Recycling in Germany

Three recycling news items are very briefly reported upon a Canadian-developed pyrolysis technology that converts plastics scrap into alpha-olefins, a scrap-plastics-to-monomers system under construction in Scotland, and statistical forecasts on chemical recycling in Germany for 1996. 

Presently, the proportion of aluminum recycled in Germany is about 35%. Recycling spares the valuable raw material sources and saves up to 95 % of the energy... 

Table 16.4. Cost-to-benefit analysis of plastics recycling in Germany (DM/ton) [Bauermeister et aL, 1994]...

Far more attention is given to recycling in Germany than in England and it is interesting to note that several trade associations have banded together there to form a new company, TECPOL. The objective of this company is to develop technology to recycle speciality plastics. 

Green Light for PET Recycling in Germany, PETplanet Insider, Feb. 1, 2001, www.petpla.net. 

According to a study on clothing waste recycling in Germany (see Fig. 13.9), there are around 870,000 tons of clothing waste generated annually. Approximately two-thirds are recycled. One-half is directly reused (secondhand) the other half is processed into new textiles or incinerated. 

The number of airbag modules to be disposed of in the near future can only be estimated. It is important that the number of driver and front seat passenger airbags will increase rapidly within the next years. For example, in 1994 only 31,200 airbags had to be recycled in Germany, whereas in 2012 there were 2.5-5 million airbags to be recycled. 

The current and projected HDPE capacities are shown in Table 3, and producers of resins in Table 4. In most cases, an accurate estimation of the total HDPE volume is compHcated by the fact that a large number of plants also use the same reactors for manufacture of HDPE or LLDPE. UHMWPE is produced in the United States (Himont and American Hoechst), in Japan (Asahi), and in Germany (Hoechst) worldwide capacity is approximately 45,000 tons. The use of post-consumer (recycled) HDPE is gradually increasing in volume. The growth of recycling programs is driven principally by economics (110,114) it has increased from a mere 60,000 tons in 1989 to 350,000 tons in 1994 and is expected to increase to 1.4 million t in the year 2000 (115). 

Linde KC A in Germany offers another technology for feedstock recycling that has been developed on the... 

This fall, the closed-loop Evergreen Nylon Recycling plant will start up in the US, a joint venture of DSM Chemicals North America and AlliedSignal. The facility will recover 45,000 m.t./year of caprolactam by depolymerising the fibres from 100,000 m.t./year of discarded nylon-6 carpets. Meanwhile in Germany, Lurgi is building the Polyamid 2000 AG facility. It will process 120,000 m.t./year of carpet waste and recover 10,000 m.t./ year of caprolactam from nylon-6 carpets and 13,000 m.t./ year of nylon-6-6 from nylon-6-6 carpets. 

An account is given of the chemical recycling activities of BASF in a pilot plant at Ludwigshafen in Germany, where mixed plastics waste is processed to obtain hydrochloric acid, oil, gas, naphtha, aromatics and alpha-olefins. 

A question being disputed in Germany, important with regard to the amendment of the German Waste Act, is which wastes or residuals should or must be recycled, and which can be used for energy reeovery This paper attempts to define the line between material recycling and thermal exploitation. 2 refs. 

Obviously, the first measure to think about could be the substitution of recycled fibre-based boxboard for foodstuff by virgin fibre-based material. The required amount of recycled fibre-based boxboard for foodstuff equals to 700,000 t/year in Germany [7]. For the substitution of the recycled fibre-based boxboard, it is simply assumed that the required virgin fibre-based board is produced totally from mechanical spruce pulp with a process yield of 97%. This would require in total additionally about 1.68 Mio m3 wood per year. The inventory study of the carbon balance of the German forests [8] indicates an average yearly wood growth of... 

In case that corrugated base papers are not any more produced from recycled paper, as it is typical for testliner and medium in Germany, virgin fibres would have to be used. The corresponding paper grades as kraftliner would be produced from kraft pulp and fluting from semi-chemical pulp. For the simplified calculation of the required wood demand for the fibres, an average process yield of 60% (kraft pulp = 50%, semi-chemical pulp = 70%) is used. The substitution of the... 

In Germany, 60-70% of the biowastes are collected separately and recycled by composting or digestion, but in the EU-15 countries only 6% and 22% are incinerated, and 72% is landfilled (Kehres 2008). For composting the selective collection of waste is important because of the separation of biowaste. 

Two groups in particular have pioneered the practical application of PheDH from various bacterial species, namely those of Asano etal in Japan and Hummel etal. in Germany. Asano and his colleagues initially explored the application of PheDH to the chiral synthesis of the physiological substrate L-phenylalanine. The PheDH of Bacillus sphaericus was overexpressed in E. coll The issue of cofactor recycling was tackled by using the FDH of Candida hoidinil Importantly, these authors showed that both catalytic activities could be successfully... 

Special process and product specifications have been set forth for companies in the chemical industry. Additionally, specific limits must be observed for pollutant or VOC (volatile organic compounds) emissions. Specific maximum allowable concentrations at workplaces must not be exceeded. Both the transport of chemicals and the recycling or disposal of chemical wastes are subject to particular requirements. Periodic hazard assessments - which in Germany, for example, are mandatory according to the Ordinance on Industrial Safety and Health (Betriebssicherheitsverordnung, BetrSichV) - are a must requirement in the chemical industry. To achieve a Continuous Improvement Process, product and process requirements must be identified, evaluated and monitored on a regular basis. 

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