1. People pay more and more attention to the treatment of waste plastics

Plastics are considered one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century, which greatly facilitates people's production and life. However, a large amount of waste plastics are piled up in landfills or discarded into the environment, posing a serious threat to the natural ecosystem. Traditional treatment methods cannot change the status quo of resource waste and environmental pollution. Therefore, exploring environmentally friendly and economical ways to recycle plastic waste and realizing the transformation of plastic consumption from a disposable economy to a circular carbon economy have become hot spots and problems in the field of plastic recycling.

1. The output of plastic products is growing rapidly, and the global market demand for recycled plastics has great potential

Plastics are one of the most important materials in the modern chemical industry and are widely used in all areas of life. Plastic manufacturing is energy-intensive and emission-intensive, and greenhouse gases are emitted at every stage of its life cycle. At the same time, the recycling rate of plastics is low, which pollutes the environment.

Plastic pellets are widely used as raw materials for manufacturing plastic products. The transportation of plastic pellets in the ocean is usually carried out by freight containers in tons. The leakage of plastic pellets will undoubtedly harm marine life and affect fishing, aquaculture, and tourism activities. The most recent major accident occurred on the coast of Galicia, Spain, where millions of plastic particles accidentally leaked from the ship and were later washed ashore.

Recently, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) announced that the GLoLitter Partnership (GLP) program has received an extension from the main sponsor, the Norwegian Development Agency (Norad). The new end date for the GLP program is December 2025.

The EU has gone through a long process in addressing packaging waste and plastic pollution issues. In order to promote environmental protection and resource recycling, the European Union passed the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (PPWD) as early as 1994. The directive aims to reduce the generation of packaging waste and improve recycling and reuse rates, but multiple evaluations have shown that this directive has failed to effectively curb the negative impact of packaging on the environment, especially the excessive use of plastic packaging.

The Life Cycle Initiative proposed by the United Nations Environment Programme has played a significant role in plastic pollution control, in line with the slogan "BeatPlastic Pollution" for the 50th World Environment Day on June 5, 2023.

Since the emergence of plastic products in the 20th century, there has been a huge demand for plastic in the 1990s due to the development of industrial manufacturing, leading to a significant increase in global plastic production. The production has rapidly increased from 1.7 million tons in 1950 to 359 million tons in 2018, with a cumulative output of 8.842 billion tons. The scope of use has also expanded from industry to agriculture, commerce, and daily social life. However, the extensive use of plastic has also brought serious problems of garbage pollution, especially marine pollution. Currently, plastic pollution in freshwater and marine areas is widely recognized as one of the most important global issues today. It is estimated that the vast majority of the 8.3 billion tons of plastic produced in the past 60 years have been used to produce disposable products. Among them, 6.3 billion tons of plastic become garbage, of which only about 9% is recycled, 12% is incinerated, and 79% accumulates in landfills or is discarded in the natural environment (Geyer et al. 2017) and ultimately deposited in the ocean (Pham et al., 2014; Ryan, 2015), affecting the environment, economy, health, and aesthetics (Engler, 2012; Rochman et al., 2013a, b); Sheavly & Register, 2007; Silva-Iniguez & Fischer, 2003 ). It is not an exaggeration to say that if the current trends in plastic production and waste management continue, approximately 12 billion tons of plastic waste will be discarded in landfills or natural environments by 2050 (Geyer et al., 2017). Global plastic pollution control is urgent!

At the same time as you read this sentence, approximately 117000 plastic bottles were used in the world. Although this may just be a trivial statistic. However, behind this number lies a harsh fact: every stage of the entire lifecycle of plastic production causes significant environmental, climate, and social issues.

A new study in Comprehensive Environmental Science shows that microplastics in freshwater environments have been steadily increasing for decades, and since the 1950s, microplastics have been directly associated with the rise in global plastic production. The study, led by an interdisciplinary research team at Pennsylvania State University, provides insights into how microplastics move and spread in freshwater environments, helping to develop long-term solutions to reduce pollution.

