INNOVATION | PVC
Right: Grundon healthcare collections for the RecoMed prgramme
device recycling scheme in Australia – PVC Recy- cling in Hospitals. This particular scheme is funded by Baxter Healthcare, which manufactures PVC IV bags, and is in essence a form of extended producer responsibility for the management of their products. There are other, similar medical PVC recycling schemes in Canada, South Africa, Guatemala and Colombia. PVC recycled through RecoMed has been used to manufacture tree ties from 100% recycled content, and other potential applications are being explored. “In the future we will be looking to carry out trials with other flexible PVC product manufacturers to find potential ‘open loop’ product possibilities, such as vinyl flooring or wall covering, which can be used within the healthcare environment,” Claes adds. “Using recycled medical PVC in a product that is then used within the healthcare environment is something that we are keen to achieve.”
PVC cables A pilot project has been launched aimed at recover- ing the PVC component of electrical cables coming from the decommissioning of energy plants and recycling it into products with a low environmental impact. The PVC Upcycling project is funded under the European Regional Development Fund and led by R.ED.EL. SRL, an Italian company operating in the construction and maintenance of medium-low voltage electrical plants in collaboration with the University of Calabria, for the management of scientific activities, and ENEA (the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustain- able Economic Development), in charge of testing the recycled materials performance. The project focuses on electrical cables consist- ing mainly of metals (copper and aluminium) and PVC, with the objective of recycling the plastic
component in potential secondary raw materials, PVC powder and granules, and in new civil engi- neering applications. Two different applications were investigated: urban tiles, and cement-based mortars reinforced with PVC compound coming from electric cables protective sheaths. For both applications, experimental investigations were carried out to verify mechanical strength, hygro- thermal and durability properties. The manufacture of the urban PVC tiles consisted
Above: PVC Upcycling is a pilot project in Italy aimed at recovering the PVC component of electrical cables coming from the decommissioning of energy plants
30 PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD | November/December 2020
of a standard-mix design made of 90% of PVC powder and 10% of polyurethane resin. These percentages were fixed to obtain a density of the finished product as close as possible to the density of the reference one, which was made without recycled PVC. The preparation of the compound took place through the mixing of components consisting of a secondary raw material (PVC powder) and a thermosetting polyurethane resin. The mixing phase was carried out in three different steps to ensure a more homogeneous and uniform mix. At the end of the curing phase, the obtained specimen was satisfactory both in terms of surface flaking and density reached, and in terms of size (20 × 20 cm). Furthermore, the final product maintained adequate mechanical strength and surface abrasion. The manufactured mortars were obtained by the volumetric substitution of the sand with five different percentages of plastic waste, ranging from 10-50%. The waste materials used for the PVC mortar samples came from operations carried out at R.ED.EL, grinding end-of-life PVC copper cables through a procedure that allowed the complete segregation of the conductive metal and the polymeric protective coating, producing fully disaggregated and hetero- geneous mixture, subsequently separated. All the mortars were prepared by substitution of natural
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IMAGE: PVC UPCYCLING
IMAGE: RECOMED
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