• Resources Recycling
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.15-26
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• 2020

In recent years, there is an increasing interest in environmental friendly treatment of waste-plastics in terms of the generation of microplastics. Accordingly, the recycling of waste-plastics is very important because it provides advantages of volume reduction, mitigation of carbon dioxide emission, and reproduction of value-added products. In particular, in order to recycle the eco-friendly waste-plastics, it is necessary to use a physical separation methods, and among them, flotation separation, which can separate material (i.e., polymer component) in waste-plastics is well known as a very effective separation method in terms of material recycle. Therefore, in this review, the research trend of flotation separation for effective separation of mixture waste-plastics was investigated. In addition, through the reported research results, approaches to use as new functional materials from polymers, which are raw materials for waste-plastics, are summarized.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.592-596
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• 2001

A TACUB jig was applied to separate waste plastics [polystyrene (PS), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), and polyethylene terephthalate (PET)] used in copy machine. The effect of water pulsation including amplitude and frequency on the separation performance was investigated for the feeds containing two or three plastics. Good results are obtained under suitable conditions. Grades of 99.8% PS,99.3% ABS, and 98.6% PET are recovered as the products in the upper, middle and bottom layers respectively. Based on these results, a processing plant fer recycling of plastics from scrapped copy machines is now under construction.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.3-8
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• 2019

Recently, plastic waste in Korea has been recognized as a critical issue due to an increase in massive production of plastics, difficulty in disposal of waste plastics, and public recognition of toxicity in micro-plastics, etc. To resolve those problems, the regulation to reduce plastics consumption may be primarily considered but, in this case, clarification should be made on the rationales and the action plans in the regulation for individual waste plastic items. Another problem is the small capital sizes of domestic recycling companies, which leads to poor R&D capacity, low recycling yields and thus lowering values of recycling items. This adversely affects consumers' perception. The R&D toward recycling technical progress should take into account the environmental friendliness and recyclability from the early product design stages. Certainly, this should be supported in governmental policy and public action plans. In addition, by referring to advanced policies of i.e. European Union, the recycling industry should be recognized as an opportunity toward new investment & employment. If necessary, the regulation of plastic consumption through a formal evaluation process such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) will also be helpful. The values of recycled plastics should be improved through the identification and elimination of harmful chemical substances potentially contained in the products.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.201-206
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• 1992

Annual amount of plastics waste including rubber and leather waste, generated in 1990 was about 2,600,000 tons. Amount of generation of plastics waste has rapidly increased, but fractions of recycling and incineration have gradually decreased. Recently, two-stage incinerator, consisting of gasifier and gas combustor, draws much attention in Korea. Plastics are gasified in the starved air condition in the gasifier and produced gas is fired in the combustor. Combustion of produced gas is much easier than that of solid plastics, and produces a little pollutants. Standardzation of technology and process automation are still needed, but this incineration technology is in the commercial stage. Next topic concerned with this two-stage incineration will be how to treat complex plastics waste including toxic substances generated from automobiles and household appliances. Pyrolysis, realized by indirect heating in inert atmosphere, can provide high-quality products with minimum emissions. Many plastics are easily decomposed into oil in pyrolysis conditions, which can be utilized as chemical feedstocks, or gasoline or kerosene depending on feed materials and operating conditions. This has been demonstrated in several pilot-scale tests performed in Japan, Germany, etc. Easy removal of HCl from PVC is one of the most decisive merits of pyrolysis process. But in general, further efforts should be made for the process to obtain marketability. The future of pyrolysis process depends on public concern about environmental problems and oil prices.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.74-84
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• 2024

