Can Plastic Waste Be Upcycled Easily? An Honest Answer

Some of it can.

Most of it cannot, at least not easily, and not at the scale our waste needs.

I like upcycling. A bag stitched from old chips packets or a park bench made of mixed plastic is a lovely thing to see. But I make plastic packaging for a living, and I think buyers deserve a straight answer. Upcycling is a good idea that gets far more credit than it has earned.

What is upcycling, really?

Upcycling means turning waste into something worth more than it was. Recycling, in the strict sense, means turning it back into the same kind of material. Downcycling means turning it into something of lower value that usually cannot be recycled again.

The trouble is that much of what is sold as upcycling is really downcycling.

1. A PET bottle becomes polyester fibre for a T-shirt. That keeps the bottle out of a drain for a while. But when the T-shirt is worn out, it is very rarely recycled again. The material has taken one last step before landfill.
2. Mixed plastic waste becomes plastic lumber, tiles or benches. These use plastic that nobody else will buy, which is good. When the bench breaks, though, nobody can recycle it.
3. Waste plastic goes into bitumen roads. India has done this for years, and the Indian Roads Congress published guidelines for it back in 2013. It uses low-value plastic well. It is still a final use, not a loop.

I am not saying these are bad. Each one is better than a burning dump.

But each one ends the life of the plastic, and we should call it what it is.

Why can't upcycling solve the plastic problem?

Three reasons.

The first one is enough on its own.

1. Scale. The Central Pollution Control Board's annual report for 2020-21 estimated India's plastic waste at about 41 lakh tonnes a year. A craft unit that turns wrappers into bags works in kilos. Even a large plastic lumber plant handles a tiny share of those lakhs of tonnes.
2. Quality. Mixed, dirty plastic makes weak products. You cannot make a food container or a strong film from it. So upcycled plastic stays in low-strength uses like garden furniture and fencing.
3. Collection. Upcycling needs a steady supply of clean, sorted waste. Most plastic waste reaches the collector wet, mixed with food or stuck to paper. Sorting and washing it costs more than the product is worth.

There is also an open question about what happens as these products wear. Researchers are still studying how much fine plastic comes off clothing fibres and road surfaces over time. I would not claim either way until the evidence is clear.

What actually works better?

The boring answers, honestly.

They are less photogenic than an upcycled bench, but they move far more plastic.

1. Make less waste in the first place. On our own plant, our plant head cut production scrap through small daily changes, a little improvement every day. Scrap that is never made needs no upcycling.
2. Use thinner film that still holds. Better polymers make this possible. At JPPL, downgauging is one of our three levers, along with better polymers and replacing plastic with paper where it works.
3. Keep materials clean and separate, so normal recycling can take them. A clean bale of single-material film is worth money. The same film mixed with paper and food is worth nothing.
4. Use recycled material in products that suit it. We make recycled plastic liners for industrial goods. That is recycling, not upcycling, and it is the kind that can repeat.

What can a small business do with its plastic waste?

You do not need a machine or a project.

Start with sorting. It is the advice I would give any warehouse that buys film from us.

1. Keep clean stretch film, carton liners and plastic wrapping separate from everything else. These are LDPE, and recyclers want them when they are clean and dry.
2. Keep cardboard separate too. Cartons and paper sell to the kabadiwala on their own, and plastic stuck to them lowers what you get.
3. Do not put plastic tape on cartons you want recycled, if you can avoid it. Kraft paper tape lets the whole carton go into paper recycling.
4. Reuse before you recycle. Inbound cartons and void fill can often go out again. Our post on reuse versus recycling covers which packaging can be reused safely.
5. Choose packaging that is easy to recycle when you next reorder. A pack of one material beats any upcycling scheme. Our guide to plastic types 1 to 7 shows which ones recycle well in India.

Where does paper fit?

For cushioning and void fill, paper now does the job that plastic bubble wrap and thermocol did. Honeycomb paper and fanfold void fill paper go straight into normal paper recycling after use, with no special scheme needed.

We sell both, so here is one limit of paper, to be fair. It does not like water, and it is not the answer for very heavy or wet goods. There, a well-made plastic pack that gets recycled properly is still the better choice.

So yes, upcycle what you can, and enjoy it. Just do the sorting first, because that is where the real kilos are.

• Share this post: