CMA

69 Objective of OPTOCE The regional project Ocean Plastic Turned into an Opportunity in Circular Economy – OPTOCE will investigate how the involvement of Energy Intensive Industries, like cement manufacturing, can increase the treatment capacity for Non Recyclable Plastic Wastes (NRPW) in China, India, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam and thereby contribute to reduce the release of plastics to the Sea. These countries are producing an estimated 176000 tonnes of plastic waste every day (64 million tonnes/ year) and have some of the highest releases of Plastics to the Sea. Relatively small quantities are handled in an environmentally sound way. But they also have the highest production of cement, steel, and electric power, using huge amounts of coal and contributing with large amounts of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Replacing parts of this coal with Non-Recyclable Plastic Wastes may represent a win-win opportunity preventing the plastic from ending up in the ocean, reducing the need for large amounts of fossil coal and indirectly reducing greenhouse gas emissions by avoiding building new incinerators or landfills. What is considered waste in one sector becomes a resource in another. This concept represents circular economy in practice and incorporates waste treatment with existing industrial production, which is also preferred to Incineration and Landfilling in the internationally accepted Waste Management Hierarchy. Additional Objectives Additional objectives and synergies of the OPTOCE- project will be the following: • Reduce marine debris from land-based activities. • Enhance multi stakeholder coordination and partnerships. • Promote private sector engagement. • Strengthen research to support science-based policy and decision making. Where does all the plastic go? An estimated 9.3 billion tons of virgin plastics was produced globally up to 2019. Out of this, 6.3 billion tonnes have already ended up being plastic waste; of this, only 9% was recycled, 12% incinerated and 79% dumped. If current production and waste management trends continue, roughly 12 billion tonnes of plastic waste will be in landfills or in the natural environment by 2050 (Geyer et al. 2017). What about Recycling? Recycling is the preferred option but not all plastic waste is suitable for recycling. From a technical aspect, it is challenging to recycle plastic that consists of several types of polymers, as you need to separate them. From an economic perspective, the recycling sector suffers greatly from low oil prices. The main component of plastic is oil; hence the low oil prices lead to low prices of virgin plastic. Studies from Asia post Covid has shown that the recycling sector has seen a 50 percent drop in demand and a 20 percent drop in prices (Safeguarding the plastic value chain, 2020). Studies has also shown that most of the plastic that ends up in the oceans is low-quality plastic that is hard to recycle (Stemming the Tide, 2015). Incineration is becoming increasingly popular Energy recovery from wastes and plastics in Municipal Solid Waste Incinerators with Waste to Energy (WtE) normally involves generation of electricity in steam turbines, but the conversion efficiency to electricity is poor and will not recover the construction costs (Mutz et al., 2017). WtE-plants are expensive to build and operate, they represent an additional emission source and produce large amounts of residues (fly ash, bottom ash etc.) that need to be treated/landfilled. Incineration of wet wastes in the rainy season is another challenge, which causes difficult burning conditions and results in elevated emissions. What about integrated options? Countries with cement industry may to a certain degree forego building expensive WtE-incinerators.