Andaltec’s LIFE Plasmix project aims to improve recyclability

Andaltec has made what it describes as ‘substantial progress’ within the LIFE Plasmix project, funded by the EU’s LIFE Programme. The project is focused on the development of new recycling processes for plastic materials from post-consumer urban solid waste.

The reduction of plastic wastes destined for incineration or landfills counts as another priority for the researchers. Materials such as polypropylene or polystyrene from the plastic mix stream could be reused in the automotive and food packaging sectors, and the  consortium – made up by FCC Medio Ambiente as co-ordinating beneficiary, and by ANAIP, Andaltec, Lindner Washtech (Germany), Lindner Washtech Engineering (Austria), Pellenc Selective Technologies (France), Stadler Selecciona, Stadler Anlagenbau (Germany) and the University of Granada as associated beneficiaries – are executing the necessary actions to install a new sorting and mechanical recycling line for post-consumer plastic waste to this end.

The separation and classification of the plastic mix bales will be performed automatically by means of mechanical and optical separators, capable of singling the different types of polymers out. The selected materials will then be processed into pellets for use as raw materials for the manufacture of prototypes.

The last monitoring meeting of the project set out the progress achieved. Andaltec has co-operated with the University of Granada in the design of the small-scale recycling process of the plastic wastes. This served as a preliminary step to the industrial-scale phase of the process.

The Technological Centre for Plastics also performed the injection moulding of specimens, as well as their characterisation in the laboratory.

Project leader José Antonio Rodríguez said: ”We have successfully completed the full retrieval and reuse of the selected plastic wastes on a pilot-scale in order to gather useful information to develop the large-scale process. Besides, this preliminary small-scale phase proves that the recycled materials possess mechanical and thermal properties within the expected ranges.”

In the next stage of the project, Andaltec will receive the recycled pellets from the industrial facilities after sorting, washing and extrusion in order to tackle the phase of design, manufacture and validation of the different prototypes.

Rodríguez added: “One of our tasks will be to prove that these recycled materials can meet the standards required by the automotive and food packaging sectors. We also are working to demonstrate that the retrieved materials can be employed to manufacture new products by means of conventional plastic transformation technologies such as injection moulding and thermoforming.”