To help Volvo Car Group demonstrate the use of sustainable components in new cars, Axion Polymers has supplied its 100 per cent recycled polymer from end-of-life vehicles.
The recycler’s Axpoly PP polymer was blended 50/50 with a polypropylene recycled from packaging waste to achieve a specification required by vehicle designers for reuse in new vehicle components.
An initial sample of this plastic blend has been used successfully to mould both internal and external body parts for a new car in a collaborative demonstration project for Volvo Car Group, involving more than 40 suppliers of vehicle components.
Volvo Car Group set out its ambition that at least 25 per cent of the plastics used in every newly-launched Volvo car will be made from recycled material after 2025, at the Ocean Summit conference, held in June at Gothenburg, Sweden.
Axion Polymers
Keith Freegard auto plastics
The car maker unveiled a specially-built version of its XC60 T8 plug-in hybrid SUV model which has over 170 plastic parts, circa 60 kilos, made from recycled plastics in place of virgin polymers.
The recycled-plastics XC60 was revealed at the Ocean Summit during the Gothenburg Volvo Ocean Race stopover.
Keith Freegard, Associate Consultant at Axion Polymers, said: “Seeing the ‘first adopters’ take the lead in such an important market as motor vehicles really gives me hope that the problem of ocean plastic pollution can be solved by taking such positive action for change.”