Renewable Carbon for Plastics: Quo Vadis?

Plastics are exceptional versatile materials. This versatility has led to the mass production of a wide variety of plastics for different needs during the last about 70 years. Hence, plastics are ubiquitous; life without plastics is hardly feasible. Unfortunately, plastics are also visible at places where it was not intended, for example, as waste in oceans, lakes, and rivers, in soils and sediments. The accumulation of plastic waste - also in landfills - is a massive problem: We increasingly pollute the world! Additionally, climate change discussions, which seek for measures to reduce CO2 emissions and hence challenge the use of fossil carbon, add further pressure on the plastic-producing industry. The reputation of plastics in society is declining, so technologies solving the problems are urgently needed. That is what this chapter is about. After a brief overview of the main plastics and the end-of-life (EOL) dilemma, we will introduce recycling technologies currently piloted to handle plastic waste. Additionally, biomass and CO2 usage as well as cofeeding approaches (e.g., mass balance approach) are discussed, all on a brief level, as feedstocks for plastic production. It is time to create an economy fueled by renewable carbon, which implies using all carbon sources that avoid or substitute the use of any additional fossil carbon, rather than continuing the linear economic model.