Economic analysis of the circular economy based on waste plastic pyrolysis oil: a case of the university campus
Hayoung Park,
Kayoung Kim,
Mirae Yu,
Zhihao Yun and
Sanghun Lee ()
Additional contact information
Hayoung Park: Ewha Womans University
Kayoung Kim: Ewha Womans University
Mirae Yu: Ewha Womans University
Zhihao Yun: Ewha Womans University
Sanghun Lee: Ewha Womans University
Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, 2024, vol. 26, issue 3, No 31, 6293-6313
Abstract:
Abstract Recently, the concept of a circular economy for carbon neutrality is emerging. In particular, waste plastics are one of the key wastes, and efforts are being made to recycle them as energy rather than dispose of them. Accordingly, the technology of producing and utilizing pyrolysis oil from waste plastics attracts attention. As it is an early stage of technology development, however, there are not many demonstrations and papers that analyze the technology broadly. The goal of this study is to propose building a circular economy on a university campus through waste plastic pyrolysis oil technology. To show its feasibility, waste plastic pyrolysis oil technology is analyzed comprehensively from economic, environmental, and policy perspectives using the scenario analysis technique on the university campus level. A methodology of the scenario analysis technique enables predicting the uncertainties. Since plastic pyrolysis oil technologies and carbon neutrality are accompanied by many uncertainties, this technique is expected to be an appropriate methodology for this study. First, the amount of pyrolysis oil production from waste plastics from the campus is estimated. Then, the cost and carbon emissions from waste plastics are estimated if the pyrolysis oil technology is used instead of the traditional waste disposal process. As a result, the total economic profits of up to 425,484,022 won/year (354,570.01 $/year) are expected when a circular economy is built using waste plastic pyrolysis oil. In addition, it is also confirmed that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be reduced by up to 840,891 kgCO2eq/year. The waste plastic pyrolysis oil satisfies Korea’s gas pollutant standards and is consistent with the GHG reduction policy. It can be concluded that building a circular economy at the university campus level using waste plastic pyrolysis oil technology is suitable from economic, environmental, and policy perspectives.
Keywords: Waste plastic pyrolysis oil; Plastic recycling; Circular economy; Carbon credits; Scenario analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10668-023-02963-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:endesu:v:26:y:2024:i:3:d:10.1007_s10668-023-02963-1
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10668
DOI: 10.1007/s10668-023-02963-1
Access Statistics for this article
Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development is currently edited by Luc Hens
More articles in Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().