Our first goal obviously needs to be to reduce plastic usage, but as someone with a degree in plastics engineering I still think this is important. This video covered most of the stuff but I’d like to add a few reasons: - Degradation. When plastic is mechanically recycled the polymer chains are shortened which leads to mechanical properties being reduced. As a result, companies really want to limit how much mechanically recycled plastic they use otherwise customers might not like the quality. - Profitability. As the polymer chains are shortened and the properties are reduced, the processing takes a hit. This means that companies have to employ more engineers in order to constantly dial the processes back in and an engineer costs a lot more than a normal shop floor employee. We gotta get rid of single use plastics immediately, but there’s some plastic uses which simply will never go away. For those, we need chemical recycling.

Chemist here. Recycling plastics is extremely tedious. There are so many different types and the same plastic might have a huge variety of additives in it. They are chemical resistant, and the starting material is really cheap. Props to these guys, they are doing a great job!

This channel always opens my eyes larger. Thank you for this video.

As an engineer operating in the recycling business since 1994, I have many issues on "chemical recycling" of tyres. Better to mix tyre granulate with tar and pave roads, or mix it with concrete to obtain insulating bricks... better to focus on reuse than on energy-intense elimination.

May I point out a few issues? 1) Pyrolysis is just one of the techniques in development for the chemical recycling, it's not the only. It's the best solution right know and in the meantime we can use it. 2) With the pyrolysis oil we can get rid of fossils switching entirely on the bio-based plastic + pyro oil (not talking about bio-degradable, but bio-based that's different). 3) We are talking about 50% of the recycled plastic that goes to landfill or incineration: I personally don't care if right know pyrolysis it's not the best solution as long as it works. Then when other technologies come to fruition we can toss pyrolysis. It's absurd saying "we don't use it because it's not good", even if it's better than incineration. 4) It's actually good that using pyro oil the plastic it's going to cost more, because right know we use plastic even if it's not the best solution for our purpose only because it's cheap. Thus the plastic will be used wisely and it will be reduced.

This is well made journalism. Most channels end where you dug deeper and consulted experts in the field.

As an environmental chemist, wish i had this channel created while i was in university. Its as educative as it is entertaining.

The main issue with plastic recycling in my opinion is that producing plastic from fossil fuel is much cheaper than processing old plastic. Perhaps a tax should be added to plastic depending on the percentage of recycled plastic it contains.

I'm a chemist and i must say that reeking a bottle with organic chemicals takes away any believability that you're report has. It's reckless, we can recycle almost any chemical but as always it is about the price that's the reason we don't do it.

It's a simple thing, but thank you for the reminders to turn on subtitles. German and English share a lot of sounds, so whenever the transition happens, my first assumption is that my brain has finally decided to fail me. And then I get a sigh of relief when I see the subtitle reminder.

I’ve always thought about this concept, intriguing that people are feasibly looking into it

Very well explained. It clarifies pretty well that the quality of the feedstock is the key to the success of whatever chemical recycling process/technology. It works for tyres because tyres are tyres (homogeneous feedstock) while household plastic waste is the most heterogeneous waste stream. Well done!

3:38 : Self-sufficient doesn't mean circular. I think entropy will take very strong objection on that point.

Super good video, thank you! I've been struggling to get my head around chemical recycling for quite a while. Your video really helped me to get a good overview of what it is and what it is used for.

This was one of the best materials I saw about chemical recycling on the internet. It's clear, concise and the didactic is perfect. Actually, it's so amazing that I used it as a quote in one of my college articles about recycling. Thanks a lot for making such good content!

As someone who has been in the recycling industry for over 30 years, I can say there is another way to utilize the PCR MIXED plastics.. My suggestion is that companies stop making pallets with wood, new or used, and use the PCR Mixed plastic waste that otherwise goes into the landfills today. I have done so and have examples for proof. The pallets are almost unbreakable, can be infinitely recycled, and while the PCR is not going away, we have created products (many more potential products than just pallets) that can and will be very price competitive. I am new to this type of communication, but I am sure that UTUBE has a way you can reach me. OH, and yes, we do need to reduce the usage of plastic materials but this is a GREAT way until a better solution is found.

