Danish project aims to strengthen household plastic waste recycling

Denmark-based Schela Plast, which was recently acquired by Robinson, is working on a new project to improve recycling technology with the aim of recycling more plastic waste.

Working alongside the Danish Technological Institute, Project Manager Sofie Kastbjerg confirmed that Denmark is well-known for its ability to collect plastic packaging from households, but conceded that only a small amount is turned back into products of the same quality. “The Et MUDP project,” Kastbjerg said, “supported by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, must now pave the way for more plastic recycling to be made circular. Too much plastic waste is downcycled into products of lower quality than the original, and this will not work if we are to achieve the ambition of a circular economy for household plastic. Therefore, we must become good at maintaining the original quality of the plastic when it is reprocessed for subsequent recycling.” 

In this project, the partners want to optimise the current reprocessing technology so that it becomes possible to reduce the number of undesirable substances in the waste stream. This will pave the way for an up-cycling of the mixed plastic to create new applications.

The project focuses on defining requirements for the quality and purity of plastic materials so that they are safe to use for different purposes.  

Technology from Aage Vestergaard Larsen (AVL) is being developed to clean up and melt household collected PE into high-quality plastics that meet product-specific requirements.

AVL CEO Franz Cuculiza said: “It is a prerequisite that we maintain a clean stream of high quality materials if we are to ensure that the plastic is recycled again and again. With the further development of our new reprocessing line for household collected plastics, we expect we can deliver materials from household collected plastic that are even higher quality than before.”

Using the reprocessed plastic, new packaging from Schela Plast will be produced for Nopa Nordic products.

Schela Plast CEO Morten Jeppesen concluded: “Schela Plast already has extensive experience in producing materials from household plastics. We expect that 35% of our packaging this year and 50% next year will be made from recycled plastic. Today, unfortunately, it is necessary to import recycled plastic. We, therefore, look forward to a circular and sustainable supply opportunity locally in Denmark.”