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The Recycling Exchange and Nanotechnology : Towards a Zero Waste Economy
BRADLEY R. FITCH, CHRISTOPHER J. BUNTEL,
YIYANG (JENNY) WANG, STEVEN K. HAU and
TIMOTHY M. LONDERGAN
Intellectual Ventures 3150 139th Ave SE, Bellevue, WA 98005
E-mail:[email protected]
Abstract
The current recycling market is highly disaggregated, with thousands
of players and transactional middlemen, leading to significant inefficiencies.
Growing regulatory and consumer pressures to ensure that products are
disposed of and recycled responsibly have led to the need to develop better
approaches for efficient recycling. One such approach, termed a Recycling
Exchange, involves a centralized platform which can serve as an
independent verifier of recyclable and recycled materials. Additionally, it
serves as a data consolidator and financial engine that incentivizes
producers and consumers to close the loop on the recycling process. In this
approach, nanomaterial tags are embedded in the products, allowing them
to be easily tracked within the platform. These nano materials can be
tracked from the beginning to the end of a product’s useful life, thus
enabling disparate stakeholders to realize value from products even after
they have been discarded. Coupling nanotechnology with a Recycling
Exchange concept can help catalyze the shift to a zero waste economy.
Keywords : nanotechnology, tagging and tracking, recycling exchange
platform, zero waste economy, recycling inefficiency.
1. Introduction
R. Buckminster Fuller once said, “Pollution is nothing but the
resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse
because we've been ignorant of their value.” With increasing levels
of global consumption straining a finite supply of resources,
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Fuller’s sentiment has never been more important. In addition, in
view of limited landfill space and increasing regulatory and
consumer pressure for extended producer responsibility, there is a
growing need to track materials throughout product lifecycles
and ensure that products are disposed of and recycled responsibly. Not only is proper disposal beneficial for the environment,
it also ensures that the thousands of workers in scrap yards
around the world are not exposed to potentially hazardous
materials.
Waste has value. In 2012, the US alone will generate more
than 250 million tons of municipal solid waste, the materials
content of which is estimated to be around 136 million tons. This
waste ends up in the already limited landfill space, thereby
discarding the intrinsic energy value and material content of the
recyclable fraction, the value of which has been estimated at
US$60 billion1,2,3. Recycling and reuse can decrease the amount of
material sent to landfills and can also increase raw material supply.
However, few mechanisms and methods currently exist to capture
a product’s intrinsic end-of-life value.
1.1. Plastics
Plastics are involved in nearly every aspect of daily life,
providing myriad benefits, and are ubiquitous in consumer and
industrial products. However, plastics also account for a large
portion of the solid waste stream: 10% by weight and 26% by
volume4. Since 1950, global consumption of plastic products has
experienced an annual growth rate of 9%, increasing to over 280
million metric tonnes in 20115. Of this volume, about two-thirds
are used in packaging and other non-durable goods to be disposed
of after a single use. Assuming a (relatively high) recycling rate of
20%, this would yield about 150 million tonnes of plastic that ends
up in the landfill every year.
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1.2. End-of-Life Pressures
Because plastics do not biodegrade and can remain in the
environment for thousands of years, manufacturers face increasing
pressure to ensure responsible disposal and recycling of their
products at end-of-life. One such pressure arises from government
regulation requiring certain industries to prevent improper disposal
of their products. For example, the EU has established policy
directives related to the end-of-life of vehicles (ELV) and waste
electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). Pressure can also
come in the form of vendor-supplier relationships, as some players
can have a major impact on their supply chain. For example,
Walmart, a company which has implemented a sustainability goal
of zero waste and has significant influence in the supply chain, has
required vendors to redesign and reduce the amount of packaging
that goes into their products6. Additional pressure can also come
from consumers, who are becoming increasingly environmentally
conscious and can influence manufacturers by demanding
responsible practices or by basing purchasing decisions on a
product’s perceived “greenness.” Consumer power in this area has
been enhanced by the increased availability of information
regarding “green” products, companies, practices, and lifestyles
due to the growth of online and mobile information and market
access.
2. Challenges in the Current Ecosystem
2.1. Manufacturers
The primary challenge for manufacturers responding to these
pressures is the inability to track products once they are purchased
by the end-user. Because it is difficult to distinguish one type of
plastic from another when they are found together in an assortment
of mixed-waste plastic, the source of the polymer or manufacturer
of the recycled product is currently impossible to track. During the
sorting and separation process, plastics are washed and ground to
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small pieces, thereby eliminating any identifying physical
markings. Manufacturers interested in the details of the end-of-life
of their products are therefore unable to verify precisely how much
of their product is recycled or landfilled.
2.3. Consumers
Consumers are an integral part of the end-of-life of products.
