Abstract
Towards circular economy and carbon neutrality, the low-valued recyclable packaging in residual municipal solid waste (rMSW) should be transformed from incineration to recycling and non-recyclables should be reduced. This study confirmed that small amount of packaging plastic recycling in rMSW could contribute to great carbon sink. We firstly investigated high-resolution rMSW composition inventory including the used product types and polymers. Then the environmental performance of low-valued recyclables recycling and non-recyclables reduction was accurately assessed. Lastly, for contaminated plastic packaging, the trade-offs between cleaning resource consumption and recovery rate were quantified. Although recyclable plastic and Al-PE-Paper packaging only accounted for 7.7% and 2.0% in rMSW, compared with incineration, recycling low-valued recyclables and further restricting non-recyclables decreased greenhouse gas from +153.8 to -112.7 and -196.2 CO2-eq/t rMSW, respectively. This study revealed the significance of packaging waste recycling and indicated the path for recycling-oriented waste management in the further.
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