Background: Despite many environmental problems, plastic waste emissions have been a significant surge during last few decades in the Republic of Korea. Furthermore, the emergence of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has lead to an increased use and disposal of plastic waste worldwide. This paper tried to present summarized data related to the production and disposal of plastics especially before and after the COVID-19 pandemic with environmental impacts of plastics. Also, review of plastic waste reduction policies and feasible policies to promote an act for a safe, sustainable environment are presented. Results: Plastics cause many environmental problems due to their non-degrading properties and have a huge direct and indirect impact on Ecosystems and Public Health. Microplastics need a lot of attention because their environmental effects are not yet fully identified. Despite plastic's significant impact on climate change, the impact is not yet widely known to the public. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of plastic has surged and recycling has decreased due to the increase in delivery food and online shopping. Korea is introducing very active plastic and waste management policies, but it is necessary to implement more active policies by referring to the cases of other countries. Conclusions: In this article, we have scrutinized the evolution of plastic waste generation in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and delved into policy frameworks adopted by other nations, which South Korea can draw valuable lessons from. The formidable challenges posed by plastic waste, the remarkable shifts witnessed during the COVID-19 era, and the multifaceted response strategies elucidated in this paper all play a pivotal role in steering South Korea toward a sustainable future.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.46-54
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• 2013

The produced quantity of waste plastics including waste vinyls was assumed as about 5 million tons per year. The quantity of waste vinyls produced from the waste recycling center among total quantity of waste plastics was estimated as about 1 million tons per year. Most of waste vinyls produced from the waste recycling center were recycled as refuse plastic fuel(RPF) or recycled feedstock material. In this study, the medium material using waste vinyls was made by the melting process of heat medium heating and the tensile strength was analyzed for checking the usable possibility of recycled waste vinyl material by comparing with the existent product. In order to use the medium material for producing the recycled product, it can be considered that the tensile strength of medium material is more than 100 $kgf/cm^2$.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.176-181
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• 2008

This paper was studied the possibility on the recycling of the scrap used as the food packaging materials, PP/EVOH/PP multilayer. Recycling study was investigated into thermal and mechanical properties of samples which were mixed PP/EVOH waste plastics scrap with two kinds of compatibilizers. Melt behaviors as thermal property and tensile strength, % strain at break point, and tensile modulus as mechanical properties were investigated into kinds of and the weight ratio of compatibilizers. Mixed PP/EVOH waste plastics shows compatibity when Minanto-s and GMS as compatibilizers are mixed 0.5wt.% over.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.3-12
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• 2010

Recently, the waste energy utilization has become the main interest in energy industries, due to high oil prices, the low carbon, green growth policy and the RPS (Renewable Portfolio Standards) of our government. Therefore, energy guzzling companies such as district heating companies, textile industries are replacing energy to RDP/RPF. Especially, a lot of big companies are carrying out survey to commercialize the waste plastics pyrolysis technologies developed in Korea. In this paper, status of the pyrolysis technology of Korea were reviewed overall including basis of technology, waste plastics resources, research & development, and commercialization.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.416-422
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• 2016

Lots of plastics are widely used in a variety of industrial field. And the amount of plastic waste is massively produced. In the study of waste recycling, it is emerged as an important issue to prevent the waste of potentially useful resource materials as well as to reduce ecological damage. So, the recycling of plastic waste has been currently paid attention to from the view point of reuse. Existing automatic sorting system consist of near infrared ray (NIR) sensors to classify the types of plastics. But the classification of black plastics still remains a challenge. Black plastics which contains carbon black are not almost classified by NIR because of the characteristic of the light absorption of black plastics. This study is focused on handling how to identify black plastics instead of NIR. Raman spectroscopy is used to get qualitative as well as quantitative analysis of black plastics. In order to improve the performance of identification, Support Vector Machine(SVM) classifier and Principal Component Analysis(PCA) are exploited to more preferably classify some kinds of the black plastics, and to analyze the characteristic of each data.

• Proceedings of the Polymer Society of Korea Conference
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.214-214
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• 2006

The huge amounts of wastes were produced nowadays. Among the solid waste stream, the waste plastic portion is about 20 % in weight, over 50 % in volume. But the most of waste plastics were incinerated or land filled. Only a bit of waste plastics were recycled and reused. On the view point of current energy crisis, this will be an extravagance of beneficial resource. So we should consider the waste plastics as a beneficial raw material. Also need to develop the field of reusing and recycling of post-consumed plastic. In this context, present paper describes the methodology for enhancing or improving the specific properties by way of using inorganic filler waste. Also develop the product from these post-consumed plastic.