03/07/2022
By Jacqueline White

Join Plastics Engineering Assistant Professor Wan-Ting (Grace) Chen for an upcoming webinar, "Plastic Waste Valorization for a Circular Economy: Advanced Recycling 101," on Thursday, March 10 at 8 a.m. ET (6:30 p.m. IST).

This webinar is offered by UMass Lowell in technical partnership with Plastindia International University.

Overview:
Plastics are persistent in the environment and degrade slowly, over a century, releasing fragments, microplastics, and toxic chemicals into our lands, rivers, and oceans. More than eight billion tons of plastic waste has accumulated worldwide over the past 50 years. The majority (80%) of the waste goes directly into landfills and 3% ends up in the oceans. At the current rate, we will end up having more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050. Single-use packaging, textile, and composite plastic such as e-waste are attributed to more than 50% of the plastic waste. Long term sustainable solutions should therefore be aimed at developing affordable and competitive plastic recycling technologies for the society, to encourage the use of environment-friendly products, and to educate the young generations about the sustainable technology.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Overview of the challenges of conventional plastic recycling
  • State-of-the-art of the emerging advanced recycling methods including pyrolysis, chemolysis, hydrothermal processes and selective solvent extraction/dissolution
  • Case studies of using advanced recycling to reuse the end-of-life waste.

Register online.