- Email: [email protected]
Waste reclaim: turning recycling into economic reality
II
Waste reclaim: turning recycling into economic reality Consistent supply is vital to waste reclaim, writes Alan Smith, who looks at some existing schemes for recycling plastics material and explains how recycling can make economic sense. Schemes for recycling plastics material are likely to be economically successful only if a consistent and reliable supply of what might be called their 'raw material', that is scrap of a particular description, can be guaranteed. A considerable investment in suitable reclamation plant is involved and the economics do not depend solely upon the resale value of the reclaimed material but the availability of a constant intake of scrap to ensure continuous high output
from the machinery and equipment employed. If the intake of material should periodically fall short, for seasonal or other reasons, the plant cannot be operated as economically as when a high consistent output can be maintained. Bearing in mind that recydate normally has to compete in price against the type of material concerned in its virgin form, there is little margin to accommodate under utilization ofrecla-
Plastics Additives & Compounding March 2001
18
mation plant once collection and other costs incurred in handling the intake of raw material are taken into account. Reclaimed material may be reprocessed as 100 percent recyclate for some low specification articles, but most is blended with virgin material in various proportions for the manufacture of high class products. A scheme operated by Bayer, manufacturer of Makrolon optical grade polycarbonate for the manufacture of Compact Discs,
Waste DVDs and other such media, illustrates the essential features for a 'closed loop' reclamation system meaning, in this context, one dedicated to a single type of material and class of product. This is as distinct from dealing with a number of materials in one class, for example polyolefins, and a legion of different end products made from them. Only Bayer and three other global companies supply the optical PC market and their material specifications are virtually identical. But, to offset this helpful degree of standardization, optical discs are composite products comprising not only PC but also aluminium, a lacquer coating and printing ink. Bayer has taken back rejects from replicatots, as moulders of CDs are known, since 1994. Due to the highly sophisticated nature of the product, reject rates by replicators are approximately 2-3 per cent of output. This is fairly high compared with
other departments of the plastics processing industry, although a considerable improvement upon the situation of only a few years ago when five per cent or even more was considered acceptable. Average amount of PC scrap produced by a CD moulding machine could be about 1-2 tonnes a year and may in total be costing UK replicators, for example, around £1 million. In addition to material collected from replicators, Bayer also receives scrap from companies that specialize in the destruction of C D - R O M discs for reasons concerning copyright and data protection. Many software suppliers provide customers with updated discs in exchange for old and these are also returned to the company. There is likely to be a growth in the disposal of CD-ROMs by banks, insurance companies and other institutions whose discs become out of date within as little as
reclaim
a week. This scrap falls into the category of P C W (Post Consumer Waste), which is less easy to control than material from replicators because there are many users each disposing of relatively few discs at a time. Recovery will therefore entail setting up a system to collect small amounts from a large number of disposers. Medium sized partner companies have been selected by Bayer to make possible the supply of material to the recycling plant. These partners, operating in German> UK and The Netherlands work closely with Bayer and undertake the collection and transport of scrap, amalgamating smaller quantities and separating the discs from their packaging. Similar schemes exist in North America and the Far East. Unfortunately, reclamation costs are inflated by suppliers who, although they are obliged to provide used and reject discs free of contamination, in fact often
The Silvet Tile" Silvct ® Family of" unique metallic pigm, compounders and processors as well as mastm metallic effects to enhance their product va by compounding, extrusion, injection or bh Silvet ® features
Bright, sttmning metallic lustre Brightest sparkle Glitter effects Metallescent effects Silvet ® benefits
Granular product form Easy metering and dispersion Widest polymer compatibility Non-dusting Toy regulation quality Food contact grades available Twice recipients of the Queens Award ~r Export Achievement, Silberline Ltd was the first producer of metallic pigments in the world to achieve IS() 9000 accreditation. Since then, Investors in People (I.I.E) and ISO 14001 accreditations have been gained, highlighting our strong commitments to quality innovation
and
environment.
