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Study on the prediction of economic efficiency for a tertiary recycling plant for waste plastics by using the environmental Kuznets’ curve model
Cheng-Jung Chien
Wu-Jang Huang
Journal of Infrastructure Policy and Development 2024, 8(12); https://doi.org/10.24294/jipd.v8i12.6638
Submitted:24 May 2024
Accepted:23 Oct 2024
Published:05 Nov 2024
Abstract

Plastic products are items that we use every day around us, and their replacement speed are very fast, so that to recycle waste plastic has become the focus of environmental problems. This study has proposed an optimized circular design for the recycle plant of waste plastic, therefore, and our proposed strategy is to build a new tertiary recycling plant to reduce the total generation amount of the derived solid plastic waste from ordinary and secondary recycling plants and the semi-finished products from secondary recycling plant. Results obtained from a real recycle plant has showed that to recycle the tertiary waste plastic in a tertiary recycling plant, the finished products produced from a secondary recycling plant accounts about 27% of ordinary waste plastic, and the semi-finished products that mainly is scrap hardware accounts about 1% of ordinary waste plastic. Other derived solid plastic waste accounts for 6% of ordinary plastic waste. Therefore, if the ordinary, secondary and tertiary recycle plant can be set all-in-one, it can reduce the total generation amount of derived solid plastic waste from 34% to 6%, without and with a tertiary recycling plant, respectively. It can also increase the operating income of the secondary recycle plant and the investment willingness of the new tertiary recycle plant.

References
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Huang, W.-J. (2021). Formation Mechanism of the Perfect Inverted V-Shape CO2 Emission Amount Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) the Country Level: Taking Taiwan as an Example. Journal of Economics, Management and Trade, 27, pp. 1–6
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Wu-Jang Huang. (2021). Formation Mechanism of the Perfect Inverted V-Shape CO2 Emission Amount Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) the Country Level: Taking Taiwan as an Example, 2021. Journal of Economics, Management and Trade, 27, pp. 1–6
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