TotalEnergies has joined Nextloopp, an initiative bringing together 47 companies from the plastics value chain that aims to create food-grade recycled polymer from advanced mechanical recycling.

Verbände, Institutionen, Messen

Dienstleistungen

Kunststoff-Recycling

Kunststoffverarbeitung: Verfahren

Kunststoff-Aufbereitung

Nextloopp Welcomes TotalEnergies

Interview with David Katz, Founder of Plastic Bank

Plastic Bank promotes recycling in developing countries, thereby combating poverty.

Umweltmanagement

Kreislaufwirtschaft

“We Must Show that Circularity Benefits Everyone“

Plastics Recycling Show Europe expands into second hall, visitor registration for the free-to-attend event is now open.

At the Plastics Recycling Show Europe in 2022.

Plastics Recycling Show Europe: Visitor Registration Is Now Open

The Alpla Group can look back on a successful financial year 2022 in spite of the crisis. Sales of 5.1 billion euros exceeded the previous year’s figure by 27.5 percent.

The packaging specialist will continue to expand its production capacity in injection molding over the coming years.

16:9

Verpackungsmittel aus Kunststoffen

Kunststoffverarbeitung

Recycling

Verpackungstechnik

Logistik

Alpla Achieves Sales Record

Santa Barbara County’s Resource Center efficiently sorts both municipal solid waste and single stream using the same circuit with Tomra‘s Autosort units to successfully reduce landfilling.

The Santa Barbara County Resource Center converts commercial and residential waste into recyclables by recovering recyclable materials, converting organics into landscape nutrients, and generating renewable energy in the process.

Sortierer

Kunststoffverarbeitung: Maschinen und Komponenten

Quick-Change Mixed Waste Processing

Berry Global and Werner & Mertz receive the WorldStar Packaging Award 2023.

The design of the head follows a mono-material approach, with over 97% of it produced in polypropylene.

Verpackungsmaterial

International Award for Sustainable Sprayer Design

Evonik is pooling its expertise and integrating its alcoholates business into the Catalysts Business Line.

Chemie

Naturwissenschaften

Unternehmen

kunststoffe.de

Expansion of The Catalysts Business Line

“Forum Plastic Recyclates” to take place on March 29 and 30, 2023 in Darmstadt, Germany. The forum will focus once again on the field of mechanical recycling.

This year´s forum will focus once again on the field of mechanical recycling.

Forum Plastic Recyclates

Borealis provides circular solutions for crosslinked polyethylene for the Wire & Cable and Infrastructure sectors.

Borealis Borcycle C chemical recycling process breathes new life into crosslinked polyethylene (PE) types such as XLPE and PE-X.

Technik Trend

kunststoffe-international.com

Polyethylen

Kunststoff Werkstoffe

Thermoplaste

Chemical Recycling for Crosslinked Polyethylene

The latest scientific findings of existing and novel packaging features along with state-of-the-art recycling technologies are at the center of the update of both the guidelines protocols.

RecyClass Design for Recycling Guidelines and Recyclability Evaluation Protocols

At Plastindia 2023, Starlinger puts the focus on efficient plastics recycling and sustainable packaging solutions.

Saves costs and energy: the new recoSTAR PET art recycling system for food-grade rPET.

Decontamination at the Highest Level

Plastics Industry Association announces 2023 Recycling Committee Executive Board. Chair: Tory Flynn.

New Recycling Committee’s Executive Board

Asahi Kasei, Kitakyushu College and Tokyo University of Science have developed a new technology for recycling carbon fiber plastic compounds.

Kohlenstofffasern / -matten

Verstärkungsstoffe

Closed-Loop Recycling System for Carbon Fiber

The new plant will immediately produce an approximate 18,000 tons per year of recycled material from near-household collection.

At the new plant, the joint venture produces recycled PET granulate based on bottles from household waste for the production of new preforms and bottles.

Polyethylenterephthalat

Alpla Starts rPET Production in Romania

Plastipack Limited, Hersteller hochwertiger Poolabdeckungen, zerkleinert und recycelt seine Kunststofffolienabfälle inhouse mithilfe einer zweistufigen Zerkleinerungsanlage von Weima.

Production scrap from pool cover production at Plastipack Limited.

Zerkleinerungsmaschinen

Pool Covers without Waste

“Mechanical and Chemical Recycling are Complementary“

Interview with Dr. Ralf Düssel, Chairman of plastics producers’ association PlasticsEurope Deutschland e.V.

Dr. Düssel, the plastics manufacturing industry has done reasonably well to date with a linear economic model, so why the switch to a circular economy?

This is the only way to achieve the greenhouse gas reduction and climate neutrality targets that Europe and Germany have set themselves. Our study, Reshaping Plastics – Pathways to a Circular, Climate Neutral Plastics System in Europe, shows that we have already taken some steps in the right direction, but it also shows that our pace is still too slow. The transformation towards climate neutrality needs to happen faster, and circular economy is an important contribution towards this. It helps to reduce waste and lower the use of fossil raw materials. Many of our member companies are already using various sustainable raw materials. There are also already initial examples available of closed material flows. However, this is where we still need to move faster, which is why, as an association, we strongly support the switch from a linear to circular economy.