~,¢*"-%~ a~.,~_~ IN~,'ESTORINPEOPI.I.:
~" t:,,\9~Ol/")' ~SOS/~//
/:~7~-~..~
,(::,14001):~/I\~ v 7' ~8087 /
RES No.010- USE THE FAST NEW ENQUIRY SERVICE @ www.addcomp.com PlasticsAdditives & Compounding A'lorch 2001
19
j
7¸¸¸¸¸ !~:ii~'~~ Waste
reclaim
i~! ¸:ii!~ii;: fail to abide by this. The diverse origin of the streams of material gives rise to contaminants such as drinks cans, cigarette ends, glass and wood that can be separated only manually, which is costly. Suppliers who grossly contravene their obligations have their collection containers returned. There are many technical solutions for decontaminating, but economic processing of large quantities of scrap is successful only if it is substantially homogenous. Bayer's partners carefully check incoming material. Discs are usually broken once or twice to thwart resale or shredded for security reasons. Coloured discs, as often used for games or music, are separated out as they would contaminate clear material and are reused for various dark coloured end products. Non metallized production scrap, including sprues, is also separated as it does not need to be put through the same treatment as metallized and lacquered waste. Hoffman & Voss, at Viersen, Germany, is responsible for decontaminating collected discs and grinding them down to produce a conveyable material with a particle size of about 5 mm and an assured standard of quality. Ferrous and non ferrous metallic contamination is removed from it. From Viersen the material is carried by road tanker for wet chemical processing at Bayer's Dormagen site. Silo handling has been introduced here to help reduce processing costs by increasing the volume of material streams, but in turn this has imposed higher quality control demands as batch sizes are greater. A loss of a batch because of a quality deficiency means a substantial financial loss. From the storage silo, the material is fed by an automated conveying system to a mixing vessel containing a dilute caustic soda solution to dissolve the aluminium and, in doing so, take off the layers of lacquer adhering to it. In the central and rim areas of the disc there is no aluminium and the lacquer adheres directly to the PC and cannot be removed by caustic. Other special additives are used for this and a mechanical rubbing action is induced to remove extremely fine remaining adhering particles. Emulsifiers ensure that stripped coating constituents are dispersed and cannot be
produ ioo { [
:l
I
[ Broken dis~
Groundto 3:5 mrn size
Regfind taken to Bayer in
Dorrrbgen i
Of ! a ~ r and metallizing I
l Reclaimed polycarbonate I used for various I applications
redeposited on the exposed surfaces. The solution is then centrifugally separated from the PC and what remains, after further washing and drying, is visually almost indistinguishable from virgin material. The solution is cleaned and returned to the process. The use of caustic, which is strongly alkaline, necessitates several washing operations to ensure the quality of subsequently compounded material. A short acid wash converts still adhering alkali residues into salt, making them readily soluble and removable. Recovery of aluminium is not worth while as only 100 kg can be reclaimed from 1,000 tonnes of discs. Other residues paint and ink particles and PC fines - are also not worth reclaiming and are taken to Bayer's environmentally friendly waste disposal facility.
Plastics Additives & Compounding March 2001
i !ii ¸77¸!
Recordable discs have a dye, as distinct from aluminium, coating but this is also removable by the caustic method, as are ultra violet light curing acrylic adhesives used to make DVDs (produced as two thin discs stuck together). These adhesives are similar in structure to protective lacquers. Work is in hand in respect of other types of adhesive to ensure that DVDs can be recycled on an industrial scale. The next step is to separate out the smaller particles. It is easier, during subsequent processes, to handle graded material with a limited rather than a wide particle size range. A number of metal separators are again used at this stage before the material is conveyed to a silo, subsequently to be compounded by extruders in the conventional manner. The reclaimed material may be blended with virgin PC or used in ABS alloys.
