Facts about our throwaway economy
Unfortunately many products are simply thrown away after having been used only once. For new products new raw materials have to be extracted, and a lot of energy has to be used. Ultimately this leads to enormous problems such as climate change, plastic in the sea, resource scarcity and price increases.
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We just throw away a lot of these products, because there is no efficient collection system.
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A practicable collection system in the form of a digital deposit system such as BONI gives our throwaway society the opportunity to collect defined products for recycling. That is the prerequisite of a circular economy.
PET bottles
One million PET bottles are sold worldwide every minute. One litre of crude oil is used to produce 20 PET bottles. This means that 50,000 litres of crude oil are used every minute to produce PET bottles.
The global annual production of PET bottles thus consumes around 26,280,000,000 litres of crude oil. Filled into a pipeline with a diameter of about 90 cm, this pipeline would have to be 40,000 km long.That is roughly the same as the circumference of our earth.
Worldwide savings potential of around 39,000,000 tons of greenhouse gases (CO2, methane, nitrous oxide and other climate-relevant gases).
A not inconsiderable part of the plastic waste floating in the seas consists of PET bottles!
HDPE plastic
Everyone has used containers made of HDPE:
This is used to manufacture bottles for milk, shampoo, liquid detergent and motor oil, for example.
To produce 1 kg of HDPE, 1.75 kg of oil are required. HDPE is relatively hard and impact-resistant and can be exposed to temperatures of up to 120°C.
HDPE is one of the easiest plastic polymers to recycle and is accepted in most recycling centres around the world.
If HDPE is not made available for recycling in its pure form, i.e. if it is contaminated with other plastic polymers, this can ruin the recycled end product.
Worldwide savings potential of around 80,000,000 tons of greenhouse gases (CO2, methane, nitrous oxide and other climate-relevant gases).
It is imperative that HDPE is sorted, recycled and reused.
Beverage cans
An estimated 60 billion beverage cans are sold in Europe each year. About 70 percent of these are made of aluminium, the rest of tinplate. Only about 75 percent are recycled.
However, what hardly anyone knows is that when aluminium is melted, several different aluminium alloys are usually mixed together.
This gives the recycled aluminium a rather inferior quality, which has to be stretched with primary aluminium.
That is not ecological, because theoretically aluminium has the potential to be sustainable. But to do this, the different products have to be collected according to type.
BONI offers the solution.
It is imperative that aluminium products are sorted and recycled.
Batteries and rechargeable batteries
At the moment we can make only rough estimates of battery recycling in Europe. We assume that about 45 percent of batteries cannot be recycled.
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Batteries and rechargeable batteries are complex products that consist of various – sometimes toxic – metals.
Since the majority of batteries are incorrectly disposed of in household waste, the following are lost every year in Europe:
• about 25,000 tonnes of different types of steel
• about 24,000 tonnes of zinc and zinc compounds
• about 5,500 tonnes of ferromanganese
Toxic metals:
• about 4,500 tonnes of lead and lead compounds
• about 900 tonnes of cadmium
• about 15 tonnes of mercury
In particular because of the highly toxic metals, the return of empty batteries and old rechargeable batteries must be controlled and organised by means of financial incentives.
Electronic waste
In 2019 53.6 million tons of electronic waste were generated worldwide. This corresponds to a material value of around 57 billion US dollars.
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It contains valuable metals such as steel, copper, platinum, palladium, and also silver and gold.
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And the mountain of electrical scrap continues to grow rapidly: the analysts expect an annual increase in the amount of high-tech scrap by 17 percent.
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About 12.3 million tons are produced in Europe. Officially, only 17.4 percent of this were properly collected and recycled.
The non-recycled mountain of electrical scrap causes annual economic damage of around 10 billion euros in Europe.
The return of old or defective electrical devices must be managed
and organised using financial incentives.
