Recycling of Plastic Waste of Farms – Effects
of High Oil Price and Changes in Waste
Management
Mika Horttanainen, Päivi Friari, Hannariina Honkanen, Mika Luoranen, Esa Marttila
Lappeenranta University of Technology
CONTACT
Mika Horttanainen
Lappeenranta University of Technology, Department of Energy and Environmental Technology
P.O. Box 20, 53851 Lappeenranta, Finland
Telephone: +358 5 621 2726
Facsimile.: +358 5 621 6399
Email: [email protected]
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The total consumption of plastics in Western Europe was approximately 39.7 million tonnes in
2003, which means about 98 kg/person, and the amount has been increasing. The use of plastic
materials has increased also in agriculture. Finnish agriculture produces about 12 000 tonnes of
plastic waste in a year. The largest fraction is the films of silage bales, which make about 50 % of
all the plastic waste of farms.
Finland is a sparsely populated country where the production densities of different plastic waste
materials are so low that it has not been economical to collect the plastics and pre-treat them before
the utilization process. For this reason the material recovery has been limited to the plastics
industry. The price of virgin polymers has been too low compared to the cost of using recycled
material. Relatively small amounts of plastic waste have been collected from farms for recycling
and energy recovery, and most of the waste has been transported to landfills. In this article the
authors introduce a case project of the development of agricultural plastic waste recycling and its
results in Finland.
The changing situation in the waste management legislation and raw material prices seems to be an
opportunity for remarkable development in the material use of plastic waste in Finland. When the
new waste incineration act came into force, the energy recovery situation changed so that today the
power plants may charge a gate fee for taking solid recovered fuel (SRF). At the same time the
prices of polymers have risen, and the demand of raw materials in Asia (especially China) has
increased quickly with the economic growth. These facts together make it much more probable to
find it profitable to separate, collect and transport the most common types of plastics for material
recovery.
The result of the development project implemented in Finland was that about 2000 tonnes of plastic
stretch films were collected for recycling during the year 2005, and a little less during 2006. The
material was transported to the Far East because there was no economical utilization possibility near
Finland.
A collection system is the first precondition for source-separated waste material to be steered to
utilization. This is the first time it has been realized in Finland for plastic waste of farms in the scale
of the whole state. A significant amount of separately collected uniform plastic material makes it
attractive also for Finnish and other European companies in the field of plastics industry to develop
their processes so that they can utilize such waste materials. When new recovery choices emerge, it
can again cause a development of collection systems for new plastic waste fractions. The markets
will then determine how and where the collected materials will be utilized and what will be the
costs for the waste producer, but the first and probably the most crucial step is the development of
the collection system.
INTRODUCTION
The total consumption of plastics in Western Europe was about 39.7 million tonnes in 2003, which
means about 98 kg/person virgin plastics. The consumption increased by 3.7 % between 2001 and
2002, and 1.9 % during 2002-2003. The total amount of plastic waste was about 21 million tonnes
in 2002, which covers only about 1 per cent of the total solid waste in Western Europe. Mechanical
recycling of plastics is about 14 % of the waste production, and energy recovery about 23 % of the
total collectable plastic waste. (PlasticsEurope, 2004)
Packaging is one of the biggest utilization methods of plastics. 37 % of plastic products were
packages in 2005 (PlasticsEurope, 2007). The utilization rate of plastic packaging waste was 37 %
in Finland during 2003. The material recycling rate was 14 %. Reuse of packaging plastics was 71
% of the total use. Reused packages were not included in the waste statistics (PYR, 2006).
The prices of the most common plastic materials have followed the trend of crude oil price very
closely (Aizenshtein E.M., 2006). The crude oil price exceeded 70 $/barrel during 2006, which is
higher than ever reached during the two oil crisis periods in the 1970’s and 1980’s. During 2006
and 2007 the price has mostly stayed above 60 $/barrel (Bloomberg.com, 2006). The recent
increase in oil prices has been caused partly by economic growth of Asia and partly by natural
disasters and their effects on crude oil production. There will be many temporary changes in the oil
price, but it is estimated that the long term trend of oil price will probably be rising.
