Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory calculated the energy value of landfilledin 2019 was enough to supply 5% of the power used by the country's transportation sector, or 5.5% by the industrial sector.
"For us to tackle plastic waste pollution, we really need to understand better where those resources are," said Anelia Milbrandt, a senior research analyst at NREL and co-author of a new paper,"Quantification and evaluation of plastic waste in the United States," published in the journal."We would like to bring awareness to communities about the potential for these materials.
By identifying areas with large quantities of plastic waste, the scientists are hoping to highlight the economic opportunities that could arise by recovering their value through different processes. Only about 5% of the waste plastic in the United States was recycled in 2019, while 86% was left in landfills. The rest was burned to generate electricity.