Developing A Circular Plastic Economy
Our modern lifestyles thrive on the lightweight and durable protection that plastic packaging offers. Unfortunately, only a very small amount of plastic is recycled and much more is needed to address the plastic pollution problem. Efforts to reduce plastic consumption and to boost re-use of plastic, plastic waste collection, sorting, and recycling capabilities need to increase. Kyuka ventures helps address the problem of plastic pollution and plays a key role in recycling plastic waste and developing a circular plastic economy.
kyuka ventures is an award-winning company at the forefront of the circular economy for plastics and the chemical recycling industry. We are unique in this industry with our operational experience and commercial plants in Uganda. Kyuka Ventures is currently expanding its technology with several plants under construction national wide in a bid to increase recycling and provide high quality recycled content to replace virgin plastic production.
Q&A
WHAT IS CHEMICAL RECYCLING? Chemical recycling (also referred to as advanced recycling, feedstock recycling, non-mechanical recycling) describes a set of different technologies each with their own benefits, applicability and trade-offs. Chemical recycling can help increase overall recycling rates and close the loop on plastic waste recycling, providing high quality recycled content for food-grade applications. Definitions on chemical recycling can vary and, as a leader in the field, Kyuka ventures encourages clarity through regulation. It is important to note that under current Ugandan legislation, plastic waste processed through chemical recycling technologies and used as fuel is not considered recycling. We advocate for plastic-to-plastic chemical recycling to be fully recognised and accounted for as part of global recycled content quotas and packaging taxes. Mechanical recycling offers limited options for the inclusion of recycled content into food packaging due to technical barriers and quality losses. Most mechanical recycling output is currently being ‘downcycled’ meaning it is used in a different type of product than the one it originates from. The main goal of the circular economy agenda is to close the product loop and keep resources in circulation for as long as possible. For this to be achieved, both mechanical and chemical recycling need to be ramped up on a level playing field. Currently, the market for recycled content suffers from a large gap in demand and supply, especially for food-grade packaging. Working alongside existing mechanical recycling, chemical recycling can help fill this gap.
WHAT IS THE ENVIROMENTAL IMPACT OF THIS TECHNOLOGY? While recycling helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by reusing the material and contributing to the circular economy, there are environmental impacts arising from the recycling process itself. Kyuka Ventures is continuously improving its technology to lower overall impacts and minimise the footprint of its recycling operations. We have purchased renewable energy to cover our electricity needs for our plant. Other process efficiencies are achieved through scale, for example, a higher quantity of plastic waste to be processed in the plants currently under construction will lead to lower overall impacts. In time, as the electricity grid will decarbonise with the integration of more renewable energy, the impacts from both recycling and the production of plastics with recycled feedstocks will be further minimised. Kyuka published an independent life cycle assessment that quantifies the impacts of our technology as well as the reductions achieved through using recycled feedstock instead of virgin plastics. This assessment concluded that: Kyuka Venture’s process has a considerably lower climate change impact than incineration with energy recovery (which is currently the most prevalent processing route for mixed plastic waste). To treat 1kg of mixed plastic waste, chemical recycling emits 0.55 kg CO2-eq, or 65% less than incineration with energy recovery. Our Fuel has a lower climate change impact than than fosils To produce 1 kg of LDPE, chemical recycling emits 0.86 kg CO2-eq, or 55% less emissions than producing 1kg of plastic from fossil origin. Compared to virgin (fossil) LDPE production, chemically recycled LDPE has lower climate change and resources depletion scores.
Is chemical recycling perpetuating the current issues associated with plastic pollution? Kyuka Ventures is focused solely on plastic-to-plastic recycling, also referred to as ‘closed-loop recycling’. Through this approach, the output from our recycling process is used to create oil and gas thus displacing the use of fossil fuel . This is directly reducing the climate impact of plastic production and, at the same time, keeping resources in circulation. In a circular economy, all resources and products need to be re-used and recycled.
What is the role of chemical recycling as part of plastic waste management policies? Kyuka is strongly supportive of a comprehensive policy framework to solve the issue of plastic waste pollution. We believe that chemical recycling plays an important role as part of this alongside mechanical recycling, however, a mix of both upstream and downstream measures (related to end-of-life management) need to be considered. Upstream policies include more sustainable production and manufacturing processes including design for recyclability, innovation and waste prevention. Downstream policies include better collection, sorting and recycling of plastic waste through a combination of both mechanical and chemical technologies. Unsustainable practices such as plastic waste imports, incineration (with or without energy recovery) and landfill need to be discouraged through regulation. Other important policies are reduction, reuse, the establishment of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes, mandatory recycled content targets and taxes on virgin plastics. There is no silver bullet to solve the plastic waste crisis. Kyuka supports a combination of complementary policy instruments and solutions to provide strong incentives and create the conditions needed for the establishment of a secondary materials market and a truly circular plastics economy. Collaborative action between stakeholders across the entire value chain is also a very important part of tackling the plastic waste crisis.
What is mass-balance and why is it needed? Currently, certification schemes are providing a strong framework that ensures the traceability and third-party verification for chemically recycled plastics along the supply chain. However, as volumes of recycled plastics increase and chemical recycling is scaling up, the next step is to have this framework adopted into legislation. This will enable a higher uptake in the market and provide a strong investment signal that chemical recycling is a key enabler for plastics circularity. Mass-balance is a chain of custody model that has been used for decades to distinguish between certified renewable, fair-trade or circular feedstocks or products and non-certified ones so that the volumes can be traced and certified accurately as they move along complex manufacturing supply chains. Mass-balance has been successfully used, for example, in determining the quantities of renewable energy being added to electricity grids and has been instrumental in demonstrating how electricity is being increasingly decarbonised. Kyuka ventures, through its policy and advocacy efforts as part of Chemical Recycling uganda, has been advocating together with 30 associations in the value chain for the need for policymakers to adopt a mass-balance chain of custody model into legislation this year. We believe that policymakers can and should enable the rapid scale-up of chemical recycling as part of the transition to a circular economy and mass-balance is a key enabling condition for this