Waste management has faced many changes in Finland and in the EU states during the past few
years. Changes in landfill legislation have increased the costs of landfilling and prevented the
placing of untreated waste to landfills. The waste incineration directive has set strict demands for
emissions and technologies of waste incineration and made it more difficult to get permissions for
plants. Also the costs of incineration have increased. At the same time demanding targets have been
set for the recovery of waste.
The use of plastic materials in agriculture has increased. Silage is often packed in bales with plastic
stretch films (Figure 1) or it is covered with plastic films in clamps. The film material is usually low
density polyethylene (LDPE). Fertilizers and seeds have for long time been packed in plastic sacks.
Today the sacks are often packed in large sacks containing 600 kg of fertilizer (Figure 2). These
sacks consist of an inner sack, which is made of LDPE, and an outer sack, which is made of
polypropylene (PP). Preservation agents, pesticides and supplement solutions for the animals are
supplied usually in plastic canisters mainly made of high density polyethylene (HDPE).
Figure 1. Silage bales packed in plastic strech film.
(Friari et al., 2005)
Figure 2. Fertilizers packed in large plastic sacks.
(Friari et al., 2005)
In Western Europe agriculture consumed 744 000 tonnes of different plastics during the year 2003,
which meant 1.9 % of the total plastics production in the region (PlasticsEurope, 2004). The share
of different plastic products in agriculture is presented in Table 1.
Table 1. Consumption of plastics in agriculture in Europe during 2002 (PlasticsEurope, 2005)
Share of plastics in
Share of total plastics
Type of plastic product
agriculture
consumption
(%)
(%)
Clamp films
22
0.6
Tree casings
11
0.3
Bale films and nets
10
0.2
Mulch films of vegetables
4
0.1
Other agricultural plastics
53
1.3
In Finland agriculture produced about 21.3 million tonnes of waste during 2002. Most of the waste
was manure and other biological and vegetable-based waste (21.1 Mt), which could be utilized at
the farms. The amount of other waste was about 160 000 tonnes. The Finnish agriculture produces
about 12 000 tonnes of plastic waste in a year. The largest fraction is the stretch films of silage
bales, which make about 50 % of all the plastic waste of farms (Ympäristöalojen vuosikirja 20052006, 2005). Clamp film consumption produces about 2000 tonnes of waste in a year. Large sacks
make about 1200 t/a, and smaller sacks about 600 t/a. Liquid canister waste is estimated to be about
1000 t/a.
In this article the authors introduce a case project of the development of agricultural plastic waste
recycling and its results. Recycling of the plastic waste of farms was developed during 2004 and
2005 in a project called “Collection and utilization of the plastic waste of agriculture” coordinated
by Lappeenranta University of Technology. This article is based on the project report (Friari et al.,
2005). On the basis of the case project and the present changing situation in waste management in
several states of Europe, as well as the rising trend of oil and plastic materials, authors suggest
development steps for the near future.
UTILIZATION OF THE PLASTIC WASTE
The consumption of plastics was 475 000 tonnes in Finland in 2002. The amount of plastic waste
was estimated to be 217 000 tonnnes. Material recovery was about 9.7 % and energy recovery about
21 % (PlasticsEurope, 2004). In Finland the recovery of plastic waste has been realized mainly as
energy recovery with other packaging materials, source separated energy waste (paper, cardboard,
metals, glass and often biowaste source-separated to material recovery), or as material recovery of
the by-products of plastic fabricators.
Recycling
Finland is a sparsely populated country where the production densities of different plastic waste
materials are so low that it has not been economical to collect the small amounts and pre-treat
(clean) the plastics before the utilization process. For this reason the material recovery has been
limited to the plastic industry. The price of virgin raw material has mostly been too low compared
to the cost of using recycled material. However, more than 70 % of the plastic packages are reused
in Finland. The reason for this is mainly the well-operating return and refill system for bottles.
There are some examples of plastic recycling companies which have a different operational model.
