May 9, 2024
The article by Prof. Dr. habil. Uwe Lahl and Dr. Barbara Zeschmar-Lahl on the topic „More than 30 Years of PVC Recycling in Europe — A Critical Inventory“ has been published in the Special Issue of Sustainability: Resources and Waste Management (Sustainability 2024, 16, 3854).
PVC is the mass plastic to which the most diverse and quantitatively largest number of additives are added. This makes PVC difficult to recycle. In the 1980s, the PVC industry announced its commitment to improve the sustainability of the material through material recycling. But after three decades, the recycling result is rather meagre. The majority of PVC waste in Europe is still going to waste-to-energy plants. The many attempts to end the chlorine cycle via waste incineration and to expand chemical recycling in parallel have not been successful. The main reasons are the quantity and variety of additives, legacy chemicals (legacy additives), and economic interests.
At the end of 2023, the European Chemicals Agency ECHA presented an “Investigation Report” about PVC following a request of the EU Commission. In a further article, the authors analyse the regulatory consequences from their point of view. This article is currently in the review process and can be viewed and commented on at preprints.org.
Below you will find a link to download the article, to the Special Issue with further interesting articles, and to the second article under review.