While municipalities and local governments can facilitate
recycling and landfilling alternatives, it is ultimately up to the
consumer to make the decision to recycle, landfill, or illegally
dispose of discarded products. Because behavioral changes can be
difficult to effect, the sudden availability of a variety of recycling
options does not guarantee that items will be properly sorted and
recycled. For example, requiring that recyclables be clean and
separated into glass, paper, plastic, etc., may increase the value of
the recyclables but can actually reduce recycling efficacy because
cleaning and separating materials takes additional time and effort,
with little to no added benefit to the end-user. Recycling rates
increase when single-stream recycling (or commingling) is
allowed, simply because it is more convenient and readily
understood by end-users.
2.2. Recycling Industry
The recycling industry is highly fragmented, and there is little
transparency in the quality and price of recyclables. It is a highly
disaggregated marketplace, with thousands of players and
transactional middlemen, leading to significant inefficiencies. For
recyclable buyers, quality and price can be inconsistent from
shipment to shipment. Sellers, meanwhile, carry the liability for
their shipments. A buyer who receives a shipment and determines
that the quality does not match the seller’s description may choose
not to pay, with the seller having to bear the cost of returning the
shipment. This lack of information and transparency in the
recycling industry drives up risk and the cost of doing business.
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3. Nanotechnology and Recycling
Nanotechnology, often referred to as “nanotech”, has been a
topic of intense activity in the scientific community over the past
few decades. Nanotechnology is generally described as the
manipulation of matter on the atomic and molecular scale, ranging
from 1 to 100 nanometers7. Research efforts to manipulate and
control matter on these extremely small scales have led to the
discovery of unique optical, mechanical, electrical, magnetic, and
other properties that are not typically present in bulk matter.
Electronics, medicine, energy storage and production, biomaterials,
catalysts, and cosmetics are among the many potential applications
on which nanotechnology can have an impact. The continued
growth and interest in nanotechnology and nanoscience has driven
efforts to discover an increasing number of applications relevant to
improving the quality of life for humankind.
Many of the current solid waste and recyclable sorting and
separation methods are tedious and can often be expensive, leading
to inefficiencies. Even methods to improve these inefficiencies by
tagging and tracking waste and recyclables with tags, such as
RFIDs and barcodes, are often insufficient, as the tags may be
unintentionally removed during the product’s lifetime or difficult
to authenticate and track using standard tag reading technologies.
Nanotechnology affords new opportunities to interact with and
gain insight into the products and materials with which people
interact. One novel application is the capability to tag and track
materials from manufacture to end-of-life. Nanoscale materials and
structures can be utilized as “tags” and can be directly incorporated
into or onto the product during the manufacturing process. The
small size of the materials and structures renders them invisible to
the naked eye without altering the “macro” properties of the
system. The nanoscale material and structures can be robust and
can be used to “track” a material through its end-of-life.
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3.2. Exemplary Uses of Nanotechnology for Recyclable
Tagging and Tracking
Nanomaterials and nanostructures may be ideal technologies
for use in the tagging and tracking of products throughout their
lifecycles. Such nanomaterials and nanostructures have been
described in previous publications, including, for example, U.S.
Patent Publication No. 2011/0043331 A18 and U.S. Patent No.
8,227,1799.
In the technology described by Pradeep and Sajanlal,
inorganic or metal nanomaterialscan be tuned by changing the size
and shape of the nanomaterial in order to obtain unique Raman,
fluorescence, and infrared optical properties. Incorporating
additional chemical molecules/ions/species onto the nanomaterial
surface can further improve these properties. Due to their unique
optical signatures and small size, these nanomaterials can easily act
as tags to track a product throughout its lifecycle.
Hong, meanwhile, describes methods to utilize nanomaterials,
such as carbon nanotubes and nanowires, to create multilayered
nanostructures and patterns. These can then be used to create
unique property signatures for tagging and tracking applications.
These nanomaterials and nanostructures can be added into or onto
plastics, electronics, and other consumer items as nano-sized
physical tags with unique property signatures. The nano-sized tag
cannot be easily removed and can be interrogated using various
optical, electronic, and magnetic detection methods at any point
during the lifecycle of the tagged product for authentication in
order to allow easier tracking.
Since such tags can be tuned to have a unique property
signature, they can be used by chemical and product manufacturers
to uniquely identify and track their products throughout their
lifecycles. Products entering the waste stream at their end-of-life
can be effectively separated and sorted by the different identifying
tags used by each chemical and product manufacturer and can then
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be sent to the appropriate chemical and product manufacturer for
recycling and reuse. This ready identification process will
minimize and reduce the amount of potential recoverable and
recyclable waste ending up in landfills. In addition, the use of such
nano-sized tags will provide chemical and product manufacturers
with documentable evidence that their products are not disposed of
in landfills; this will be especially important as more stringent
governmental regulations relating to electronic waste dumping are
enforced.
The potential impact of nanotechnology on improving quality
of life through applications in health, energy, and other areas of
sustainability is of on-going interest in the research community.
However, as with any new technology, there is considerable debate
among the scientific community regarding the future implications
of nanotechnology and nanomaterials on the environment and on
human health. Accordingly, concerns have been raised as to the
necessity and appropriate level of government regulation of
nanotechnology.
