Journal
RESOURCES CONSERVATION AND RECYCLING
Volume 175, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.105839
Keywords
Plastics wastes; Recycling; Mixture; Waste management; Circular economy
Categories
Funding
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [YX2013-19]
- Beijing Municipal Education Commission through the Innovative Transdisciplinary Program Ecological Restoration Engineering
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The recycling of plastic bottles is crucial for reducing the reliance on fossil fuels and safeguarding the environment. This study introduces an indicator based on the joint entropy method to assess the quality of post-consumer plastic bottles (PCPBs) in the collection stage. The research conducted in Beijing, China, revealed a decrease in the quality of PCPBs throughout the collection system, with residential area type identified as a key factor influencing quality at collection sites.
Recycling of plastic bottles is a fundamental strategy to reduce the need of fossil resources and protect global environments. The collection of post-consumer plastic bottles (PCPBs) is a key node of the recycling of plastics due to its influences on the subsequent life cycle stages. However, there is still a lack of quantitative assessment on the quality of PCPBs, especially considering the contamination and the mixture of different plastics in the collection stage. This study provides an indicator based on the joint entropy method to evaluate the quality of PCPBs in collection stage, which includes components, polymer types and colors three levels. This indicator (Quality-value) is applied to evaluate the quality of PCPBs' collection system in Beijing city, China, which is based on an on-site survey including 27 samples gathered from 4 distribution centers and 5 collection sites. The results showed that the quality of PCPBs decreased through the collection system of Beijing, which degraded from post-consumer bottles (0.320<0.325) to pre-production bottles (0.311 <0.312). The type of residential area is identified as a key factor of the PCPBs' quality in collection sites. There is no obvious difference between formal and informal business models in the surveyed area. Providing three levels of quality equally weighted, colors sorting had the greatest potential to improve the quality of PCPBs compared to components and polymers sorting. We suggest that joint-entropy based quality assessment can help to manage waste collection system in an efficient way to meet the need of circular economy.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available