References:
PET bottles
Deutsche Umwelthilfe, 2021, problem of single-use plastic bottles in:
https://www.duh.de/mehrweg-klimaschutz0/einweg-plastikflaschen/
last access on September 26, 2021
Deutsche Umwelthilfe, 2021, single-use plastic bottles made from 100% recycled material; As of 07/06/2021
last access on September 26, 2021
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bvse Fachverband Kunststoffrecycling; December 8th, 2016, Over 1.8 million tons of PET bottles were collected and recycled across Europe in 2015
https://www.bvse.de/gut-informiert-kunststoffrecycling/nachrichten-recycling/1026-ueber-1-8-millionen-tonnen-pet-flaschen-wurden-in-2015-europaweit-gesammelt-und-recycelt. html
last access on September 26, 2021
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Whale & Dolphin Conservation gGmbH, Ruth Schloegel, July 3rd, 2017, 1 million plastic bottles per minute
https://de.whales.org/2017/07/03/1-million-plastikflaschen-pro-minute/
last access on September 26, 2021
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Summary of the study
Ecological benefits of PET recycling in Switzerland
created by, Dr. Fredy Dinkel Carbotech AG, Basel on behalf of PET-Recycling Switzerland, September 2008
Plastic Packaging Recycling - PET Beverage Bottles and Other Applications
Dr. Frank Welle, Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging
9th BfR Forum Consumer Protection October 28, 2010, Berlin
PET-RECYCLING SWITZERLAND ANNUAL REPORT 2016,
Publisher: Association PRS PET Recycling Switzerland
Concept and design: Katja Jost, Zurich
HDPE plastics
AZO Cleantech, July 25, 2012, Recycling of High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE or PEHD)
https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=255
last access on May 01, 2023
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AZO Cleantech, July 25, 2012, Recycling von hochintensivem Polyethylen (HDPE oder PEHD)
https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=255
last access on May 01, 2023
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The PLASTIKATLAS 2019 is a cooperation project between the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation Germany (BUND).
2nd edition, July 2019, ISBN 978-3-86928-200-8
Heinrich Böll Foundation, Schumannstrasse 8, 10117 Berlin, www.boell.de/plastikatlas
Association for the Environment and Nature Conservation Germany eV, Kaiserin-Augusta-Allee 5, 10553 Berlin, www.bund.net, www.bund.net/plastikatlas
Beverage cans
Quarks, Andreas Schneider, 09/13/2019, That is why aluminum is not good for the environment
https://www.quarks.de/umwelt/muell/darum-ist-aluminium-nicht-gut-fuer-die-umwelt/
last access on September 26, 2021
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Press release of the Gesamtverband der Aluminiumindusrie eV, Düsseldorf September 3, 2012:
In Europe, two thirds of all aluminum beverage cans are recycled. Germany leads the recycling rate for aluminum beverage cans
Electronic waste
German environmental aid, electrical appliances:
https://www.duh.de/themen/recycling/elektrogeraete/
last access on September 26, 2021
NZZ, “High-tech scrap mountain is growing”, by Jochen Siegle, December 15, 2017
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The Global E-waste Monitor 2020, Quantities, flows, and the circular economy potential, Authors: Vanessa Forti, Cornelis Peter Baldé, Ruediger Kuehr, Garam Bel
ISBN digital: 978-92-808-9114-0
ISBN print: 978-92-808-9115-7
Batteries
Batteries and accumulators, Federal Environment Agency Section III 1.2 “Legal matters, enforcement of ElektroG and BattG” Wörlitzer Platz 1, 06844 Dessau, Postfach 1406, 06813 Dessau, Tel. 0340 / 2103-0
E-mail: uba@broschuerenversand.de
Internet: http://www.umweltbundesamt.de/abfallwirtschaft/battg/index.htm
October 2012
Energy saving lamps
NZZ, »The heiress of the light bulb too often ends up in the trash», Nadine Jürgensen, April 26th, 2013
Littering
> Littering costs
Fraction-specific cleaning costs through littering in Switzerland
Published by the Federal Office for the Environment FOEN Bern, 2011
Source references images
Home page:
Globe Pixabay: globe-1348777_1920
Thumbnail for the explanatory video: Pixabay garbage-2369821_1920
Background image by: Who is behind BONI ?, Pixabay team-386673_1920
Stakeholder Page
Icons: BONUSES
Facts Page:
Facts about the throw-away economy: Garbage dump Adobe Stock # 245042882
Thumbnail for the video PET bottles: AdobeStock_191834347
HDPE plastic: Adobe Stock No. 51944798
Beverage cans: Adobe Stock No. 3239953734
Batteries and rechargeable batteries: Pixabay battery-1930833_1920
Electronic waste: Pixabay computer-2049019_1920