Waste
reclaim
PET b o t t l e s PET bottle recycling is another example of closed loop reclamation, in this instance dedicated to one material but a class of product of which there is a variety of shapes and sizes. Petcore is an association of European companies engaged in this field who all interchange technical data gained from their operating experience. Dr Bram Opschoor, the association's technical adviser, says that PET recycling has become an accepted industry practice. Nearly 300,000 tonnes was recovered in 2000 in Europe compared with 220,000 tonnes in 1999. In 1999, for the first time in 10 years, demand for PET outstripped supply capacity because of the material's increasing consumption in packaging, in which field PET is taking market share from glass and PVC. This growth strongly boosted demand for R-PET (recycled PET). Collection forecasts for reclaimable material are 500,000 tonnes in 2004 and 700,000 tonnes in 2008 but these amounts are not considered sufficient to meet market requirements. Prices of virgin PET are therefore likely to increase with prices for R-PET following these. The PET recycling industry will, it is considered, be able as a result of higher prices to make the necessary investments to meet demands for R-PET. According to the PCI Consulting Group, demand for R-PET in 2004 will be for 675,000 tonnes but only 500,000 tonnes will be available and the recycling industry will therefore not be able to meet it. The biggest problem is identified as the collection of used PET packaging, the percentage of which, out of the total tonnage of PET waste, will have to increase to provide sufficient for recycling. This percentage differs among various European countries and the less efficient will have to improve their reclamation rates. Under a new EU Packaging Directive, European governments must cooperate with PET bottle manufacturers and recyclers to develop efficient collection and recycling systems. Henk Hansler, Petcore director general, says: "This is a prerequisite if we are to meet the requirements laid down in the Directive and cost implications will have to be considered carefully and controlled tightly." The UK lags behind other EU countries in recycling plastics bottles. In 1999 a total of 11,300 tonnes of these were collected for recycling but represented less than 5 per cent of bottles used. This figure included an estimated 4,500 tonnes of PET bottles. By contrast, about 80 percent of PET bottles were collected in Sweden and Switzerland. Petcore states that globally about 17 per cent of PET bottle consumption is collected for recycling amounting to approximately 900,000 tonnes. About 219,000 tonnes of this, or 14 per cent of the total, was collected in Europe where Italy, France, Belgium and Switzerland together contributed 75 per cent of this amount.
E
0 C~
E
• Fulisl~trums~ndat~ of su~t • Cbsedl~irra~,,cecm, trol • ~ s o r co~m~dpr
Ci~a of ~er systems : •e M e e t s e ~ ~ Portable caWara~n red~aeter
0
-~
w 0
Q Uv """" ""'
The worlds most widely used accelerated weathering tester • AffordaldeUV basedtester • Lerp s e ~ ~ • Irredian~eand sprayavailable as options • Low operalingcost • Simpleto use and maintain
>rr" C1 Z
w w Z co
,,<
w "lW
¢J) I ,¢.,¢.O
6 z
Q-LAB Accelerated natural weathering
w r~
Florida and Arizona world recngaised benchmarks for acceleratednatural weathering
The symbol for Quality Laboratory Products Q-Panel Lab Products, EuropeanOfFice, ExpressTrading Estate, Q-PANEL ~l~. B~ 9TP,England LAB PRODUC1~ Tel: C44)01204 861616, Fax: (44) 01204 861617, E-mail: [email protected]:q-panel,com
Waste
reclaim
The main obstacle to collecting bottles for recycling in the UK is lack of funding to cover the cost of collection and sorting, activities generally performed by local authorities, but 41 per cent of these now include plastics bottle collection in their recycling programmes and more than 2.8 million households (! 1.4 per cent of the total) are served by kerbside collection of mixed recyclables. However, although post consumer bottle collection is expected to expand, a shortage of PET recycling capacity in the UK is expected within the next two years. A feature of R-PET, Bram Opschoor points out, is that it is possible during the recycling process to improve its performance over that of the original material. During the solid state condensation process, the molecular weight can be increased to a higher value, which is not possible with other plastics materials. This technique adds value to the product and is now common practice in the recycling industry. Arena, a member company of Petcore, has capacity for recycling 20,000 tonnes of PET a year and works according to ISO 9002 standard and Environmental Management System 14001. It operates two lines at Geleen, The Netherlands, for mechanical recycling of post consumer PET soft drink and water bottles and supplies PET flake for applications including single and multi layer bottles, APET sheet, filament and fibres and carton strapping. The patented process employed includes pre-washing bottles to remove labels before the containers are reground. Advantageously, any PVC bottles become opaque during this process and can be manually separated from PET. Intense cleaning of bottle material is achieved by various washing stages using individual water circuits at different temperatures with or without the addition of caustic or detergents. Erich Jeitler, sales manager, emphasizes the importance of achieving high yield and low waste rates and the desirability of careful material selection for labels and adhesives to remove 'expensive obstacles' to the recovery process. During recycling of bottles, labels should come away without bleeding or leaving traces of adhesive because remnants will reduce the quality of the final product. A list of preferred
