Recycling of Industrial and Domestic Plastics Waste

The possibilities for treating plasties waste from industrial and domestie sourees are limited. The reason is that these wastes are often dirty and eontaminated with foreign materials. Furthermore, these wastes usually represent a mixture of different plastics grades. In many cases, treatment is not worthwhile from a financial standpoint. In some cases, it is not even possible technically. If plastics were collected by types of polymer, recycling would become considerably simpler. Because only a few materials are separated by grades, these wastes must be purified in costly processes. 

Polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP)-also known as polyolefins-have proven to be especially suitable for recycling. One reason is that these are mass-produced plastics which occur quite frequently, making up as much as 

60% of all plastic wastes. But another reason is the great thermal stability of polyolefins, so that they suffer very little damage when remelted. 

Rejected bottle crates, that have become unfit for use, are collected at their distributor depot. As every distributor depot only takes back its own bottle crates, they will always be of pure grade and of identical color. The plastics processor grinds these crates to fine particles in large granulators. Contaminants clinging to the plastic are automatically washed off with water. The resultant washed regrind is dried, dosed with additives and injection-molded into new bottle crates, without adding any new material. Therefore the bottle crate is a 100% recycled product. 

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