Durch Konsument:innen beeinflusste Qualitäten von Mehrkomponenten- Leichtverpackungen im Siedlungsabfall

Abstract

Achieving the recycling targets of municipal solid waste and particularly light weight packaging waste, like plastic and composite packagings, set in the EU Circular Economy Package, requires comprehensive measures of all parties involved, so packaging producers, consumers as well as waste processors. For that it is necessary not only to enhance the separate collection of light-weight packaging waste, but also to provide material with an appropriate quality for recycling, regarding share of unwanted materials, moisture and dirt content or the recyclability of the pack-aging itself. Therefore it is essential to produce recyclable packagings, that can be separated easily, if necessary, before disposal and also to motivate consumers to do so. Hence, the reali-zation of an efficient design for recycling is not only a technical issue but also communicative challenging. As a first step towards an evaluation of this issue, the present work investigated, the quality of theoretically dismantable and therefore good recyclable multi-component lightweight packagings (MC-LWP), consisting of a thin walled plastic cup with a cardboard wrap and an aluminum foil, in municipal solid waste. Results should allow conclusions regarding consumers behaviour when disposing of such packagings. Data for the present assessment has been collected in the course of a large-scale trial for the separate collection of light weight packagings, that was conducted in a densely populated residential area in an Austrian city. Sampling of the residual waste and the separate collected lightweight packaging waste was performed at three different points in time (05/21, 10/21, 04/22). Results show, that MC-LWP found in residual waste consist of about 35% plastic, 34% cardboard and 2% aluminum on average, whereas the respective packagings found in the separate collec-tion consist of about 65% plastic, only 21% cardboard and 1% aluminum on average. The mois-ture and dirt content of the MC-LWP in the residual waste is with about 29% more than two times higher than the moisture and dirt content of the MC-LWP in the separate collection with only about 13% moisture and dirt content. Furthermore results show, that only an average of 2% of the MC-LWP found in the residual waste and 56% of the MC-LWP found in the separate collection for lightweight packaging waste has been dismantled before disposal. It seems as if packagings con-sisting of a combination of different materials like the MC-LWP impede a clear assignment to the respective collection system by the consumers, and therefore are challenging for the separate collection system. As a consequence a large part of the raw materials used are lost for a further mechanical recycling. The real dismantling behavior should be considered, when eco modulation of packagings is implemented to provide financial incentives for good recyclable packaging solu-tions. Also instructions for disposal could be communicated more emphatically to provide support for the consumers.