adhesives has been compiled by Arena and is distributed by Petcore. The HybridUnPET process developed by RecyPET has been launched to produce FDA approved material from PET bottle scrap that can be mixed 50 per cent with virgin for new bottle production. Capacity at the plant that opened in Frauenfeld, Switzerland, last September is 13,000 tonnes a year. Eastman Chemicals' Optisys chemical recycling process enables R-PET to be produced to FDA approval standards irrespective of the colour of the original material or any barrier coating applied to it. Less energy is used than for the production of virgin PET. The process is based on techniques such as glycolysis, methanolysis and hydrolysis to break the material down into its basic components and remove unwanted contaminants. Smallbach Lubeca has developed a 'supercycle', an addition to its mechanical bottle to bottle recycling process, by which an increase in IV (Intrinsic Viscosity) of the material can be achieved. A supercycle plant has been in operation since 1998 and
PlasticsAdditives & Compounding March 2001
has an annual capacity of 6,300 tonnes. The company cooperated for several years with the Interbrew brewery organization in the design of a PET bottle with barrier coating for Stella Artois Dry, a beer with a new taste aimed at young drinkers launched in Belgium in April 2000. The bottle is the first of its type to be introduced by Interbrew and is intended for one-way use. It is aimed at a new segment of the market that did not previously buy beer and the company has stated that its attitude towards the returnable glass bottle system is unchanged. In Belgium 92 per cent of glass beer packaging is returned, a level not found elsewhere in the drinks industry. Recyclability and the type of barrier to apply to the bottle were considered from the outset and involved carrying out a series of tests with different processes. Some technologies produced bottles with good qualities for beer but were rejected because they could not be easily recycled. Assisted by Petcore, the company held a seminar in Belgium, which was probably the first time that a group of recyclers in Europe had been invited by a bottle manufacturer to discuss a new product. The outcome of the seminar was that threshold values were established for the development of a suitable bottle. This was test launched at concerts and discos and results confirmed its acceptability with the targeted consumer segment. It is notable that the conception of 'closed loop' in this instance began with the initial bottle concept and design rather than at the post consumer waste stage. This may set a precedent for other new products that will deliberately be specified for the compounding of recycled materials. In the meantime, the return level for glass bottles in Belgium may represent a target for PET bottle collection. Contacts: Bayer plc Tel: +44 1635 563522 Fax: +44 1635 563513 Petcor# Tel: +31 23 5425369 Fax +31 23 5425371 www.petcore, corn
Waste reclaim: turning recycling into economic reality Consistent supply is vital to waste reclaim, writes Alan Smith, who looks at some existing schemes for recycling plastics material and explains how recycling can make economic sense. Schemes for recycling plastics material are likely to be economically successful only if a consistent and reliable supply of what might be called their 'raw material', that is scrap of a particular description, can be guaranteed. A considerable investment in suitable reclamation plant is involved and the economics do not depend solely upon the resale value of the reclaimed material but the availability of a constant intake of scrap to ensure continuous high output
from the machinery and equipment employed. If the intake of material should periodically fall short, for seasonal or other reasons, the plant cannot be operated as economically as when a high consistent output can be maintained. Bearing in mind that recydate normally has to compete in price against the type of material concerned in its virgin form, there is little margin to accommodate under utilization ofrecla-
Plastics Additives & Compounding March 2001
18
mation plant once collection and other costs incurred in handling the intake of raw material are taken into account. Reclaimed material may be reprocessed as 100 percent recyclate for some low specification articles, but most is blended with virgin material in various proportions for the manufacture of high class products. A scheme operated by Bayer, manufacturer of Makrolon optical grade polycarbonate for the manufacture of Compact Discs,
Waste DVDs and other such media, illustrates the essential features for a 'closed loop' reclamation system meaning, in this context, one dedicated to a single type of material and class of product. This is as distinct from dealing with a number of materials in one class, for example polyolefins, and a legion of different end products made from them. Only Bayer and three other global companies supply the optical PC market and their material specifications are virtually identical. But, to offset this helpful degree of standardization, optical discs are composite products comprising not only PC but also aluminium, a lacquer coating and printing ink. Bayer has taken back rejects from replicatots, as moulders of CDs are known, since 1994. Due to the highly sophisticated nature of the product, reject rates by replicators are approximately 2-3 per cent of output. This is fairly high compared with