Do you think we should be using more chemical recycling?

A normal private "burn pit" / "burn barrel" fire is fine for wood and paper waste, but is too cold to safely burn plastics. A backyard fire cannot break benzene rings (a primary component of styrene / styrofoam) so these toxic molecules are freed from burning away everything else, and will vaporize into the sky or stay in the ash unbroken, and then wash away with rain and poisons the environment. This is why burning of plastic waste in a backyard is hazardous. The combustion temperature needs to be extremely high to break tough chemical bonds used in plastics. A large scale municipal incinerator needs to have supplemental oil, gas, or electric heating to push the temperature high enough to actually decompose benzene. But then this also causes normally nonreactive nitrogen gas in the supply air to also decompose, and when the combusted gases cool the loose nitrogen atoms reform into smog producing nitrogen oxides. So now you also need catalytic reduction of the waste gas to remove the smog oxides that were accidentally created. So proper clean incineration of plastics for heating or electricity production has its own high costs, beyond simply being able to burn fossil fuels to do the same thing.

oh my god ive been thinking about radioactive waste recycling for years now. damn i really love this channel

Thank you for the key stats! Can you share cross approach study that shows the incineration vs pyrolysis stats?

Really great video. Loved it. More please

Please make a video about enzymatic recycling as well

What they fail to disclose is that mechanical recycling of plastics is limited by the quality of the waste stream. Most of the collected plastic is unusable, it is too contaminated, it isn't homogeneous and it is mixed with other plastics. Plus you have to deal with additives when processing the same plastic feed stream, all of this will mean that getting a consistent product out of recovered plastics won't be easy. This will limit the applications and limit the products that can be made. Also plastics will degrade each time they are remelted and processed. And trying to comingle several types of plastics for recycling a thing that as been pushed by the german recycling association isn't the solution. Besides pyrolysis, the only other way of chemical recycling is using organic solvents and that is probably much worse. Since maintaining containment of solvent gases and keeping all the operations in a closed loop to avoid leaking dangerous chemicals isn't an easy or cheap.

I think governments just need to start taxing virgin crude and virgin plastic much higher to disincentivize its use over recycled material.

good job guys, keep going on

Even if cost 4 times more money, cost is not the issue here, issue is saving nature and get rid of these pollution. Every Govt should spend money more in these facilities instead of buying weapons for war.

Already a company out there that solves this problem to advanced bio-oil and also visible on the blockchain! 👌

0:50 Where do you get this number from? Does burning counts as recycling for this figure as it is claiming the energy of it? Why is it different at the end of the video where you say 35% instead of the previously mentioned 99%?

great video! it seems like every new technology and process has its downfalls.... but i'm glad to learn about all the innovation going on!

As others have pointed out, pyrolysis is only one method of chemical recycling, albeit the best currently. It would have been neat to see a small section at the end looking forward. Particularly, I believe, is enzymatic digestion of plastics. Just google it and do your own research, but enzymes have been discovered to break down specifically targeted plastics (polymers) into their base building blocks (monomers). These can be used to recreate virgin plastics. The best part is that because the enzymes are targeted, sorting is not required of the waste. You can subject anything to PETase and it should only degrade PET. Then move on to next enzyme bath. It is definitely not happening yet, we have only discovered these enzymes in the last decade, most in the last few years, and we still do not have enzymes for most plastics (there are so many). But it is a beacon of possibility for a difficult problem. Anyway, great video

There was another technology related to this that used specific waves of microwave to break plastics back down into hydrocarbons. Made a few news articles and disappeared, half suspecting it got bought out and buried.

Amazing

Love this

*turn on subs Me, who understands German: I don't have such weaknesses

I support what you guys are doing keep it up

Feedback for editors: Please add the *turn on subs _before_ the viewer needs them. So some 5 seconds earlier than at 3:09.

We are going to do this is in Omaha, Nebraska.

