How many people today grab a takeaway coffee cup from the local cafe to drink on the go? We don’t know, but the number must be enormous.. Most every one of the above have a plastic top that will last 100s of years. Some cafes still use plastic cups that last a similar time. Is 10 minutes of coffee worth 100s of years of trash?
These items can be seen littering our gutters and on our streets all over the place. If they were all cardboard, they would still be littered, but they would, at least, be gone in a short time.
They do not need to be made of plastic.
On the way home from the gym last week, a distance of about 1 km (1/2 mile), I counted the items of plastic litter on the curb as I walked. In that short distance I counted 63 pieces of plastic litter. Plastic drink bottles, bottle tops, candy wrappers, plastic film, polystyrene fragments etc. That seemed to be a lot to me. I guess it is a generational thing. Our parents would have been horrified to see that amount, whereas it seems to go unnoticed by our youth of today. In another 20 years how many pieces will there be on this stretch, -- 200? What will today’s youth think of that new amount then when they are older? Will their children be so readily accepting of a higher amount of litter? Chemically recycled plastics up to 3.7 times more expensive, EU study finds
Posted on August 5, 2026 by DrRossH in Plastic RecyclingWhile chemically recycled plastics remain significantly more expensive than virgin alternatives, a strong EU regulatory market could transform their competitiveness.
Source: Chemically recycled plastics up to 3.7 times more expensive, EU study finds – Plastics News
Material yield is one of the principal constraints on pyrolysis economics.
The JRC developed a cost model covering the full pyrolysis chain, from the collection and preparation of mixed plastic waste through pyrolysis, oil upgrading, steam cracking and polymerisation.
The cost analysis is therefore wider in scope than other published estimates which often focus only on the cost of pyrolysis oil production, excluding feedstock preparation and the downstream steps required to turn the oil into new plastic.
Under the JRC’s baseline scenario, the cost rises from €365 per tonne of prepared pyrolysis feedstock to €1,304 per tonne of raw pyrolysis oil and €1,698 per tonne of upgraded oil. After steam cracking and polymerisation, the estimated cost reaches €2,968 per tonne of recycled polyolefin.
In the baseline scenario, the JRC estimated a mixed-waste-to-new-plastic yield of 29.3%, meaning approximately 3.7 tonnes of mixed plastic waste are required to produce one tonne of recycled plastic. The current scenario produces a yield of 19.7%, while the report’s theoretical best case reaches 56.2%.
In current processes, roughly one-third of the plastic can be converted back into plastics or other high-value chemicals. A further third is converted into fuels or used for energy, while the remainder is lost as heat or material losses.
Higher material yields are technically possible, but require additional processing equipment, catalysts and external energy. One study cited by the JRC found that increasing yield from around 50% to 78% could require 50% more energy. The JRC said this creates a fundamental trade-off between maximising the amount of material recovered and controlling operating costs, energy consumption and carbon emissions.
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