Clarifying European terminology in plastics recycling

Kim Ragaert; Cloé Ragot; Kevin M. Van Geem; Sascha Kersten; Yoni Shiran; Steven De Meester

doi:10.1016/j.cogsc.2023.100871

Clarifying European terminology in plastics recycling

Kim Ragaert^*, Cloé Ragot, Kevin M. Van Geem, Sascha Kersten, Yoni Shiran, Steven De Meester

^*Corresponding author for this work

Sustainable Process Technology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › Academic › peer-review

31 Citations (Scopus)

153 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The increasing activities in plastics recycling have led to a sprawl of terminology describing different technologies and technology categorizations. This creates not only linguistic confusion but also makes it difficult for regulators, investors, corporate leaders and other stakeholders to fully understand the relationship between different technologies, potentially leading to suboptimal decisions on policy, investment, or collaboration. To bring clarity to this topic, this manuscript provides an overview of (i) the different circular pathways for plastics, with a focus on recycling, (ii) the most common categorization of recycling technologies, (iii) what is considered ‘recycling’ by the European Commission and (iv) some alternative terms used in grey and academic literature to describe recycling technologies.

Original language	English
Article number	100871
Journal	Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry
Volume	44
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsc.2023.100871
Publication status	Published - Dec 2023

Keywords

Circular economy
Nomenclature
Plastics recycling
Recovery

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1016/j.cogsc.2023.100871Licence: CC BY

1-s2.0-S2452223623001190-mainFinal published version, 824 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

@article{e5a65ad635d241449810591fa0e5d3c1,

title = "Clarifying European terminology in plastics recycling",

abstract = "The increasing activities in plastics recycling have led to a sprawl of terminology describing different technologies and technology categorizations. This creates not only linguistic confusion but also makes it difficult for regulators, investors, corporate leaders and other stakeholders to fully understand the relationship between different technologies, potentially leading to suboptimal decisions on policy, investment, or collaboration. To bring clarity to this topic, this manuscript provides an overview of (i) the different circular pathways for plastics, with a focus on recycling, (ii) the most common categorization of recycling technologies, (iii) what is considered {\textquoteleft}recycling{\textquoteright} by the European Commission and (iv) some alternative terms used in grey and academic literature to describe recycling technologies.",

keywords = "Circular economy, Nomenclature, Plastics recycling, Recovery",

author = "Kim Ragaert and Clo{\'e} Ragot and {Van Geem}, {Kevin M.} and Sascha Kersten and Yoni Shiran and {De Meester}, Steven",

note = "Funding Information: The research leading to these results has received funding from (i) the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101058487 “INCREACE” and (ii) the European Research Council under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme/ERC Grant Agreements No. 818607 “ERC OPTIMA”. Funding Information: The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Kim Ragaert reports financial support was provided by Horizon Europe. Kevin Van Geem reports financial support was provided by Horizon Europe. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023 The Author(s)",

year = "2023",

month = dec,

doi = "10.1016/j.cogsc.2023.100871",

language = "English",

volume = "44",

journal = "Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry",

issn = "2452-2236",

publisher = "Elsevier B.V.",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Clarifying European terminology in plastics recycling

AU - Ragaert, Kim

AU - Ragot, Cloé

AU - Van Geem, Kevin M.

AU - Kersten, Sascha

AU - Shiran, Yoni

AU - De Meester, Steven

N1 - Funding Information: The research leading to these results has received funding from (i) the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101058487 “INCREACE” and (ii) the European Research Council under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme/ERC Grant Agreements No. 818607 “ERC OPTIMA”. Funding Information: The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Kim Ragaert reports financial support was provided by Horizon Europe. Kevin Van Geem reports financial support was provided by Horizon Europe. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s)

PY - 2023/12

Y1 - 2023/12

N2 - The increasing activities in plastics recycling have led to a sprawl of terminology describing different technologies and technology categorizations. This creates not only linguistic confusion but also makes it difficult for regulators, investors, corporate leaders and other stakeholders to fully understand the relationship between different technologies, potentially leading to suboptimal decisions on policy, investment, or collaboration. To bring clarity to this topic, this manuscript provides an overview of (i) the different circular pathways for plastics, with a focus on recycling, (ii) the most common categorization of recycling technologies, (iii) what is considered ‘recycling’ by the European Commission and (iv) some alternative terms used in grey and academic literature to describe recycling technologies.

AB - The increasing activities in plastics recycling have led to a sprawl of terminology describing different technologies and technology categorizations. This creates not only linguistic confusion but also makes it difficult for regulators, investors, corporate leaders and other stakeholders to fully understand the relationship between different technologies, potentially leading to suboptimal decisions on policy, investment, or collaboration. To bring clarity to this topic, this manuscript provides an overview of (i) the different circular pathways for plastics, with a focus on recycling, (ii) the most common categorization of recycling technologies, (iii) what is considered ‘recycling’ by the European Commission and (iv) some alternative terms used in grey and academic literature to describe recycling technologies.

KW - Circular economy

KW - Nomenclature

KW - Plastics recycling

KW - Recovery

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85173878850&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.cogsc.2023.100871

DO - 10.1016/j.cogsc.2023.100871

M3 - Review article

AN - SCOPUS:85173878850

SN - 2452-2236

VL - 44

JO - Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry

JF - Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry

M1 - 100871

ER -

Clarifying European terminology in plastics recycling

Abstract

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this