Plastics in circular economy: a sustainable progression

Extensive usage of plastics causes environmental deterioration, global warming and health imperilments, costing the economy around $139 billion annually. Conversely, from childcare products to coffins manufactured with plastics, they have become an integral part of our life. At this situation, banning the use of plastics is not sustainable. Therefore, it is necessary to espouse circular economy (CE) in plastic sector. Meaning, preventing waste by manufacturing products that are efficiently reusable, recyclable or recoverable and gradually replacing non-degradable with degradable plastics. This chapter focuses on the concept of CE in plastic industries, recycling and recovering methods of plastics, government frameworks and challenges faced for implementation of circularity. From the case studies reported in this work, though there are successful execution of circularity in few scenarios, it can be noted that the implementation of CE is still at infant stages, as large proportion of companies have yet not committed 100% circularity until 2025. This work also identifies that more advancements in research and technologies, more tax benefits and funding allocation, need for collaborative business models, boosting and advertising the demand for recovered products and increased awareness on social responsibility of consumers and manufacturers are still necessary for achieving efficient circularity of plastics.