Packaging and the environment — Processes for chemical recovery

ISO 16218:2013 covers used packaging, although the processes described are not specific for used packaging and can be used for recovery of other materials of same type. Processes for chemical recovery of used packaging are applicable for plastic packaging or biomass-based packaging, which might be interpreted in two different ways:

processes to recover valuable chemical substances by chemical treatment of used packaging, for example, to recover monomers of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) by hydrolysis, glycolysis or methanolysis, to recover oil by catalytic reaction or pyrolysis, to recover valuable gases such as hydrogen by gasification, to recover coke, oil and gasses by cokefaction;
processes to directly substitute used packaging for natural resources without chemical pretreatment, for example, flakes of used plastic packaging may use in blast furnace in the place of coke as a reducing agent.