One company collects different plastic materials from plastic product fabricators (reject of plastic
components of electronic products or cars), commerce and industry. The company uses about 5500
tonnes of waste plastic in a year and it can use about 80 different polymers. The products are
profiles which can be used as construction components (Surakka M., 2006). Another company uses
rejects of plastic fabrication and packaging industry, and produces recycled plastic raw materials.
The capacity of the factory is 15 000 t/a (L&T Muoviportti Oy, 2007). A third example of the
recovery of plastic waste is the collection of plastic pipes, which started in 2000. For example PE,
PP and PVC (polyvinyl chloride) pipes are collected from construction sites. The separated plastic
classes are crushed and the material is used to manufacture new pipes. 90 % of the material used for
pipe production is recycled plastics (Kuusisaariplastic Oy, 2007). In near future the material
recycling of PET bottles will increase because the taxation system will change in Finland so that it
will favor recyclable as well as refillable bottles.
Energy recovery
Only about 10 % of municipal solid waste (MSW) is incinerated in Finland, which means about
240 000 t/a. Most waste combustion is done in co-combustion boilers, which usually produce heat
and electricity for industry and use wood residues or peat as the main fuel. Only 50 000 t/a is
incinerated in a mass combustion plant.
Plastic waste has been utilized in Finland as energy by combustion in waste incineration plants and
co-combustion plants. Plastic waste is usually part of the waste material when municipal solid
waste, industrial solid waste, packaging waste, or solid recovery fuel (SRF) is combusted solely or
with other fuels. The advantage of combustion in utilization of plastic waste is that there is no need
to sort the plastics and different plastic families separately. Only polyvinyl chloride (PVC) should
be separated out of the SRF because it causes dioxin and furan emissions in combustion. The
utilization of waste in energy production reduces the use of fossil fuels. It also reduces greenhouse
gas emissions, because part of the energy waste is considered as renewable fuel.
Because of the co-combustion, SRF is the main form of waste incinerated in Finland. SRF is
usually prepared from source-separated commercial packaging waste, industrial by-products and
packages or construction waste and it contains mainly cardboard, plastics, wood and paper. The
lower heating value of SRF (dry solids) varies usually between 19 and 23 MJ/kg, and the moisture
content between 5 and 30 %.(Alakangas, 2000)
The share of plastics in MSW is usually 5-10 mass-% but the share of the energy content can be
even 30 %. The lower heating value of most plastics varies between 20 (PVC) and 46 MJ/kg (PE).
The heating value for mixed waste plastics is higher than 30 MJ/kg (Alakangas, 2000). Their
density and bulk density is low, however (as well as most of the other SRF materials), which affects
the storage and supply properties of the SRF fuel. The fraction of plastic materials is usually the
highest in the combustion of packaging-derived fuel (PDF), which is used in several utility boilers
of industry in co-combustion with biofuels.
The new waste incineration act came into force in Finland in the beginning of 2006 for all
combustion plants utilizing waste materials as fuels. The influence of the act to the emission limits,
structural demands and measurement systems is such that several of the previous co-combustion
plants have decided to stop the use of waste-derived fuels. At the same time some of the remaining
co-combustion boilers have increased the utilization of SRF. There are also several plans and
preparations going on to build new waste incineration plants around the country. The process will,
however, take many years because there is lot of opposition to waste incineration, and civic
organizations are complaining about the permission applications of the incineration plants. Two
new plants are being built, and they will be in operation on 2008. As a consequence, the situation is
such that currently and in the near future there is less demand than supply for SRF.
In Finland the power plants have paid for SRF according to its energy content. Changes in the
market situation have caused decrease in the price of SRF. During 2006 and 2007 the price of SRF
has varied between -10 and 6 €/MWh, according to Finnish SRF producers and the Finnish
Competition Authority. Many SRF producers have faced difficulties in their business because of the
drop in the price (Uusiouutiset, 2006; Kilpailuvirasto, 2007). The material and energy recovery of
plastics are compared in Table 2.
Table 2. Comparison of utilization methods.
