INNOVATION | WEEE


Directive, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, the Basel Convention on hazardous waste shipments, and it is being discussed for further restrictions under the EU’s Reach framework. “We need a balanced approach


Below: Philips uses recycled polypropylene and other


plastics in some of its Senseo coffee machines, such as the Senseo Up


from the EU, Stockholm Convention and Basel Convention,” said Slijkhuis, who thinks WEEE plastics recycling could come to a halt if regulation of legacy chemicals is too restrictive. He is, nonetheless, still positive about MGG keeping progress going in its plastics recycling business. MGG Plastics is the new name for the plastics recycling plant at Kematen which was set up by US- based MBA Polymers in a joint venture with MGG. In June 2017, MGG took 100% control of the Austrian business when MBA’s founder Mike Biddle sold his shares in the MBA parent company to investment firm Elephant Equity. The Kematen facility’s production was 40,000tpa of WEEE plastics when it started in 2006, and has since grown to 52,000tpa. The capacity could be expanded further in the next few years, said Slijkhuis, possibly up to 70,000tpa. MGG follows a process designed specifically for the technical difficulties of recycling WEEE plastics. In the first of a number of stages carried out at the group’s operating companies, the MGG Metrec facility in Amstetten treats incoming loads of WEEE (and also waste from end-of-life vehicles). The MGG WEEE process was described at AMI’s Plastics Recycling Technology conference by Slijkhuis. He spoke of the initial phase for removing hazardous components, in which MGG uses its self-developed and patented ‘Smasher’. This allows the company to take out components which are valuable: printed circuit boards, spools and e-motors. The next stage is shredding, which is “extremely efficient” for separation of ferrous metals, leaving light and heavy residues, said Slijkhuis. These residue materials go onto the post-shredder treatment phase which takes place at the MGG Metran plant. Many separation techniques are used here, including, air-based, water-based and drying technologies. This separation phase results in non-ferrous metals and plastics fractions. The WEEE


26 PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD | March/April 2018


Average composition of WEEE plastics for recycling


ABS HIPS PP PE


PC and PC/ABS ABS FR HIPS FR PPO POM PVC


Other plastics Other materials


Source: MBA Polymers


plastics fraction is delivered to MGG Polymers located in Kematen. The Kematen facility carries out the final stages


in MGG’s process. All deliveries are assayed to provide a valuation. Pre-processing enables the separation of any remaining metals plus organic and inorganic contamination. Shredding produces flakes which go through a series of steps to sort into separate polymers. The materials which are extruded and sold in pellet form include PP, ABS and PS. Since March 2017, MGG has also been producing recycled PC-ABS pellets. There continues to be a myriad of issues that


make the extraction and reprocessing of WEEE plastics technically challenging. Small domestic appliances typically contain a mixture of polymers including polyolefins, polystyrene and engineering plastics, such as ABS, PC and PC/ABS. WEEE plastics recycling is an area in which R&D plays a major role, with multi-partner projects and individu- al technology companies working to find solutions to the complexities of recycling electronic devices. “Plastics recycling from WEEE is still pioneer


work,” said Martin Schlummer from Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging (IVV) in Germany. At AMI’s Plastics Recycling Technology 2017 conference, Schlummer – who is Business Field Manager for Recycling and Environ- ment at Fraunhofer IVV – outlined the difficulties of recycling WEEE plastics. Complex WEEE fractions contain valuable


materials, including metals and engineering plastics, but also may have hazardous compounds like halogenated flame retardants and heavy metals like cadmium. Schlummer acknowledged that companies have developed technologies for WEEE plastics separation, but there is no single technol- ogy that can sort by polymer type and also separate


www.plasticsrecyclingworld.com


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