Abstract
Source separation experiments in some selected commercial and industrial establishments showed that the individual establishment participating in the sortering, had a yearly generation of polyethylene (PEL) foil waste of 0.4-2.8 t, corresponding to 7-168 kg/employee each year. There were no problems of separating PEL foil from other waste components. Difficulties consisted in removing attached contaminants (labels and tape) and there was a general positive attitude by employees concerning participation in a permanent source separation process and even in improving the sorting procedure.
The regenerated plastics showed satisfactory properties for applications in refuse sack production, but the degree of contamination of the input material was generally higher than acceptable for an extrusion process. Extensive plastic recycling based on source separation of consumer waste would require mechanical wet refining/sorting before regeneration to prevent frequent clogging of extruder filters. However, refining might be omitted for wastes from a few careful selected establishments. Based on the present price situation for PEL, mechanical baling of plastic wastes before transportation is necessary.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.