Utilization method
Demands for the material
Strengths
Weaknesses
Often high cleaning costs
Difficult to get large
enough volume for
recycling investments
Export to foreign countries
increases transport costs
and environmental impacts
Material is lost
Need for approved wasteto-energy power plants
,which often expensive
Material recovery
Reasonably pure material
needed
Different plastic fractions
have to be separated from
each other
Higher in the traditional
waste hierarchy
Market and legislation
situation of waste
incineration does not have
an influence
Energy recovery
Incombustible and
hazardous materials have to
be separated out of the
energy waste
Usually crushed before
combustion
Often possible to find
utilization nearer the
generation
Transport distance shorter
Not so much dependent on
separation skills
Replacement of fossil fuels
Utilization of the plastic waste of farms
The sources of plastic waste at different farm types are introduced in Table 3. Many of the waste
fractions from farms can be soiled because they are in touch with organic materials or the ground
when used. For this reason they often need cleaning before material recovery.
Table 3. Typical plastic waste fractions at different farms.
Type of farm
Dairy cattle farm or
beef cattle farm
Piggery
Grain farm
Vegetable farm
Generated plastic waste
Stretch films of silage bales
Clamp films
Large sacks (fertilizers and seeds)
Canisters
Large sacks (fertilizers and seeds)
Canisters
Polystyrene boxes
Large sacks (fertilizers and seeds)
Canisters
Clamp films
Greenhouse films
Small sacks for fertilizers
There are plenty of examples of the collection and recovery of plastic waste from farms. Examples
of temporary projects and continuous practices in European countries have been collected to Table
4. Most of these collection and utilization cases are still operating. However, many more such
projects have stopped after demonstration period, for some reasons.
Table 4. Utilization of plastic waste of agriculture in some European countries.
Country
History
Collected
Utilization method
fractions
Norway
Started a few
Practically all
Material recovery
years ago
waste plastics of
partly in Norway,
agriculture
partly in other
countries (Sweden,
Denmark, Lithuania)
Great Britain
Started in 1994
PE
Material recovery
(in the beginning (stretch films,
stretch films),
clamp films, PEsacks, mulch films)
was finished
because of unpaid
licence fees
Holland
Started in 1996
At first clamp films Material recovery
and PE fertilizer
sacks.
Expanded to silage
bale stretch films
and mulch films
Ireland
Started 1997 1998
Stretch films and
clamp films
Material recovery
(Scotland)
Amounts
Present situation
7 300 t
(in 2004)
Operating
4 000 t
(in 1995)
New regional
projects since 2000
Objective: national
system for
collection and
utilization
Operating
4 000 t
in 1996
(clamp films
and fertilizer
sacks)
12 500 t
in 2005
Operating
Utilization will
probably be
expanded
Also in Finland many local and regional projects have bee executed to collect plastic waste
materials for material or energy recovery. In most cases the easiest way to utilize the waste has been
to mix the crushed plastics with wood residues or peat at a local district heating plant and replace
other fuels with the waste material. Many of these demonstrations have been successful, but the
changing legislation has stopped the co-combustion of local waste materials in most of the cases.
(Friari et al., 2005)
The material recovery of the plastic waste of farms has been demonstrated for several purposes.
Clamp films and silage bale films have been collected and used for production of PE granulates,
which have been used for production of film plastic for agricultural use. The problem in the
recovery was dirt in the collected plastic material. Films, sacks and some other plastic wastes have
been utilized in the production of a binding agent for asphalt (so called polymer asphalt). The
plastic binding agent improves the tolerance of the asphalt for temperature variations. It is possible
to use also slightly soiled plastic materials for the manufacturing of the binding agent. The
demonstration showed that the quality of the binding agent has to be developed, harmful emissions
during the road construction have to be controlled, and the costs of the coating are higher than with
traditional asphalt. Canisters have been utilized for the production of plastic pipes. The plastic cores
of stretch film rolls have been used for the production of new PP cores. The problem has been the
separating of cores made of different plastic types. (Lindfors, 2000)
The only continuous recovery case of agricultural plastic waste in Finland has been the collection of
fertilizer and seed sacks by the Finnish 4H Federation and Kemira GrowHow. Small fertilizer sacks
and large sacks, delivered by Kemira GrowHow and two other producers of fertilizers and seeds,
are collected from the whole country except Lapland by 4H club members each year. The small
sacks are crushed and washed and the material is mixed with virgin plastic raw material for new
sack production. The large sacks are recovered as energy. The collection and recovery started in
1975. The collected amount of plastics was 570 tonnes in 2004. Kemira GrowHow pays a fee for
the 4H club members according to the amount of collected material. The system is partly image
care of Kemira GrowHow and partly co-operation with customers and future customers of the
company (Finnish 4H Federation; Friari et al., 2005).
