Meeting WEEE fundemental aims for plastics

Greater efforts must be made to process WEEE in sorted streams of similar product types if the Directive is to demonstrate higher yields of polymer recyclate for top-quality applications.

Intelligent streaming of product types from waste electrical and electronic equipment is crucial for maximising material recovery rates, as well as meeting the fundamental aims of the WEEE Directive, claimed a leading plastics recycler.

Greater efforts must be made to process WEEE in sorted streams of similar product types if the Directive is to demonstrate true sustainability in delivering higher yields of polymer recyclate for top- quality applications, asserts Axion Polymers technical director, Keith Freegard.

His comments follow Freegard's presentation to a recent Polymers in Electronics Conference at Munich, Germany, highlighting Axion's research into the European WEEE plastics market and the technologies available to sort and separate waste plastics.

Freegard claims that many countries across Europe have failed to implement the literal meaning of 'separate removal and treatment' of materials listed under Annex 2 of the WEEE Directive.

This has led to bulk shredding and fragmentising of mixed household WEEE items, followed by low-efficiency manual picking to remove the listed substances.

The focus of these plants is on metal recovery at minimum treatment costs, with the resultant plastics stream being highly co- mingled and contaminated by other wastes from the input products, said Freegard.

"Streaming by product type, which has happened by default with fridges and CRTs, makes it possible to implement a more efficient de-pollution regime using processes designed for that particular application.

These processes typically produce recovered plastic streams that are much less mixed and can then be upgraded for use in higher-grade applications.

Shredding mixed WEEE items in bulk - the minimum-cost route pursued in much of Europe - misses opportunities to maximise recycling rates and thus promote closed-loop recycling," continued Freegard.

During his presentation in Munich, Freegard showed how the main types of polymers used across different brands of the same product stream are often very similar.

Hence streaming of, for example vacuum cleaners, into a single product type would lead to a higher recovery rate of the polymer ABS, with the associated benefit that de-pollution regimes could be tailored to suit the particular item being handled.

For example on vacuum cleaners, this could mean switching manual labour from looking for batteries and circuit boards on post-shred picking lines, to pre-process removal of dust-bags and power cables.

His views are supported by Martin Goosey, industrial director of the Innovative Electronics Manufacturing Research Centre, who commented: "Keith's talk highlighted the need for more efficient segregation practices of end-of-life electrical and electronic products so maximum value can be obtained from recycled plastics." 'Goosey said: "There is also an acute need to align new uses for recycled polymers from these disparate end-of-life items.

Easily identifying the presence of flame retardants, particularly in older plastics, is not always straight-forward.

Although the technology is in its early days, it needs to be rapid enough for recyclers to use it in anger." Freegard concluded that although a robust and commercially successful WEEE process must be able to handle the variability of incoming waste streams, concentrating on the 'intelligent streaming' of similar product types will deliver longer-term, sustainable returns.

"Right now producers are focussed upon the immediate cost-impacts of WEEE legislation, but in the next few years they will realise that streaming of the collected post-consumer goods by product-type, and even by individual brand-name, will be the most sustainable way to deliver high-grade, closed-loop polymer recyclates with significant savings against virgin raw materials consumption in the total product life-cycle.".

Back to top