dollars worth of resources are lost per year because packaging is used only once and then discarded Source Heinrich Böll Foundation Source World Bank Report What a Waste 2 0 of global waste is produced in highly developed countries although only about 16 of the world population lives there Up to 120 billion Some 33 So what can be done with the remaining floods of plastic waste A marketable technology for recycling large quantities of plastics is not available yet not least because each of the six economically most important polymers is made up of diverse basic components that are not chemically compatible Consequently waste col lection by material type would be imperative to achieve effective and economically feasible recycling What s more many types of plastics cannot simply be melt ed down and reused Due to chemical reactions some of them become unusable and others react with tiny residual contaminations that are hard to eliminate The bacterium that was accidentally discovered on a Japanese sanitary landfill and investigated and developed further by U S scientists is not in large scale use yet ei ther The super enzyme is said to be able to decompose polyethylene terephthal ate better known as PET in a fraction of the time it takes a PET bottle to decompose naturally In an article published by National Geographic last year Professor John McGeehan who leads the research expressed opti mism It s well within the possibility that in the coming years we will see an industrially viable process to turn PET and potentially other substrates like PEF PLA and PBS back into their original building blocks so that they can be sustainably recycled The German company Ecogy plans to transform plastic waste into fuel 140 000 metric tons 154 000 short tons of plastic garbage are supposed to turn into 125 million liters 33 million gallons of fuel In 2018 Richard W Roberts and Simon White pioneered the Ocean Saviour idea a vessel that while autonomous ly navigating the oceans collects plastic waste and con verts it onboard into the fuel powering the ship In other parts of the world for instance in China and India scien tists are working on the conversion of plastic waste into fuel as well However the high costs this entails often stifle progress An even better solution though would be to avoid the generation of plastic waste in the first place and particularly in the form of ocean litter In closing here s a number that should serve as a warning In 2016 a study commissioned by the World Economic Forum cautioned that by 2050 the amount of plastic in the oceans might ex ceed the amount of fish in them a more than alarming prospect THE AUTHOR Be it fashion jewelry or travel Freelance journalist Christel Trimborn has been writing about green topics focused on sustain ability for a long time Following her shocking research on plastic waste she s planning to definitely start taking an even closer look than she used to at what type of packaging will end up in her shopping cart SUSTAINABILITY AT SCHAEFFLER Sustainable is one of the four central corporate values of the Schaeffler Group Follow the QR code and find out how the compa ny makes its business operations as environ mentally and socially responsible as possible here and now 69

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