In most demonstrations of material recovery the main difficulty has been poor economy of the
collection and treatment of the material. The volumes of certain plastic waste types have been too
small to cover the costs. Soiled materials cause a need of cleaning, which means investments and
operating costs. The source separation has usually been successful. The farmers have been quite
well motivated to collect and separate the plastic materials for utilization purposes. The small
treatment fees have not been seen as a problem, either. The situation of plastic waste recovery from
farms in Finland before the year 2005 is presented in Table 5. Most of the plastic waste of farms
was disposed to landfills or treated incorrectly at the farms.
Table 5. Utilization of plastic waste of farms in Finland. (Friari et al., 2005)
Approximate
Type of plastic
Utilization situation
Type of plastics
amount
waste
before 2005
(t/a)
Stretch film of the
PE-LLD
6 000
Demonstrations of energy and material recovery.
silage bales
No continuous recovery.
Clamp films
LD-PE
2 000
Demonstrations of energy and material recovery.
No continuous recovery.
Large sacks
PP
1 200
Partly collected for energy recovery
Small sacks
Canisters
Mulch films of
vegetables
PE-LD
600
PE-HD
(cap PP)
1 000
PE-LD
250
Partly collected for production of new sacks
Demonstrations of material recovery for production of
plastic pipes. Demonstrations of collection for reuse.
No continuous recovery.
Demonstrations of energy recovery.
No continuous recovery.
CASE PROJECT: COLLECTION AND UTILIZATION OF PLASTIC FILM WASTE
The case project of plastic waste collection and utilization introduced here was executed in the
South Karelia region in South-East Finland during the years 2004 and 2005. Lappeenranta
University of Technology was the leader of the project, which was implemented in co-operation
with Kuusakoski Oy (recycling company), the Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest
Owners (MTK), the Finnish 4H Federation, and Etelä-Karjalan jätehuolto Oy (regional waste
management company).
Test collection
On the basis of a study concerning the generated amounts of plastic waste in Finnish farms, the
silage bale stretch films were chosen as the first priority of collection and utilization. However, in
the test collection in autumn 2004, several different plastics were collected from the farms in South
Karelia. The collection was done with two trailer trucks. The masses of the loads were 3480 kg and
2600 kg. The bulk densities of the loads were 134 kg/m3 and 104 kg/m3, respectively. The test
collection showed that it is important that the plastic waste is collected from a place where the truck
can go easily, and that putting the materials in large plastic sacks makes it easier and quicker to lift
the materials.
The test materials were examined and separated to different fractions. The silage bale film was
baled and sent in a ship to Far East for the probable customer of the recycling company. The
material was analyzed there and discovered suitable for the material recovery purposes. The
recycling company and its customer claimed, however, that the material should not be so soiled.
Most of the dirt should be shaken off from the stretch films before collection.
Figure 2. Test collection in autumn 2004. Plastics packed in large sacks on the left and unpacked plastics on the
right.
Countrywide collection
During the summer 2005 the stretch films of silage bales were collected for the first time from
almost the whole Finland. The collection practices and dates were informed to the farmers with
information letters from MTK and newspapers directed to farmers. The dissemination and
collection of the plastic waste was arranged at the same time with traditional metal scrap collection
carried out by the same company. The plastic waste was collected with separate trucks, however.
