Facing plastics: Quantification and characterization of plastic packaging in mixed household waste streams as a guide to increased circularity

Plastic packaging is a gateway for material losses. Packaging represents about 40% of the European virgin plastics demand, but less than half of it is recycled. On top of that, badly managed and littered plastic packaging contribute to environmental pollution. Since any solution starts with defining the problem, the presented work aims to quantify and characterize plastic packaging that is not collected separately for recycling, but is generally sent to incineration with energy recovery. The work fills existing data gaps on plastic packaging waste in Flanders through different sorting experiments, by determining plastic packaging shares for different waste streams and defining detailed composition data. These sorting experiments were performed on four household waste streams: household hazardous waste, residual waste, street bin litter, and litter. The plastic packaging waste composition was determined on both a material and a functional level, e.g., which plastic types the packaging was made of and whether it concerned beverage, food or non-food packaging. Another important distinction made was between rigid packaging and packaging films. Furthermore, a series of policy recommendations is formulated. The results of this work facilitate devising a tailored strategy for plastic packaging waste prevention or recovery.