other departments of the plastics processing industry, although a considerable improvement upon the situation of only a few years ago when five per cent or even more was considered acceptable. Average amount of PC scrap produced by a CD moulding machine could be about 1-2 tonnes a year and may in total be costing UK replicators, for example, around £1 million. In addition to material collected from replicators, Bayer also receives scrap from companies that specialize in the destruction of C D - R O M discs for reasons concerning copyright and data protection. Many software suppliers provide customers with updated discs in exchange for old and these are also returned to the company. There is likely to be a growth in the disposal of CD-ROMs by banks, insurance companies and other institutions whose discs become out of date within as little as
reclaim
a week. This scrap falls into the category of P C W (Post Consumer Waste), which is less easy to control than material from replicators because there are many users each disposing of relatively few discs at a time. Recovery will therefore entail setting up a system to collect small amounts from a large number of disposers. Medium sized partner companies have been selected by Bayer to make possible the supply of material to the recycling plant. These partners, operating in German> UK and The Netherlands work closely with Bayer and undertake the collection and transport of scrap, amalgamating smaller quantities and separating the discs from their packaging. Similar schemes exist in North America and the Far East. Unfortunately, reclamation costs are inflated by suppliers who, although they are obliged to provide used and reject discs free of contamination, in fact often
The Silvet Tile" Silvct ® Family of" unique metallic pigm, compounders and processors as well as mastm metallic effects to enhance their product va by compounding, extrusion, injection or bh Silvet ® features
Bright, sttmning metallic lustre Brightest sparkle Glitter effects Metallescent effects Silvet ® benefits
Granular product form Easy metering and dispersion Widest polymer compatibility Non-dusting Toy regulation quality Food contact grades available Twice recipients of the Queens Award ~r Export Achievement, Silberline Ltd was the first producer of metallic pigments in the world to achieve IS() 9000 accreditation. Since then, Investors in People (I.I.E) and ISO 14001 accreditations have been gained, highlighting our strong commitments to quality innovation
and
environment.
~,¢*"-%~ a~.,~_~ IN~,'ESTORINPEOPI.I.:
~" t:,,\9~Ol/")' ~SOS/~//
/:~7~-~..~
,(::,14001):~/I\~ v 7' ~8087 /
RES No.010- USE THE FAST NEW ENQUIRY SERVICE @ www.addcomp.com PlasticsAdditives & Compounding A'lorch 2001
19
j
7¸¸¸¸¸ !~:ii~'~~ Waste
reclaim
i~! ¸:ii!~ii;: fail to abide by this. The diverse origin of the streams of material gives rise to contaminants such as drinks cans, cigarette ends, glass and wood that can be separated only manually, which is costly. Suppliers who grossly contravene their obligations have their collection containers returned. There are many technical solutions for decontaminating, but economic processing of large quantities of scrap is successful only if it is substantially homogenous. Bayer's partners carefully check incoming material. Discs are usually broken once or twice to thwart resale or shredded for security reasons. Coloured discs, as often used for games or music, are separated out as they would contaminate clear material and are reused for various dark coloured end products. Non metallized production scrap, including sprues, is also separated as it does not need to be put through the same treatment as metallized and lacquered waste. Hoffman & Voss, at Viersen, Germany, is responsible for decontaminating collected discs and grinding them down to produce a conveyable material with a particle size of about 5 mm and an assured standard of quality. Ferrous and non ferrous metallic contamination is removed from it. From Viersen the material is carried by road tanker for wet chemical processing at Bayer's Dormagen site. Silo handling has been introduced here to help reduce processing costs by increasing the volume of material streams, but in turn this has imposed higher quality control demands as batch sizes are greater. A loss of a batch because of a quality deficiency means a substantial financial loss. From the storage silo, the material is fed by an automated conveying system to a mixing vessel containing a dilute caustic soda solution to dissolve the aluminium and, in doing so, take off the layers of lacquer adhering to it. In the central and rim areas of the disc there is no aluminium and the lacquer adheres directly to the PC and cannot be removed by caustic. Other special additives are used for this and a mechanical rubbing action is induced to remove extremely fine remaining adhering particles. Emulsifiers ensure that stripped coating constituents are dispersed and cannot be
produ ioo { [
:l
I
[ Broken dis~
Groundto 3:5 mrn size
Regfind taken to Bayer in
Dorrrbgen i
Of ! a ~ r and metallizing I
l Reclaimed polycarbonate I used for various I applications
redeposited on the exposed surfaces. The solution is then centrifugally separated from the PC and what remains, after further washing and drying, is visually almost indistinguishable from virgin material. The solution is cleaned and returned to the process. The use of caustic, which is strongly alkaline, necessitates several washing operations to ensure the quality of subsequently compounded material. A short acid wash converts still adhering alkali residues into salt, making them readily soluble and removable. Recovery of aluminium is not worth while as only 100 kg can be reclaimed from 1,000 tonnes of discs. Other residues paint and ink particles and PC fines - are also not worth reclaiming and are taken to Bayer's environmentally friendly waste disposal facility.