We talk about recycling a lot, and the videos are about recycling mostly. But in your narrative you correctly state the list by order of importance 1. Reduce, 2. Reuse, 3. Recycle, so what about reducing the need for tyres & consumer plastic products?

Do what the coal plants and iron smelters do. Because they can not guarantee the consistency of the coal they buy, they blend various coals into one homogeneous mixture. It’s a way to standardize and bring predictability to an otherwise unpredictable supply of feedstock

It's funny that you end the video saying we need to avoid unrecyclable plastics (I agree), while you showed just before that the result of the recycling process ends up being styrofoam (unrecyclable).

If the pyrolysis oil is similar to crude, can't it be refined in the same way? It requires a lot more energy (which can be helped with methane capture) but we have the infrastructure for it

I think concepts like this do more damage than good. We have a plastic addiction that we desperately need to break. I appreciate that enterprises such as this are trying to do good work, but this is just going to draw out plastic dependency, which is not something we can afford to do from a health and environmental perspective.

The solution is NOT one vs another, rather a combination of different recycling facilities. For the same reason a car is not a bus and a bus is not a train though they all transport us, but we have all, not just tediously analyzing which one is better meanwhile doing very little. Time is ticking.

Seems good, although these chemicals might be needed to be stronger. Although it would be harder because producing the chemical to break down all the compounds from plastic.

This was informative. Would artificial intelligence and robotics make a big difference in mechanical recycling by lowering sorting costs at MRF's for instance. I know of AMP Robotics. The idea is that it reduces labor costs and gets it closer to virgin material costs for merchants to buy.

Good vid, research well done, what are the alternatives, a small vid 3 mins, and the next generation would no doubt, be inspired. The safe consumer code 123.😉

The phrase “chemical recycling”… I’m suddenly reminded of Times Beach

Hi, take the liberty to ask, how much does it cost to make a video like this episode? Thank you.

Wow... Deeply deeply disappointed with DW. 99% of plastic recycled in EU. Give me a break that isn't even a little close to the truth. It's probably a few percent the rest is shipped overseas where it doesn't actually get recycled.

🌎 Blessings ♻️

I'm working on research using enzymes to degrade plastic. This video makes me think, however, that this may not be a great idea as then plants that create plastic are needing more materials for this. What do you think?

Is there a german version of this?

Companies care more about profits then what they do to the world... If people will be educated better will be less population and pollution in the world... just an opinion... keep the good work

"The hottest thing I've ever stood next to" Car engine: am I a joke to you?

Hey Akshay, I am working on a ocean bound plastic renewal recycling startup in mumbai , india, would love to connect with people working on similar projects and similar startups and companies

2:42 700 degrees celcius is the hottest he has ever stood next to? So he has never used a Bunsen-burner, or fire with a oxygen draft, like a stove of so...

40 seconds in, my first question is if they can break it down into plastics, can they further break those down into their base components and un-plastic them? Like, I don't know the principle of how plastic is formed, but I know that some are made of cellulose and can break back down into that as a result (Cellophane plastics). I look forward to seeing if I have my question answered in this video and will edit this comment if I do.

Are those plastic waste percentage correct numbers? Why there seemed to be a lot of europe plastic garbage dumped to china, philippines, malaysia, and indonesia?

In Deutschland ist es seit 2005 verboten, unbehandelte Abfälle auf einer Deponie abzulagern. Alle Abfälle müssen behandelt (z. B. thermische Behandlung durch Verbrennung.) werden. Auf diese Weise landet kaum noch Plastik Fall auf einer Deponie.

"anything is basically better than incineration" Landfills: *I'll pretend I didn't hear that*

Most plastic in all shapes and kinds are not always design for recycling. With the current consumption and disposal rate of plastic packagings worldwide, the most cost and time effective way is, still, burning as alternative fuel or produce electricity.

I mean sure, you can, but what are the energetic costs of producing and disposing the chemical products involved? Nevermind the whole recycling process.

Hey that's in my home town :D

Longest joke gag in Simpsons is Springfield tie yard burns from 1988 till now.

Recycled rubber is used for many things, not just race tracks but many kids parks have soft flooring because of it.

