SORTING PLASTIC WASTE

Sorting, the first step in recycling plastic waste after collection, separates, cleans and prepares materials
intended for recycling. Depending on its nature, sorted plastic waste will be processed directly on the site
of the recycling company responsible for receiving it or be taken to a specialist recycling centre. Since
there are many categories of materials and many processes, varying according to the type of product, we
are going to identify the main methods used by Paprec, follow the route taken by materials in recycling
centres and detail the treatment methods specific to the various types of plastic waste.
MANUAL SORTING
In many cases, and for a large number of materials, after the material has been checked for conformity, this stage
allows an initial waste sorting operation to be carried out, thus facilitating future automatic processing. So, things
such as defective parts, scrap and off-cuts from industry, various polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS) and
polyethylene (PE) products, collected post-consumption, are placed on belts and dismantled by operators who
remove the coarsest pollutants (for example, rubber, screws and rivets from waste bin bags) and carry out an initial
chromatic separation of materials. The same is true for films, for example, which are divided into two flows: coloured
and natural, which are removed by hand and redirected to grinding machines. In some cases, simple visual
verification is required before sending products to the different recycling lines.


 For PET (plastic bottles and tops), Paprec, a leader in plastic recycling in France, has installed fully automated
waste sorting systems. After the unloading of the bales resulting from selective sorting, waste is placed on a
conveyor and sent to a machine that splits the bales. Once free from their binding, the bottles are pushed by blades
on a toothed shaft, which separates them, facilitating their routing to conveyor belts. There are two successive
magnets, or Overbands, which remove any pollution (extracting any ferrous wire that might be present).

 With regard to PVC (mainly industrial plastic waste, joinery mouldings from doors and windows), manual waste
sorting consists of removing materials thrown randomly into skips and bins by customers and separating the various
colours at the entrance to the grinders, the aim being to isolate and process as much white plastic waste as possible.
After grinding, which we will talk about later, the plastic goes to a hopper or silo, before being sent to a stage where
metals are removed by Overband. Thus, metal parts (such as aluminium particles) are captured and separated from
PVC granules.

POST-GRINDING WASTE SORTING

Grinding (or reducing products to flakes) is an essential phase in the recycling process for various types of plastic
waste and most often takes place downstream of the sorting phase. Polypropylene products, for example, are fully
sorted before being ground. But when processing PVC waste, Paprec grinds the material before sending it to the
optical sorting machines. A large cylinder fitted with knives turns the materials at different speeds, depending on
the nature of the product and chops it against a fixed part fitted with contra-rotating blades. A perforated grille in the
bottom of the machine allows granules reduced to the desired size (no larger than 10 mm) to fall through. Dust
removal systems also allow the fine fraction (smaller than 1 mm) to be extracted, thus improving the quality of the
soon-to-be-regenerated product.

OPTICAL WASTE SORTING

Used today by Paprec Group to process flows of PVC or PET household plastic waste, optical sorting is fully
automated. It enables separation and pollution removal to be refined, optimising the plastic waste recycling process
and, via capillary action, ensuring a higher final quality.

 For PVC, this first waste recovery phase is divided into two stages. The recently ground material, with any metal
removed, is first placed on a conveyor belt, taken to a suction system and finally sent to a hopper whose function
is to feed the optical waste sorting machine's hermetic chamber. Cameras, set to run a target program, analyse the
spectrum of the material spread across a grid. In this way, non-conforming material fragments (such as door or
window seals) are identified and then blown out by a system of air nozzles. Two special cameras are also
responsible for checking all sides of the granules to identify any coloured materials, which, once detected, will be
ejected into a dedicated channel. The conforming material is redirected into a second channel, recovered, put in
big-bags (handled by forklift trucks) and stored in silos, so that it can be homogenised prior to being extruded. In
some cases, the material is automatically sent to extrusion machines by suction or mechanical distribution.

 As for PET bottles that have had any pollution removed, these are first sent to a pre-washing cylinder, the purpose
of which is to remove labels from the flow of bottles, using cold water. They then all move to a double bouncing
screen (two sloping vibrating belts that typically separate hollow bodies from flat bodies), the labels are blown to a
waste storage area and the recyclable waste plastic bottles are then routed to three optical sensors that identify the
colour and nature of the material. Undesirable fractions are then sent through again to provide the best possible
sort. We should also note that this automated plastic sorting phase on whole bottles is fully controlled by Paprec
Group operators.
 FLOTATION WASTE SORTING
Another automatic waste treatment process, sorting by flotation, can also be considered as a first-stage washing of
materials. Let's look again at PET plastic bottles: once they have had any coloured or undesirable materials
removed, the flow of bottles is split in two to feed underwater grinders, which then reduce the bottles to flakes. They
are then mixed with water to facilitate transport to the flotation separation phase.
 


The ground material is immersed in a large tank filled with a static liquid (a mixture of water and various additives,
such as chlorine and calcium), which separates the PET (which sinks because it has a specific gravity greater than
1) from the plastic tops (which float because they have a specific gravity of less than 1). We should note that for
this type of waste sorting to work, recyclable waste must be ground and reduced to a size less than 10 mm but also
that the difference in density between the materials to be separated must be at least 0.2 g per cm3.



This sorting method is also used for a large number of plastic materials other than PET. Thus, for example, products
in the mixture made of polyethylene, polypropylene or other miscellaneous ground plastics have many of the
pollutants they might contain (such as metal particles) removed and are thus purified to make their future
regeneration easier.

DENSITIMETRIC WASTE SORTING

To improve the recovery of plastic waste, Paprec also sorts several types of bulk waste (such as mixtures of
polypropylene and polyamide collected from industrial companies) using densimetric tables in its plastic recycling
factories, the purpose of which is to sort the plastic by separating the heavy fraction of materials from the light
fraction by means of a dry method. They are placed on a plate (vibrating, inclined and fitted with fans) which sucks
up the lighter products and evacuates the heavy fraction in contact with the plate.

