WEEE | INNOVATION
the EU (with a focus on Germany, Poland, Italy and France).
n Establish a feedback loop from research activities that provides policy input regarding technical feasibilities and conflicts from a technical perspective. In its January newsletter, PolyCE said it passed a number of milestones during 2018, including: mapping the current e-plastics market situation and analysing market drivers and barriers to set-up an online market platform for e-plastics; making progress in demonstrator applications to show the feasibility of incorporating post-consumer recycled plastics into new products; connecting stakehold- ers in the WEEE plastics value chain to reduce the existing knowledge gap; and defining an action plan for European consumers to more actively participate in the Circular Economy for plastics. WEEE plastics recyclers are taking action on
some of the challenges raised by PRE and being addressed by collaborative
projects.MGG Poly- mers, part of Müller-Guttenbrunn Group in Austria, has started recycling PC/ABS from post-consumer WEEE, the culmination of six years of research and development. The company’s plant in Kematen uses a new extruder to produce 200 tonnes of PC/ ABS materials per month. The company said the recycled PC/ABS compounds can be used for high-gloss components such as monitor housings, sheathing for routers, beamers, PCs or other electronic devices as well as in the automotive industry. These recycled PC/ABS compounds achieve the highest fire class for electrical appli- ances without using BFR additives, it said. “Manufacturers have subjected our post-con-
sumer recycled plastic to numerous tests and certified that they have found no difference between our material and virgin material,” said Arthur Schwesig, head of the R&D department at MGG Polymers. The company is working to commercially recycle other types of WEEE plastics, he said. “We already know today that the composi- tion of plastics in waste streams will change. After all, today’s electrical appliances are no longer the same as they were five or ten years ago.” WEEE plastics recycler Coolrec, a subsidiary of
Renewi, is finding a new outlet for PS in 3D print- ing. It helped develop high impact PS 3D print filament sourced from waste refrigerators in a project with Refil, part of Better Future Factory in the Netherlands. HIPS is matte and off-white in colour, which makes it easy to add colour to. It is also easy to glue and is therefore a suitable material for 3D printing scale models, said Coolrec. The filament is being targeted at architects who
www.plasticsrecyclingworld.com
Refil is selling HIPS 3D print filament
that uses recyclate from waste refrigerators
want to use more sustainable alternatives for the production of models. The HIPS filament is avail- able in the standard diameters of 2.85 mm and 1.75 mm and has been successfully tested with many 3D printers, said Coolrec. The material is optimised for 3D printing, so that shrinkage and warping are minimal during printing. Electronics giant Philips first started its work on adopting recycled plastics in new products back in 2010. The amount of recycled plastics the group uses each year has risen steadily and reached 1,800 tonnes in 2017 and 2,200 tonnes in 2018. It has a target to boost that figure to 7,600 tonnes by 2025, said Eelco Smit, Senior Director Sustainability at Philips, in a presentation at AMI’s Design for Sustainability conference in London in December. One of the major reasons that Philips is doing this he said, is because “if we start to use recycled plastics it gives an incentive to recyclers to invest”. Philips has introduced components made from
recycled PP and ABS in a number of products in its vacuum cleaner and coffee maker ranges. Its Perfect Care Aqua iron contains 53% recycled plastics, said Smit. The group has nearly completed its work on the use of black recycled polymers. But it is still carrying out R&D with recycled plastics, for example, to create more colour freedom and increase black levels. Smit said very deep, high gloss blacks, so-called “piano black” is “the Holy Grail for us”.
CLICK ON THE LINKS FOR MORE INFORMATION: �
www.plasticsrecyclers.eu �
http://closeweee.eu �
www.polyce-project.eu �
www.mgg-recycling.com �
www.coolrec.com �
www.philips.com
March/April 2019 | PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD 47
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