Patents to tackle plastic waste on the rise

As mountains of the used stuff continue to pile up around the world, people are looking for new ways to reduce, reuse and recycle some of it. Just getting rid of even a tiny amount of it will be a gargantuan job, though, especially with the popularity of hard-to-recycle products and single-use plastic.

In 2019, nearly 370 million tons of plastic were produced globally, according to the trade association PlasticsEurope. Most of it was synthesised from oil or natural gas. That’s just another reason why many inventors are now tackling the issue in a multitude of ways like making things easier to recycle or even looking for alternatives to conventional plastics altogether. Technology is key.

Currently, the US and Europe are tied for the number of recycling-related and bioplastic technology patents, according to a new study released Tuesday by the European Patent Office (EPO). Combined they account for 60% of global patents between 2010 and 2019 to make the plastic industry more circular.

This may seem like old data, but since patent applications are often filed years before products or processes actually appear for consumers, such information can be a good indicator of things to come. And what the EPO sees is growing innovation in recycling and alternative plastics. EPO President Antonio Campinos shares this enthusiasm for a brighter future with less plastic pollution without outright bans. “The good news is that innovation can help us to address this challenge by enabling the transition to a fully circular model,” he said in a press release accompanying his agency’s report.

In Europe in the past decade, Germany was most active in both plastic recycling and bioplastic technology patents, followed by the UK, the Netherlands and Italy. Looking closer, the authors of the EPO report see that absolute numbers are not everything, though. “Within Europe, France, the UK, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium stand out for their specialisation in both plastic recycling and bioplastic technologies. Although it posted the highest share of IPFs [international patent families] due to its larger economy, Germany lacked specialisation in these fields,” noted the report. IPF is an industry term and means a single invention that has been filed at several patent offices, making it more likely to be something truly innovative and worthwhile to count on. Outside of Europe and the US, Japan brought in about 18% of these patents, while Korea and China are both far behind with only about 5% each.

Plain recycling is no longer plain

At its most fundamental level, the number of patents worldwide dealing with improving basic mechanical recycling has gone up for years. Indeed, it is still the simplest and most common way to turn plastic waste into something new. Since the early 1990s, the number of patents to make things easier to recycle has also increased greatly to make that job easier. But in the last decade, chemical and biological recycling methods have taken over patent activity. They now account for twice as many patents as traditional mechanical recycling methods. These chemical methods work by breaking the plastic into its chemical elements, which can then be reused.

On the downside, these methods are often more energy-intensive. Another option, though less explored, is biological recycling. As the name suggests, this method uses living organisms to turn plastic into compost. The report acknowledges Europe’s excellence in fundamental research in chemical and biological recycling but complained about a lack of entrepreneurial spirit to get these new ideas to the market.