Perspectives of Material Flow Analysis in Plastic Waste Management

چکیده مقاله

One of the most important reasons for environmental pollution, especially the atmosphere is due to plastic materials in waste management systems. To decrease the burden of pollution, obtaining detailed knowledge about waste management through the recycling process is so essential. Plastic that is recycled comes from a variety of different sources including packaging plastic, multi-material multilayer plastic packaging, MMPP), electrical and electronic equipment (EED), plastic packaging, biomass, building and construction, automotive, agriculture, household items, furniture, leisure, and others. Depending on different sources of plastic, various release pathways can be considered. For determining the characteristics of different flows, material flow analysis MFA) is a suitable tool which can be used. In general, the different types of MFA as an assessment tool for waste management studies can be used to analyze different aspects of the recycling process. The results of recent research for providing better ways to decrease the pollution release of plastic using MFA were mentioned in this review paper. So, the various release pathways for different plastic flows were assessed in different projects. The different strategies are assessed through MFA to decrease the amount of plastic pollution in the environment, especially in the circular economy. It is so necessary to obtain much smaller environmental pollution than previously assumed in simpler release estimates. © 2024 WILEY-VCH GmbH.