Local time on the early morning of the 6th, the Republican presidential candidate and former President of the United States, Donald Trump, declared victory in the 2024 presidential election. Predictably, Trump's rise to power will stir the global landscape.

In recent years, the problem of marine plastic pollution has become increasingly serious, and there is an urgent need to find effective solutions. Recently, researchers from the Netherlands Institute of Oceanography (NIOZ) have discovered that a fungus living in the ocean can degrade the plastic polyethylene (PE), bringing new hope for solving this global environmental problem. The research results were published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

With the rapid development of global production and consumption patterns, plastic products are widely used in various fields due to their light weight, durability, and low cost. However, this has also led to a large amount of waste plastic pollution. Statistics show that about one-third of the plastic produced globally each year is not effectively recycled, causing serious environmental pollution. The rational recycling and reuse of waste plastic are not only an urgent need to reduce the environmental burden but also an inevitable choice for achieving sustainable economic development. This article will discuss the importance of waste plastic recycling, the current challenges, and future innovative paths, aiming to provide a reference for building a circular economic system.

As an important issue in today's global environmental governance, plastic pollution, especially marine pollution and microplastics, has shown an uncontrollable development trend, which means that the plastic problem can no longer be ignored by the international community. As of 2022, the world produces approximately 430 million tons of plastic annually, of which over two-thirds are disposable products that quickly become waste after use (OECD, 2023). Since the mid-20th century, the plastic chemical industry has experienced explosive growth, and to date, the world has produced approximately 9.2 billion tons of plastic, of which about 7 billion tons have become waste.

On the morning of September 5, President Xi Jinping attended the opening ceremony of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and delivered a keynote speech, reviewing the development of China-Africa relations, announcing the new positioning of China-Africa relations, and proposing to implement the ten major partnership actions for China and Africa to jointly promote modernization. In his keynote speech, President Xi Jinping proposed that China and Africa should jointly promote the "six modernizations", which was widely recognized by all sectors of Africa.

Indeed, our overall understanding of plastic lags behind the impact it brings, and recognizing this impact itself is also a phased process. As early as 1907, American ecologists pointed out in their research the unusual "transparent debris" in the inner lake water system, which later researchers believed to be the earliest record of plastic pollution in water bodies (Williams and Rangel Buitrago, 2022). In the early 1970s, biologists and marine ecologists began to pay attention to the positive and negative impacts of this "new material" on the environment, and attempted to figure out how this happened; By the 1990s, the scientific community had basically reached a consensus on plastic pollution, with the main research focus shifting towards how to measure the degree and scope of plastic pollution, how to track the sources of plastic pollution, and finding alternative solutions to plastic. The landmark turning point occurred in 2004, when Thompson et al. from Plymouth University in the UK published a paper in the journal Science on plastic debris in marine water bodies and sediments, first introducing the concept of "microplastics" (Thompson, 2004). The attention of academia and the public towards marine microplastics and general plastic pollution is constantly increasing; By 2012, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development required member states to achieve the goal of "significantly reducing marine litter" by 2025. This is the first time that the issue of plastic pollution has risen to the level of global sustainability and international environmental governance.

It is well known that plastic products can be recycled. However, the process of plastic recycling is not as simple as many people might think. On one hand, the difficulty of recycling varies with different types of plastics. Without precise recycling facilities and technology, many areas can only recycle plastics like mineral water bottles and boxed beverages, while the plastics used in products like yogurt cups, plastic cutlery, and coffee pods will ultimately be incinerated or landfilled due to a "lack of recycling capacity." On the other hand, the heating process shortens the polymer chains, thereby reducing the quality of the plastic. Therefore, even if a plastic water bottle can be effectively recycled, it cannot simply be "reborn" as another plastic water bottle. The vast majority of plastic products will be "downcycled," becoming products of lower quality than their original form.

