Recovering contaminated plastics from automotive, construction and electrical appliance industry waste

Description

The NONTOX Project is developing new decontamination processes for plastic materials in order to recover waste from electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), end-of-life vehicles (ELV), and construction and demolition (CD). 

The project involves recovering valuable materials from waste that is now being landfilled or incinerated under controlled conditions to contain the hazardous additives and unpleasant compounds, such as flame retardants, stabilisers and filling materials, that make it difficult to recycle. AIMPLAS, the Plastics Technology Centre, is participating in the project.

Two different technologies (Extruclean and CreaSolv®) will be used to eliminate these hazardous substances from waste plastics such as ABS, EPS, PS, HIPS, PE and PP. Together, these account for about half of EU demand for plastics, which is why it is important to recycle plastics rather than keeping up the current practice of landfilling or incinerating a significant part of this waste.

See here for more information on the technologies involved.

Main results

Expected results:

  •  Significant reduction (over 5 Mt/yr) in incineration of valuable plastic waste
  •  Reduction of almost 1 Mt CO2 eq/yr
  •  Job creation from increased recycling facilities
  •  Efficient use of raw materials in the EU by implementing eco-design concept