The amount of collected stretch film from the whole country was about 2000 tonnes. This covers
about one third of the generated stretch film amount per year and about 17 % of the total plastic
waste generation of Finnish farms. All the farmers had not noticed the information of the plastic
waste collection. On the other hand, some farmers had stored the plastic waste material for several
years. The collection was arranged also in summer 2006 as a normal practice. The collected amount
was a little less than in the first year. The collection will be done also in 2007.
There has been no collection fee for silage bale stretch films pretreated according to instructions.
The films have to pre-cleaned from silage residues and other contaminants. It is also recommended
that the films are stored in dry place and packed to large sacks before collection. This year the
company accepts also plastic nets with the stretch films. If the material contains contaminants, the
collection fee is 100 euros for one fetch.
CONCLUSIONS
The high level of crude oil price together with growing production of plastic goods in Asia has
made recycled plastic materials more competitive compared to virgin polymer raw materials. At the
same time, landfilling of waste has become more expensive and combustion of waste less
economic, because of changes in legislation in Finland and other European countries. In Finland
there is currently more supply than demand for SRF, which has dropped the price of recycled fuel
so that the co-combustion plants may even charge a gate fee for taking SRF. These facts have made
it profitable to collect the plastic waste of farms in Finland, which is sparsely populated country
with long transport distances. The possibility for many other European countries for a
corresponding development of a collection system is as good or even better. The developed
collection systems of other recycled materials from agriculture support the collection of plastic
waste.
The current situation can offer an opportunity for the development of plastic waste recovery also in
transition economy countries like most of the new EU member states, but the reasons are slightly
different. Most of the new member states of EU (e.g. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) do not incinerate
remarkable amounts of waste. Their waste management is mostly based on landfilling and it is not
well developed. These countries have to accomplish great improvements in their waste management
to fulfill the demands of EU directives. Several countries see the incineration of waste as a potential
choice to reduce landfilling and take advantage of the waste. The building of new infrastructure
means, however, huge investments, and the process takes many years. The situation in the global oil
markets offers now an attractive possibility to increase the utilization of plastic waste as raw
material. The collection and transport of plastic waste from Finland to the Far East is profitable
now, which means that it could be possible also in the new EU countries. The landfilling of waste is
not yet as expensive in these countries as in Finland, but the costs will increase when many of the
old landfills have to be closed. Also the attitudes of the farmers may not be as positive for source
separation as in the Nordic countries or Central Europe. However, a big change in waste
management and recovery will be accomplished in the near future, which will offer opportunities
for different solutions and also for attitude change. A large material recovery plant has already been
built in Latvia for the processing of plastic materials imported from Western Europe
(PlasticsEurope 2004). This kind of investments may catalyze also development of collection
systems in the neighbouring areas.
The reasonability and sustainability of waste transportation to Far East from Europe can be
discussed. This was not studied during the project realized by the authors because of a lack of
resources. Naturally the environmental impacts of transportation should be studied to be able to
estimate whether the advantages of material recovery exceed the negative impacts. Also the social
sustainability of each case of waste export should be ascertained carefully. However, the described
economical situation has made it possible to establish a collection system for the largest fraction of
agricultural plastic waste in Finland.
The lack of demand of recycled plastics has been a bottleneck for the development of collection
systems, and the lack of supply for the development of recovery processes. Now the demand in Asia
has made it possible to create collection systems in other parts of the world. This has been proved in
Finland with the largest fraction of the plastic waste of farms. The collection system is the most
crucial step for the development of domestic recycling. The supply of source-separated uniform
material makes it possible and interesting to develop recycling processes and methods in Finland
and other European countries. The collection can be expanded when more choices for recovery
emerge. The sustainability of recycling can be controlled with taxation or other kinds of financial
steering mechanisms if the life cycle assessments indicate need for them. Operating markets for
recycled materials will then in future determine the methods and location of plastic waste recovery.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Financial and other support for this study has been provided by South Carelia Kärki-Leader and
Pomo+ programs, Kuusakoski Oy, Etelä-Karjalan jätehuolto Oy, MTK South Carelia and KymiVuoksi 4H district, which are gratefully acknowledged.
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