Advanced recycling technologies are evolving at a rapid pace, with new players emerging in the market, ranging from start-ups to large corporations - new plants are being built, new capacities are being realised and new partnerships are being established. As a result of these developments, keeping track of all the information has become exceptionally difficult. in July 2024, nova-Institute published a report titled 'Advanced Plastic Waste Recycling Technologies and Global Capacity Distribution', which aims to sort out all the information available on this industry and provide a structured, in-depth overview and insights. The report focuses on a detailed analysis of existing advanced recycling technologies and their providers, while new technologies and updated information have been added. In addition, for the first time, a comprehensive assessment of global input and output capacity is provided, covering more than 340 planned, installed and operating plants, as well as their product-specific volumes.

At present, innovation in recycling technology is constantly developing to solve the global problem of plastic waste. However, there is always a problem, which is the limited availability of high-quality and recyclable raw materials. As the chemical industry attempts to deal with plastic waste, pollution has become a concern, such as materials with coatings or films, or materials that have been painted, printed, or colored. Due to the inability of traditional recycling techniques to handle highly polluted raw materials, most of these materials are discarded into landfills or incinerated.

On 28th June 2024, the European Commission officially published the Eco-design for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which will come into force on 18th July 2024 and will replace the existing Eco-design Directive (2009/125/EC). ESPR will replace the existing Eco-design Directive (2009/125/EC) and become an important tool to promote the EU's circular economy, aiming to make sustainable products the norm in the market. By 2027, the requirements of the regulation will be mandatory for products sold in the EU, including goods produced outside the EU.

As one of the top ten countries in the world that produce and consume plastic products, China's aquatic ecosystem is severely affected by microplastics. Currently, microplastics are widely detected in oceans, freshwater, and wastewater treatment plants. Among them, the main types of microplastics include polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and polyethylene terephthalate (PET).marine environment.

In the past 20 years, scientists have significantly increased the amount of microbial genomes collected from the ocean, which can help address major challenges such as antibiotic shortages, plastic pollution solutions, and genome editing. However, it has always been difficult to apply microbial genome information to biotechnology and medicine.

Considering the climate crisis and global plastic pollution, many people believe that recycling materials, especially plastics, is the solution to plastic pollution. Recycling can reduce resource usage, prevent waste, and decrease carbon dioxide emissions. It is an important foundation of circular economy. The recycling of some materials is relatively simple, but the recycling of plastics involves complex target conflicts.

The universally recognised recycling symbol can be found on plastic products in many countries--three chasing arrows that go round and round, chasing each other. But not all plastic products with this symbol can be easily recycled. In fact, despite the fact that plastic recycling technology has been around for decades, most of today's plastic waste, still ends up in landfills.

As consumers demand for packaging convenience and food safety continues to grow, many tea beverage brands in the market are choosing to add oxygen absorbers to PET bottles to extend the shelf life of their products and improve oxygen barrier properties. However, this additive becomes a major challenge during the recycling process. The presence of oxygen absorbers makes the bottles prone to yellowing when dried at high temperatures, which not only affects the quality of the recycled material, but may also lead to downgrading of the whole batch of recycled material.

In many countries, widely recognized recycling logos can be found on plastic products - three chasing arrows that constantly cycle and chase each other. But not all plastic products with this symbol can be easily recycled. In fact, although plastic recycling technology has existed for decades, most of today's plastic waste still ends up in landfills.

Honeywell' s UpCycle technology broadens the types of recyclable plastics and converts waste plastics into raw materials for the production of new plastics, helping to reduce fossil fuel consumption in the process of manufacturing virgin plastics, thereby reducing the carbon footprint and enabling digital hundreds or thousands of recycling cycles, promoting the realization of a plastic circular economy.

The completion of KITECH MACHINERY' s second KCP5G Plus series plastic granulation line in Canada marks a further increase in the company' s market share in Canada. The KCP5G Plus series is the latest series of advanced granulation equipment developed by KITECH Machinery. It is famous for its high efficiency, high automation and output of high-quality plastic granules.

The completion of KITECH MACHINERY's second KCP5G Plus series plastic granulation line in Canada marks a further increase in the company's market share in Canada. The KCP5G Plus series is the latest series of advanced granulation equipment developed by KITECH Machinery. It is famous for its high efficiency, high automation and output of high-quality plastic granules.