Unfortunately, at least 50% of plastic waste of Germany, NL, France ends up in landfills in south Asia. Not 99% are recycled.

Which company doing chemicals recycle in india

I think this area needs lots of exploration.

Where is the focus on refurbishing, reclaiming, repurposing, rebuilding, and downpurposing of consumer items, old building hardware, and business equipment so it stops going into landfills? That will save way, way more than all of these combined.

Can i ask something? Can you make a video on How is poisonous gas and dust produced from plastic burning is purified before it is released into the environment. Or if you have already made a video on it, could you please share it..?

The lack of transparency in publishing is a massive red flag

Yall need to talk about Ecosia they are a search engine that plants tress

Ok So If you could theoreticly have a Nuclear Plant, Solar Plant, Wind/Wave Turbines you could gain energy Green. Chemical Recycling is possible so only problem is money/cost. You need to optimize it. If Energy and Recycling could be Optimized than you would have sustainable fossil plastic.

Couldn't some of these products be pumped back into the earth in a similar fashion to the CarbFix project in Iceland? In the case of CO2, if it's not pumped into the right deposits, it escapes. But with something solid at a higher temperature/lower pressure, we could pump it anywhere and be confident that it would stay put.

What's with the lack of in video subs? You can't afford localization?

How is it possible that pyrolysis makes more energy than goes into it? Pretty sure that breaks a lot of thermodynamics doesn't it?

Are plastic companies collaborating with recycling plants to make their products easier to recycle? Because if not, I think that should be something they do. And maybe encouraging people to put a bit more effort in separating and organizing their plastic waste.

We need to use less tires and more trains, especially in America. We need a more walkable environment.

I wonder why they don't add shredded tires to the asphalt..

Damn all these tires could be used to build Earthships...

No explanation of mechnical recycling? What so you mean by that term?

Last time I know tire rubber comes from rubber tree. So, this is not recycling back to it’s original biodegradable tree sap.

I miss the explanation that a tyre is made of many different elastomeric components.

1) I have to commend the level of comments on this video 2) How does this compare to gasification?

Save Our Planet

1:30 ...hm, I don't think the host really said "oh my gosh"

It saves 4kg of CO2? But from how many input? This is just so unclear. I love the idea and all dw vids... maybe this can be an input. Good luck dw team. Love from Indonesia

Regarding the thermal inputs for chemical reactions... I don't see what the problem is. Wrap the reactor vessel in enough layers of rock wool that the exterior is cool to the touch. Use a series of staged heat pumps to remove heat from the outgoing reacted carbon, oil, and heating exhaust gas, and use that captured thermal energy to heat the supply materials being loaded into the reactor vessel. Problem solved... why is there so much hand-wringing over this..

let's hope it works&what about all the toxins from this stuff going into the air or vented?

I was involved in chemical recycling of plastic marine litter, and maybe it is not the silver bullet, but it works, and it works today. Leave out idealistic approach and stick to pragmatism. It is a solution to avoid the exploitation of raw materials, and landfilling

why would anybody directly sniff the chemical bottle?

Ban single use disposable plastic packaging and this crisis would become a minor issue again.

Its claimed to be the most environmentally friendly method of recycling. I am sure we can improve on it by closing coal power stations and making more use of heat pumps and heat storage.

Well if we mine/drill for carbon; maybe we should just dig an extremely deep hole & bury it all? Might condense into oil/coal again with the pressure/gravity underneath

Tires can be staggered and stacked, like bricks and filled with Earth to make walls. Then coated with a sand topping mix... The resulting wall is extremely sturdy and well insulated from sound and temperature.... Or I guess you could burn Em... But I would much rather build a house they will last 10000 years.

Can't believe that this guy just without a lab coat, gloves and goggles opens up a pyoil bottle and smells it... Not the brightest bunch is he.

That's why thermoplastics and biodegradeable plastics (not synthesised from fossil fuel) is what we need to strie for

I got a more efficient way to recycle those tires: send to the Masai to turn them into sandles

Why does the process lose 20-50%?

Fun fact: tires have a higher heating value than coal.