Chemical recycling can make a contribution. How far have you advanced technologically within this field?

There are first plants producing pyrolysis oils on a smaller industrial scale. In addition, there are various research projects in Germany and Europe. However, we need to push innovations in this area even further: for example, we need to understand how to deal with different waste streams. In order to do so though, we need an innovation-friendly environment. As an industry, we have made clear investment commitments, investing around 2.6 billion euros in 2025, which will increase to up to 7.2 billion euros by 2030. But in doing so, we need to be certain that the products obtained from chemical recycling will also be recognised as recyclates in regulatory terms.

Currently, the EU is considering classifying products from chemical recycling in a different manner to those from mechanical recycling. What would this mean for your industry?

That would not be a good development. We support developments that do not favour any particular technology, because we are convinced that neither we in industry, nor the regulators in the EU and Germany know what the world will look like in ten years. That‘s why we need classification of recycling that is open to any type of technology. Only then can all investments and innovations also be driven forward, so that in the end, the best recycling method for the respective application is used, for example in terms of its climate protection potential. For this reason, we expressly do not support a different treatment of the various recycling techniques.

How likely is it that your association’s viewpoint will gain acceptance?

I believe we are on the right track. I am very pleased that the topic was taken up in the German coalition agreement, and that chemical recycling is to be included in the legislative act on packaging. We will do everything we can to make this happen.

Can you describe which method will have its place and where in the future?

It is often argued that chemical recycling is taking market shares away from mechanical recycling; this approach is wrong. We clearly need even more mechanical recycling, and capacities must be significantly expanded here. Chemical recycling comes into play when mechanical recycling reaches its limits: for example, when recycling has been done too often, and the plastic chains have therefore become shorter and shorter, or when we have very mixed waste. A good example is the rotor blades of wind turbines, which are mostly made of fiberglass-reinforced plastic. We need chemical recycling for this purpose, because the mechanical one doesn‘t render a usable product. With chemical recycling, we can achieve a quality in this field that is comparable to virgin material. This material can be reused in medical products or food applications, for example, and that‘s exactly why both recycling processes are complementary, and we absolutely need both.

Chemical recycling, however, requires a high energy input.

New studies show that you have to use five to ten percent of the energy content of the waste for the process of chemical recycling. That means you recover about 70 percent of the carbon atom; that‘s not bad. Other studies compare the energy requirements of mechanical recycling with chemical recycling. Chemical recycling isn‘t too bad in that regard either. We are working on further improvements. I am confident that we will also bring chemical recycling up to a decent level in terms of energy consumption – all the more so when the supply of power and heat is sourced from green electricity.

What is the role of design-for-recycling in the effort to achieve climate neutrality?

That is also an important building block for closing the loop and consequently for achieving greenhouse gas neutrality. There are already many good examples of this: for instance, a recyclable toothbrush or a car seat made from just one material – both of which increase the chances of recovering recyclates from discarded plastic products. We will certainly see many similar examples at K. It just needs to be implemented consistently, and customers and end users need to accept the products. Avoiding waste, reducing waste and reusing products first and foremost, and only then recycling, promoted for example by design-for-recycling, that is the right way to go.

Will we eventually be able to do without fossil raw materials altogether?

If we close the loops, we will no longer need fossil raw materials. If we then combine that with green energy, it‘s an enormous step toward achieving greenhouse gas neutrality. However, it won‘t work without a circular economy.

VDMA - Verband Deutscher Maschinen- und Anlagenbau e.V. 

https://www.vdma.org

PlasticsEurope Deutschland e.V.  

https://www.plasticseurope.org

Dr. Ralf Düssel, Chairman of PlasticsEurope Deutschland e.V.

Die Welt ein bisschen besser machen – PlasticsEurope will seinen Beitrag dazu leisten.

2022-10-12 VDMA-Interview Düssel

The world is facing major challenges: Climate change must be combated, the environment must be protected and resources must be conserved. It is also important to make good use of the opportunities offered by digitization. The plastics industry has a key role to play in this process, because plastics are ubiquitous around the world.

Climate protection, digitization and the circular economy are therefore also the three major topics at K 2022, the world‘s leading trade fair for the plastics industry. To get in the mood for the industry meeting in the fall of 2022, the VDMA is letting representatives of the plastics machinery industry and all other stakeholders in the industry have their say in weekly interviews.

You can find more interviews from the series in our <a href="https://en.kunststoffe.de/k-fair" target="_blank">K-fair special</a> and at <a href="http://www.k-online.com" target="_blank">www.k-online.com</a>.

“We need classification of recycling that is open to any type of technology. Only then can all investments and innovations be driven forward, so that in the end, the best recycling method for the respective application is used.“

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