4. Infrastructure
4.1. The Recycling Exchange
While nanotechnology can enable plastics to be tagged and
tracked, further steps must be taken in order to address the
challenges outlined above. Since materials retain value even after
disposal, identifying them at the end of their useful life can benefit
all stakeholders in the product’s lifecycle. One means of capturing
this value is with a Recycling Exchange, which acts as an end-oflife trading platform for recycled materials. Such a platform would
also enable other secondary markets relating to recycling, such as
insurance, shipping, logistics, sustainability rankings, and incentive
platforms.
The Recycling Exchange can be a technology and data
provider for all aspects related to recycling. It can serve as an
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independent verifier of recyclable and recycled materials, as well
as a data consolidator and financial engine that incentivizes
producers and consumers to close the loop on recyclables. In such
a trading scheme, materials are assigned credits, the value of which
can be based on a number of variables, such as material or
commodity value, intrinsic energy value, whether and how many
times the material has previously been recycled, and carbon value
(accounting for carbon avoidance and possibly linked with carbon
market platforms). Credits are realized upon disposal and can be
bought, sold, and traded, just like any tradable commodity.
4.2. Lifecycle of a Pellet
An example of how the Recycling Exchange could work
during the lifecycle of a product is depicted in Figure1. In this
example, the life cycle of a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) pellet
is matched against the stages of the Recycling Exchange, which
serves as a platform that collects, tracks, and verifies whether the
product ends up in the recycling stream.
Fig. 1: Lifecycle of a PET pellet.
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The first stage in the PET pellet lifecycle is the removal of oil
from an underground reserve or the production of hydrocarbons
from a bio-based source. The chemicals are then sent to a materials
manufacturer, who forms pellets by refining the virgin raw
chemicals and materials and producing them to size (pellets,
flakes, etc.). Nanotechnology-based tagging and tracking
technologies can be embedded into the raw plastic materials during
this process. The specific details on the tags used for the pellets are
then sent to the Recycling Exchange and stored in a central
database. Plastic pellets containing unique tags are then sent to
various OEM product manufacturing companies for incorporation
into various consumer products.
At the OEM stage, the tagged pellets are processed using
extrusion, injection molding, blow molding, and other film
molding techniques to form a product, such as a plastic bottle. The
OEMs can incorporate additional unique nanotechnology tagging
and tracking technologies onto the product to improve the sorting
and separation process further down the line in the plastics
lifecycle. The specific details on the tags used in the product are
again sent to the Recycling Exchange and stored in a central
database. Additional tags containing information regarding
material origin, material recycling locations, and promotions,
incentives, and discounts available to consumers can also be
incorporated into the product, with the relevant details stored in the
Recycling Exchange database.
Consumers who purchase the product at a retailer can scan and
read the additional tags placed onto the product by the OEM using
smart phones and devices, thus receiving useful information
regarding the product origin, its proper end-of-life disposition,
discounts and coupons from retailers or OEMs, etc. When the
product is scanned, information regarding the product’s location or
other attributes may be tracked and updated to the central database
of the Recycling Exchange. After use, the consumer discards the
product into the recycling waste stream according to the
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instructions provided by scanning the tag. The consumer may
receive a financial incentive for placing the product in the
appropriate recycling container.
At the next stage,a waste management company collects the
recycling waste and sends it to a recycling facility where the
different recyclable materials are sorted and separated according to
the unique tag embedded onto or into the product. Tags that were
embedded into or onto the product may be authenticated and
separated out and binned for a subsequent recycling step. This
information can be sent to the Recycling Exchange to verify and
match the information on the database regarding the product. In
this manner, the unique tags can allow each manufacturer to
confirm the quantity of their products that ends up in the recycling
process. The pre-sorted tagged products can then be cleaned,
crushed, and flaked. For certain plastics, the flaked material may
be chemically broken down and recovered. These materials can be
sent back the materials manufacturer or OEM to be reused into the
same or new products.
5. Benefits for All Stakeholders
Nanotechnology offers novel solutions to facilitate recycling
by differentiating otherwise fungible materials and making end-oflife transactions more efficient. New nanoscale materials represent
an ideal approach because they do not alter the material’s “macro”
properties, are not visible to the naked eye, and can be
incorporated as tags by the manufacturer, allowing them to be used
to track materials.
The Recycling Exchange can be a platform through which
nanomaterials can be tracked at the end of a product’s useful life,
thus enabling disparate stakeholders to realize value from materials
even after they have been discarded. The benefits of such an
approach include:
1. Reduction in zero-value dumping of used materials.
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2. Mitigation of extended producer responsibility costs for
manufacturers at a product’s end-of-life.
3. Higher value in recycledapplications through verification
of a material’s history.
4. Development of new and higher value uses of end-of-life
materials.
5. Improved design for environmentally friendly products.
6. Higher
brand
recognition/customer
loyalty
for
participating companies.
7. More transparent and efficient markets.
8. Less waste and increased recycling, thereby benefitting the
environment and society.
Big things have nano-sized beginnings. Coupling
nanomaterials with a Recycling Exchange concept can help
catalyze the shift to a zero waste economy.
References
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Wright, Shawn. (2012) Study shows landfilled resources worth
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