By Carol Fung

Recycling and bioplastics: Where we are, and what we’re up against.

Without intervention, demand for plastic is set to scarily surge over the coming decades. What would this mean?

• More greenhouse-gas emissions as plastic manufacturing increases;
• Build-up of waste;
• An escalation of waste would also inhibit the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon, further undermining efforts to combat climate change.

The situation isn’t hopeless if individuals (that’s you!), companies (that’s us) and governments step up their actions and policies to reduce consumption, clean up production processes, maximise recycling and switch to lower-carbon, and even carbon-neutral alternatives.

Here are five charts from BloombergNEF laying out the world’s appetite for plastics and the path to a greener future.

1. Surging growth and demand through to 2050.

The plastics market has expanded rapidly over the past two decades, with demand for polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) doubling since 2000. The UK, Australia and India have put in place policies to curb the consumption of plastic, including restrictions on certain single-use plastic items, but the world’s hunger for plastic is set to continue to grow in line with GDP, population growth and rising income levels.

By 2050, demand for some of the most common types of plastic – is expected to shoot up by 90% from today to 403 million metric tonnes.

How recyclable is it?

Polyethylene (PE)

This is a lightweight, durable plastic that is often used for frozen food bags, grocery bags, milk cartons, cereal liners, yoghurt containers, and carries recycling codes 2 and 4. A useful attribute of polyethylene is that they can be heated to their melting point (liquefied), cooled, and reheated again without significant degradation, which allows them to be easily recycled.

Polypropylene (PP)

Polypropylene is durable, has high insulation properties and is highly resistant to chemical corrosion, mould, bacteria and is waterproof, making it useful for electrical and automotive applications, as well as medical applications including syringes and medical vials. However, polypropylene is not conducive to being easily recycled. If it’s re-heated, polypropylene that has already been melted and formed, would simply burn, rather than liquify for a second time.

2. The world’s hunger for plastic will fuel oil demand for petrochemical feedstock for decades.

How is plastic made? From a range of petrochemical products, largely derived from crude oil. If we keep going at our current rates of demand, the increased consumption of plastic is going to propel demand for raw materials like naphtha that are needed to make petrochemicals. Put another way, we’ll need more and more oil.

The amount of oil used to make petrochemical feedstocks could double over the next three decades, reaching almost 18 million barrels per day in BNEF’s Economic Transition Scenario. That would mean almost 20% of predicted total oil demand. 

3. Recycling and bioplastics: Hope for the material revolution.

While demand for both plastic and oil are set to keep marching upwards over the next 30 years, that doesn’t mean you should give up on dropping your plastic bottles and in fact, other plastic recyclables in the recycling bin.

True. Recycling rates have been stagnant over the past 10 years as policies to encourage growth have had limited impact to consumption. Recycled materials and bioplastic also haven’t made much of a dent so far, comprising less than 10% of demand in 2021 and displacing just 0.3 million barrels per day of oil.

In the coming decades, penetration of bioplastics, made from sugar cane for example, is expected to remain blocked by high costs and a lack of regulatory support. But, the growth in innovation and adoption for both mechanical and chemical recycling are projected to improve, kicking away an even larger increase in oil use!

Approximately 35% of plastics demand could be met by recycled materials and bioplastics in 2050, avoiding the use of 4.1 million barrels per day of oil at that point!

4. Moving to a circular economy would lower oil demand in 2050 by more than 40%.

Big efforts to move to a more circular economy – whereby materials are reused and waste is reduced – could lead to a further 7.7 million barrels per day of oil demand being avoided in 2050, a 43% drop.

In BNEF’s Advanced Circular Economy Scenario, which assumes an acceleration of recycling, lower consumption of single-use plastics and increased use of bio-based feedstocks, brakes would be put on oil demand. Rather than continuing to surge, oil demand under these conditions would actually peak at 11.4 million barrels per day in 2043, before declining to 10.2 million barrels per day in 2050.

“It requires not only increased recycling efforts across the plastics supply chain, but also a reduction in total plastics demand. Coordinated efforts between policy makers, consumers and manufacturers are needed to lower our reliance on single-use plastics and find low-carbon substitutes,” says says Sisi Tang, an oil and petrochemicals analyst at BNEF.

5. The route to net-zero plastics.

BNEF estimates that between now and 2050, as much as $759 billion in additional capital expenditure will be required for new clean capacity and lower-emission upgrades, compared to business-as-usual capacity growth. This investment can be directed toward a wide range of technologies across the supply chain.

Options include:

• Recycling and bioplastics: replacing traditional fossil-fuel-based feedstocks such as naphtha with bio-based and recycled alternatives;
• Electrifying production processes and using renewable power; and further downstream,
• Improving recycling once products reach the end of their life.
• Carbon capture and storage could play a role across multiple stages – in everything from upstream oil extraction and refining to steam cracking and chemical recycling.

The fast ramp-up in recycling capacity erases a significant part of virgin demand for oil-based feedstocks.

The thing about the future is, it hasn’t happened yet. By understanding where we are, and what we’re up against, you can take action to make real change today! Choose sustainable swaps for your everyday products, recycle your bottles and cans, buy products made from recycled materials, and encourage your friends, family and workplace to do the same.

Check your environmental impact.

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Sign in to your Crunch account to check your impact, or sign up for your free Crunch account to start your journey to a greener future. It’s quick and easy!

Keep recycling — you’re playing a part in forcing industry and policy-makers to raise their recycling ambitions and step up their investment to a net-zero plastics future.

Source: BloombergNEF

By Carol Fung