cycle closure by composting. Benefits Plastics energy efficient environmentally friendly

Behaviourally, much also needs to be addressed, with evidence-based routes for change in both behaviour and legislation.  It is increasingly recognised that there is no ‘away’ so we can’t continue to be a “throw-away society”.Benefits Plastics energy efficient environmentally friendly

The burden of the disposal or use /reuse of end of life products (especially packaging and fast moving consumer goods) is only just beginning to be shifted to producers and manufacturers (“No Zero Burden” argument [6]).

Collection strategies are crucial for consumer waste, and design using Plastics CE principles is just beginning to be embraced. At Bradford, we aim to address many of these pressing issues.Benefits Plastics energy efficient environmentally friendly

www.polyeng.com and www.ceforplastics.uk

References:

1. The new plastics economy: rethinking the future of plastics and catalysing action, Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2017 2. R Geyer et al., Production, use and fate of all plastics ever made, Sci. Adv. 2017 3, 7 3. JR Jambeck, Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean, Science, 13, Feb 2015  4. Chinese ban on plastic waste imports could see UK pollution rise, S Laville, Guardian, 2017 5. Plastics–the Facts 2017; An analysis of European plastics production, demand and waste data, Plast Eur 2018  6. Ilic, D.D., Eriksson O, Odlund, L, Aberg, M, No Zero Burden assumption in a Circular Economy. J.Clean.Prod, 182:352–362, 2018