| Title | An Exploratory Cross-national Analysis of the Plastic Recycling Industry |
|---|---|
| ID_Doc | 24727 |
| Authors | Errighi, G; Dinis, L; Almeida, L; Dias, P; Walter, CE; Au-Yong-Oliveira, M |
| Title | An Exploratory Cross-national Analysis of the Plastic Recycling Industry |
| Year | 2022 |
| Published | |
| Abstract | It is urgent to find solutions towards a more sustainable future. Herein the objective is to study the state of the plastic recycling industry. Three different countries were selected for analysis, using primary and secondary data: Portugal, Germany, and Italy. We did an exploratory survey (93 answers from these three countries) including the calculation of three Spearman Ranked Correlation Coefficients, one for each country. We aimed to calculate the effort or motivation in each country to separate waste in view of the importance attributed to separate waste collection. Italy registered the best result and match (correlation significant at the 0.01 level), followed by Germany and, finally, Portugal. In other words, motivation is lowest in Portugal and highest in Italy, to achieve good waste separation in view of the importance attributed to it. These exploratory results point to how policy should be focused, namely in the case of Portugal towards motivating their citizens regarding waste separation. Furthermore, while Germany and Italy have been developing solutions for the plastic recycling industry, no innovations were found that originated from Portugal. The most common way of recycling plastic is mechanical recycling. From 2010 to 2019, 30% of the patents created for this purpose originated within the European Patent Office member states and 8% were created in Germany. Of these three countries, Portugal is the one that produces more plastic packaging waste per capita. The high waste recovery rates in Germany and Italy, which are above the European overall values, might be justified by their policies regarding recycling, as well as their innovations in the industry. When it comes to recycling rates, while Italy and Germany present similar rates above the European overall, Portugal is below the European panorama. Overall, our research reveals that Germany may be considered more efficient in plastic packaging recycling as it also presents more innovation and technology solutions. |
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