Plastics: Plenty Of Potential For Recycling

Recycling of plastics will continue to rise in the years to come, as there is strong demand for recyclate for both environmental and economic reasons.

Technologically, plastics recycling is not a problem at all today. In-house recycling has now become established right across industry. For plastics processors who work with pure-grade raw materials, the waste-free factory has become commonplace. And for post-consumer wastes, there are increasingly mature reutilisation strategies, enabling the regranulate produced with them to substitute virgin material without problem.

According to Plastics Europe, the association of plastics producers, plastics consumption in the European industry as a whole came to 47.8 million tonnes, with about half, amounting to 25.8 million tonnes, being collected after use. Plastics Europe investigated the collection rates in the 28 EU states plus Norway and Switzerland and found that there is still strong variation.

Although a ban on the landfilling of plastics residuals is meanwhile been announced in nine countries, the proportion going to landfill in the other countries is still very high at as much as 70 per cent. Overall, of the total collected residuals in Europe, about two thirds are now reutilised, while 30.8 per cent are landfilled. Of the plastics residuals that are reutilised, about half – 7.7 million tonnes – is recycled and the rest is incinerated to generate energy.

The main fractions are Polyolefins

With about 9.5 million tonnes of PP, 8 million tonnes of PE-LD and PELLD and 6 million tonnes of PE-HD and PE-MD, polylefins are by quantity the plastics most used in Europe, collectively accounting for about half of overall consumption. If these are pure grade residues, they can be efficiently processed, so there are numerous recycling businesses devoted to polylefin recycling.