The Plastics 2020 Challenge Takes Global Centrestage
An alliance of the worldwide plastic industry, consisting of leading trade associations, has been forged to ensure that they are able to alter the common perception that the plastic industry is environmentally-insensitive. This significant development has come about in the form of ‘The Plastics 2020 Challenge’ organized by PlasticsEurope, the British Plastics Federation and the Packaging & Films Association. The Challenge would represent the innovative and eco-friendly efforts of about 5,000 plastic companies.
As part of this campaign, the concerned entities would try to incorporate the use of lightweight plastics along with developing new ways in which plastic products can be recycled without any substantial carbon emissions. This essentially means that the brands registered under this forum would seek more cooperation from the government agencies involved in developing greener technologies, particularly those concerned with recycling. One of the objectives would be to develop affordable waste-to-energy technologies when recycling does not seem like an economically-feasible option.
Plastics 2020: The Outline
The forum has emphasized that they want to double the recycling rate for plastic packaging and other products by 2020. This will be combined with an effort to limit the volume of plastic wastes being dumped in landfills.
Challenge 2020 endorses an easy-to-understand tag line for educating people about its efforts. This is being promoted as the ‘Four Rs’:
• Reduce — restricting plastic wastage by phasing-out plastic products that don’t present a recycling option. This means a commitment towards introducing high-performance plastic materials.
• Reuse — gradually increase the use of thinner and low-emission plastics for packaging and constructional purposes. These plastics are as reusable as conventional plastics but have a lesser impact on the environment.
• Recycle — seeking support from industrial conglomerates and government agencies for increasing the efficiency with which used plastics are transformed into safe, affordable products. This includes creating sustainable international markets that would endorse this new range of refurbished plastics.
• Recover — creating a safer and more sustainable method for eliminating plastic products that cannot be safely recycled. This means researching new waste disposal techniques for end-of-life plastics.
Plastic Use & Contemporary Business Practices: Understanding the Predicament
If you consider the relevancy of the Plastics 2020 Challenge, it would seem that it couldn’t have been timed any better. Although there is a great emphasis upon adopting greener business practices across the globe, there is lot of confusion regarding its feasibility and method of adoption. For example, among the latest plastic-centered green building technologies is the Translucent Roofing System that is used for controlling the amount of natural light entering the living spaces and it is recyclable.
There is also a gradual shift towards using an innovative plastic-based, nano-porous insulation material. However, apart from a handful of such examples there is a serious dearth of adopting greener plastics into the modern business segment, particularly in creating sustainable homes.
The Problem — The general perception is that plastics have an extremely negative environmental impact and their use should be avoided. However, plastics produced from a single polymer with negligible additives can be easily recycled and have appreciably low carbon emissions. A notable example is the construction industry that presents a confusing picture wherein PVC, polybutylene, polypropylene and polyethylene are being used with varying interpretations about their environmental impact.
The notion that PVC shouldn’t be used for houses based on the green construction platform was severely challenged in 2007 by the US Green Building Council. According to this organization’s report, though much-maligned, PVC was not as environmentally-challenging in comparison to some of the ‘supposedly’ greener materials preached for being used in roofings, pipes, sheet floorings, window frames and claddings.
As a result, there is a great debate over the environmental footprints of PVC. Now, polyethylene, polybutylene and polypropylene are being increasingly substituted for PVC-based constructional products since they don’t contain harmful chemicals chlorine. Yes, these plastics are more environmentally compatible than PVC but their production is heavily dependent of fossil fuels. There are many other plastic options besides these three that haven’t been explored, or more critically, they haven’t been presented in an adoptable format.
Plastics 2020: A Step In The Right Direction
If the above-illustrated example of using plastics for creating greener and more sustainable homes is continued with, the Challenge 2020 will educate its members about various mediums to help businesses understand Sustainable Construction. This would include issues such as decoding carbon footprints of PVC windows, plastic water pipes and use of plastic foam insulation. Resource efficiency of a building is still a grey area for most businesses. For example, plastics foams are cost effective and environmentally friendly and expanded polystyrene insulation helps to conserve energy within an establishment. Similarly, the new-age version of plastics pipes has a lesser ecological impact than concrete and iron pipes and being extremely lightweight, they help to save on transport costs.
This is how the utility of the Plastics 2020 forum will come to the fore — educating businesses about various kinds of plastics that can be incorporated for affordably, adopting greener technologies.