Plastics Additives & Compounding March 2001
i !ii ¸77¸!
Recordable discs have a dye, as distinct from aluminium, coating but this is also removable by the caustic method, as are ultra violet light curing acrylic adhesives used to make DVDs (produced as two thin discs stuck together). These adhesives are similar in structure to protective lacquers. Work is in hand in respect of other types of adhesive to ensure that DVDs can be recycled on an industrial scale. The next step is to separate out the smaller particles. It is easier, during subsequent processes, to handle graded material with a limited rather than a wide particle size range. A number of metal separators are again used at this stage before the material is conveyed to a silo, subsequently to be compounded by extruders in the conventional manner. The reclaimed material may be blended with virgin PC or used in ABS alloys.
Waste
reclaim
PET b o t t l e s PET bottle recycling is another example of closed loop reclamation, in this instance dedicated to one material but a class of product of which there is a variety of shapes and sizes. Petcore is an association of European companies engaged in this field who all interchange technical data gained from their operating experience. Dr Bram Opschoor, the association's technical adviser, says that PET recycling has become an accepted industry practice. Nearly 300,000 tonnes was recovered in 2000 in Europe compared with 220,000 tonnes in 1999. In 1999, for the first time in 10 years, demand for PET outstripped supply capacity because of the material's increasing consumption in packaging, in which field PET is taking market share from glass and PVC. This growth strongly boosted demand for R-PET (recycled PET). Collection forecasts for reclaimable material are 500,000 tonnes in 2004 and 700,000 tonnes in 2008 but these amounts are not considered sufficient to meet market requirements. Prices of virgin PET are therefore likely to increase with prices for R-PET following these. The PET recycling industry will, it is considered, be able as a result of higher prices to make the necessary investments to meet demands for R-PET. According to the PCI Consulting Group, demand for R-PET in 2004 will be for 675,000 tonnes but only 500,000 tonnes will be available and the recycling industry will therefore not be able to meet it. The biggest problem is identified as the collection of used PET packaging, the percentage of which, out of the total tonnage of PET waste, will have to increase to provide sufficient for recycling. This percentage differs among various European countries and the less efficient will have to improve their reclamation rates. Under a new EU Packaging Directive, European governments must cooperate with PET bottle manufacturers and recyclers to develop efficient collection and recycling systems. Henk Hansler, Petcore director general, says: "This is a prerequisite if we are to meet the requirements laid down in the Directive and cost implications will have to be considered carefully and controlled tightly." The UK lags behind other EU countries in recycling plastics bottles. In 1999 a total of 11,300 tonnes of these were collected for recycling but represented less than 5 per cent of bottles used. This figure included an estimated 4,500 tonnes of PET bottles. By contrast, about 80 percent of PET bottles were collected in Sweden and Switzerland. Petcore states that globally about 17 per cent of PET bottle consumption is collected for recycling amounting to approximately 900,000 tonnes. About 219,000 tonnes of this, or 14 per cent of the total, was collected in Europe where Italy, France, Belgium and Switzerland together contributed 75 per cent of this amount.