WASHING
Today, sources of top-quality materials are drying up. To recover new quantities and innovate in the field of waste
treatment, Paprec has installed a washing line intended to purify rigid polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene and
PVC products (for example, post-industrial waste bins at the end of their life, stretch films, worn-out big-bags, car
bumpers and various post-consumption plastics such as physiological saline solution vials). This machine, a
combination of several types of equipment (a shredder, grinder and centrifuge) specially designed to improve the
recycling of plastic, operates in the following way :

 At the head of the line, a shredder transforms plastic waste into fractions, which are then routed to 10 m3. washing
tanks filled with cold water containing no additives. The aim is then to strip out unwanted products, specifically
adhesive tape, labels and dust, or solid pollutants such as sand and stones. After immersion, the materials are
removed to a horizontal centrifuge where the friction between pieces of product removes impurities or, more
accurately expels them through a grid with 3 mm holes. Then, only the structure of the plastic remains and this is
sent to an underwater grinding phase. Once that stage is complete, the material goes to a second centrifuge, a
vertical one this time, where the friction from knives removes any final residues. The products are then spun and
dried by compression and are then ready for shredding, grinding again and baling (or being put into big-bags).

 At Paprec, an automatic washing line is also used to refine plastic bottle recycling and, more particularly, waste
sorting and the removal of pollution from PET. Actually, after being ground under water, the plastic bottle flakes for
recycling are removed from the liquid tank by a screw whose function is to take them to a friction washing cylinder.
Like in a washing machine or in the washing line detailed above, the flakes rub against each other to remove
impurities. Another screw then pours the PET into a rinsing tank identical to the pre-washing one (see section on
plastic sorting by flotation), but one which uses hot water; the purpose of this is to complete the purification of the
product. The rinsed PET is then spun in a centrifuge and hot-air-dried. Once dried, the flakes are then sent to a
vibrating screen, to arrive at a final particle size. At that stage, the flakes meeting the specification are pneumatically
transferred to the part of the line called conditioning, another phase in waste treatment.

Summary
The environmental consequences of plastic solid waste are visible in the ever-
increasing levels of global plastic pollution both on land and in the oceans. But
although there are important economic and environmental incentives for plastics
recycling, end-of-life treatment options for plastic solid waste are in practice quite
limited. Presorting of plastics before recycling is costly and time-intensive, recycling
requires large amounts of energy and often leads to low-quality polymers, and
current technologies cannot be applied to many polymeric materials. Recent research
points the way toward chemical recycling methods with lower energy requirements,
compatibilization of mixed plastic wastes to avoid the need for sorting, and expanding
recycling technologies to traditionally nonrecyclable polymers.

Abstract
Due to the depleting fossil fuel sources such as crude oil, natural gas, and
coal, the present rate of economic growth is unsustainable. Therefore, many
sources of renewable energy have been exploited, but the potentials of some
other sources such as plastics waste are yet to be fully developed as full scale
economic activity. Development and modernization have brought about a
huge increase in the production of all kinds of plastic commodities, which
directly or indirectly generate waste due to their wide range of applications
coupled with their versatility of types and relatively low cost. The current
scenario of the plastic recycling technology is reviewed in this paper. The
aim is to provide the reader with an in-depth analysis with respect to the
pyrolysis of plastic waste as obtained in the current recycling technology. As
the calorific value of the plastics is comparable to that of hydrocarbon fuel,
production of fuel from plastic waste would provide a good opportunity to
utilize the waste as a better alternative to dumpsites. Different techniques of
converting plastics waste into fuel including thermal and catalytic pyrolysis,
microwave-assisted pyrolysis and fluid catalytic cracking are discussed in
detail. The co-pyrolysis of plastics waste with biomass is also highlighted.
Thus, an attempt was made to address the problem of plastic waste disposal
as a partial replacement of the depleting fossil fuel with the hope of
promoting a sustainable environment.

Plastic solid waste (PSW) of polymers (like: high

density polyethylene (HDPE), low density polyethylene (LDPE), Nylon etc.)
is creating new challenges, which are major research concerns. A sharp rise
has been observed in production of different products based on different
plastic material. This huge increase in plastic commodities also increases the
waste generation thus creating new challenges. Some researchers have
reported work in the field of PSW management with different recycling
methods. This paper compiles the different research work done by
researchers in this field of recycling and progress in recovery and
management of PSW by different methods (i.e. Primary, secondary, tertiary
and quaternary) along with the various identification/separation techniques.
Further, this paper reviews the effect on properties of virgin and recycled
HDPE/LDPE/Nylon PSW with different reinforcements like sand, natural
fibre, hemp fibre, metal powder etc.
Highlights
•
E-waste is the fastest growing waste on the planet and only 15% of it is
recycled.

•
Plastics constitute 20% of e-waste.

•
Recycling of e-waste plastics is hampered due to presence of
brominated flame retardants.

•
Traditional processes are proving to be insufficient for e-waste
plastics recycling.

•
Microfactories can convert e-waste plastics into value added products.

Electronic waste (e-waste) is the fastest growing waste on the planet, with
an annual growth rate of 3–4%. It is estimated that e-waste generation will
reach 52.2 million tonnes per annum by 2021. Presently, only 15% of e-
waste is recycled. One of the most significant constituents of e-waste is
plastics, accounting for almost for 20% of it. Despite several technological
developments, their recycling is largely hindered due to presence of flame
retardants. In this paper, we review some of the notable existing and
emerging technologies such as microfactories being employed for e-waste
plastics. Furthermore, we present their limitations, advantages and
potential for future development.

Graphical abstract