Plastic-eating bacteria offer recipe against recycling slowdown

Recycling innovations such as plastic-eating microbes could sweeten the fortunes of the global plastic recycling industry which has suffered from cut-throat competition due to the low price of oil, one of the main ingredients of traditional plastic products.

In 2014, EU consumers created 25.8 million tonnes of plastic waste, with almost a third of that ending up in landfill, according to data from PlasticsEurope, an industry association representing more than 100 companies. In a green economy, this waste would be a valuable resource, but the current market doesn't see it like that.

'Because the price of oil is down … the recycling business of plastics is dying,' said Henry Saint Bris, senior vice-president of Suez Environment, speaking at the Transition to the Green Economy conference in Bratislava, Slovakia in September.

Saint Bris explained that '80 % of the virgin plastic cost is oil' while '80 % of (the) recycled plastic cost is labour and capital'.

The price of Brent Crude oil has fallen from almost USD 140 per barrel in 2008 to under USD 50 per barrel in 2016. When the price of oil is low it is much cheaper to produce and sell virgin plastic, which in turn blocks recycled plastic from competing.

'I wouldn't say oil prices are killing recycling … but they are giving it a very hard time,' said Karmenu Vella, European Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, who was speaking at a panel discussing financing and investments for a green economy during the Bratislava conference.

The solution could lie in finding ways to make old plastic more valuable, reducing the cost of sourcing materials and thereby making recycled plastic more competitive.

'If you look into the far future you could think about people getting paid for their plastic waste,' said Dr Nick Wierckx, from RWTH Aachen University, Germany, and joint coordinator of P4SB, an EU-funded project looking to turn oil-based plastic waste into a biodegradable substitute.

'We want to find a new outlet for plastic waste which adds to its value, not like classical recycling when you go from a used bottle to a new bottle, but establish plastic waste as a carbon source for biotechnology, which would enable a huge range of new applications.'

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