E
0 C~
E
• Fulisl~trums~ndat~ of su~t • Cbsedl~irra~,,cecm, trol • ~ s o r co~m~dpr
Ci~a of ~er systems : •e M e e t s e ~ ~ Portable caWara~n red~aeter
0
-~
w 0
Q Uv """" ""'
The worlds most widely used accelerated weathering tester • AffordaldeUV basedtester • Lerp s e ~ ~ • Irredian~eand sprayavailable as options • Low operalingcost • Simpleto use and maintain
>rr" C1 Z
w w Z co
,,<
w "lW
¢J) I ,¢.,¢.O
6 z
Q-LAB Accelerated natural weathering
w r~
Florida and Arizona world recngaised benchmarks for acceleratednatural weathering
The symbol for Quality Laboratory Products Q-Panel Lab Products, EuropeanOfFice, ExpressTrading Estate, Q-PANEL ~l~. B~ 9TP,England LAB PRODUC1~ Tel: C44)01204 861616, Fax: (44) 01204 861617, E-mail: [email protected]:q-panel,com
Waste
reclaim
The main obstacle to collecting bottles for recycling in the UK is lack of funding to cover the cost of collection and sorting, activities generally performed by local authorities, but 41 per cent of these now include plastics bottle collection in their recycling programmes and more than 2.8 million households (! 1.4 per cent of the total) are served by kerbside collection of mixed recyclables. However, although post consumer bottle collection is expected to expand, a shortage of PET recycling capacity in the UK is expected within the next two years. A feature of R-PET, Bram Opschoor points out, is that it is possible during the recycling process to improve its performance over that of the original material. During the solid state condensation process, the molecular weight can be increased to a higher value, which is not possible with other plastics materials. This technique adds value to the product and is now common practice in the recycling industry. Arena, a member company of Petcore, has capacity for recycling 20,000 tonnes of PET a year and works according to ISO 9002 standard and Environmental Management System 14001. It operates two lines at Geleen, The Netherlands, for mechanical recycling of post consumer PET soft drink and water bottles and supplies PET flake for applications including single and multi layer bottles, APET sheet, filament and fibres and carton strapping. The patented process employed includes pre-washing bottles to remove labels before the containers are reground. Advantageously, any PVC bottles become opaque during this process and can be manually separated from PET. Intense cleaning of bottle material is achieved by various washing stages using individual water circuits at different temperatures with or without the addition of caustic or detergents. Erich Jeitler, sales manager, emphasizes the importance of achieving high yield and low waste rates and the desirability of careful material selection for labels and adhesives to remove 'expensive obstacles' to the recovery process. During recycling of bottles, labels should come away without bleeding or leaving traces of adhesive because remnants will reduce the quality of the final product. A list of preferred
adhesives has been compiled by Arena and is distributed by Petcore. The HybridUnPET process developed by RecyPET has been launched to produce FDA approved material from PET bottle scrap that can be mixed 50 per cent with virgin for new bottle production. Capacity at the plant that opened in Frauenfeld, Switzerland, last September is 13,000 tonnes a year. Eastman Chemicals' Optisys chemical recycling process enables R-PET to be produced to FDA approval standards irrespective of the colour of the original material or any barrier coating applied to it. Less energy is used than for the production of virgin PET. The process is based on techniques such as glycolysis, methanolysis and hydrolysis to break the material down into its basic components and remove unwanted contaminants. Smallbach Lubeca has developed a 'supercycle', an addition to its mechanical bottle to bottle recycling process, by which an increase in IV (Intrinsic Viscosity) of the material can be achieved. A supercycle plant has been in operation since 1998 and
PlasticsAdditives & Compounding March 2001
has an annual capacity of 6,300 tonnes. The company cooperated for several years with the Interbrew brewery organization in the design of a PET bottle with barrier coating for Stella Artois Dry, a beer with a new taste aimed at young drinkers launched in Belgium in April 2000. The bottle is the first of its type to be introduced by Interbrew and is intended for one-way use. It is aimed at a new segment of the market that did not previously buy beer and the company has stated that its attitude towards the returnable glass bottle system is unchanged. In Belgium 92 per cent of glass beer packaging is returned, a level not found elsewhere in the drinks industry. Recyclability and the type of barrier to apply to the bottle were considered from the outset and involved carrying out a series of tests with different processes. Some technologies produced bottles with good qualities for beer but were rejected because they could not be easily recycled. Assisted by Petcore, the company held a seminar in Belgium, which was probably the first time that a group of recyclers in Europe had been invited by a bottle manufacturer to discuss a new product. The outcome of the seminar was that threshold values were established for the development of a suitable bottle. This was test launched at concerts and discos and results confirmed its acceptability with the targeted consumer segment. It is notable that the conception of 'closed loop' in this instance began with the initial bottle concept and design rather than at the post consumer waste stage. This may set a precedent for other new products that will deliberately be specified for the compounding of recycled materials. In the meantime, the return level for glass bottles in Belgium may represent a target for PET bottle collection. Contacts: Bayer plc Tel: +44 1635 563522 Fax: +44 1635 563513 Petcor# Tel: +31 23 5425369 Fax +31 23 5425371 www.petcore, corn