Plastics circularity is a hot button issue in the world today as the energy industry works to curtail plastic waste and create a sustainable future for all. Unsurprisingly, the University of Houston hosted a timely and insightful conversation revolving around plastics, chemicals and circularity recently. After all, Houston is home to the world’s largest concentration of plastics manufacturing facilities.
Kicking off UH Energy’s 2023-2024 Critical Issues in Energy Symposium Series, this conversation took center stage as industry, academia and law took aim at laying out a roadmap toward a circular materials economy during “Plastics, Chemicals and Circularity: What’s Next?”
“Plastics have their virtues, but their challenges as well,” said Tracy Hester, associate instructional professor and co-director of the Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Center at the UH Law Center, who moderated the discussion at the symposium. “They’re durable, they’re cheap and they persist. They have an enormous array of uses depending on the flexibility of the products made from them, but their durability and inertness has led to a situation where we see challenges on how to manage, reuse and recycle accumulated plastic material.”
The panel, which included Aura Cuellar, executive vice president of growth and strategic projects at LanzaTech; Jill Martin, global sustainability fellow at Dow; and Scott Pasternak, associate and senior project manager at Burns & McDonnell, focused on several aspects of potential solutions for circularity, value chain considerations, emissions, investments, consumer demand and more.
The number one priority in establishing a circular economy revolves around establishing proper infrastructure and processes to avoid an accumulation of plastic waste, according to Pasternak. He also provided a deep dive into the state of recycling and highlighted related opportunities and roadblocks in Texas.
“We have to be able to answer the question of how to recycle things the right way,” Pasternak said, alluding to a lack of proper waste infrastructure andinefficient plastics recycling technologies. “Knowing what to put in which bin sounds very simplistic, but in reality, proves to be very difficult. So much of recycling comes down to effective decision making.”
Martin concurred, citing the need for value chain engagement, consumer educations, access to facilities and the need for technologies, among other aspects to improve America’s waste management efficiency. Martin discussed roadblocks as well as public policy implications.
A key aspect is establishing and upholding material neutrality, Martin said.
“Public policy will be a critical enabler of successfully establishing a circular economy. Smart policies, as well as partnerships, can help drive innovation and accelerate adoption, education and expansion of the use of waste as a next-generation feedstock for the chemical industry,” she said. “Policy is going to be critical as we need consistency in the way we look at data and materials… we want to make sure that all of the ways we measure and apply policy are consistent across all materials so that we’re choosing the right materials to use for packaging and other items.”
Cuellar followed with an examination of how new products will define the materials circularity model going forward. From there, the panel discussed the importance of accounting for environmental concerns in addressing the issues industry faces in realizing a circular economy.
“We have to rethink carbon, we have to rethink refineries, we have to rethink everything. Of course, clean energy is a key factor,” Cuellar said. “One of the elements that’s really important is how to deploy the needed technology at scale. Being able to develop technology that can be deployed to any and all communities, whether it’s the major industrial entity or a place where they take their garbage and burn it… it’s an essential strategic element to consider.”
Joe Powell, founding executive director of the UH Energy Transition Institute, said the symposium provided a multifaceted look at the complexities of circularity roadblocks and is right in line with the ETI’s latest student competition that challenges students to provide future solutions.
“It was a spectacular event with strong audience participation, that framed the difficulty of the challenge including how little we recycle today, how the major chemical producers are addressing the problem, and the level of personal engagement from the scientists and engineers working the problem,” Powell said. “It also provided the hope for the future in technologies which can utilize CO2 and make the kinds chemical products and sustainable fuels we need for the future. The Energy Transition Institute is one of the few initiatives that look for simultaneous solutions in the energy transition and plastics circularity space. The two problems must be optimized together.”