Iranpolymer/ Baspar The Japan-based engineering plastics manufacturer will start offering the service from March 2024, allowing its customers to re-compound industrial waste materials generated during the production process.
Polyplastics has announced a new sustainability initiative for recycling engineering plastics called Duracircle. The company manufactures specialty plastics including acetal copolymer (POM), polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) and liquid crystal polymer (LCP), with applications in the medical, automotive, and electrical and electronic industries. According to figures by Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE), in 2017 only 300,000 tones out of 3 million tonnes of waste from electrical and electronic equipment were destined for recycling at specialised European facilities.
The recycling service is expected to start operations by March 2024. Polyplastics will collect pre-consumer materials arising from the production processes of its customers, including non-conforming materials and hot runners. It will then mechanically recycle them and transform them into high-quality pellets ready to be re-compounded into new products at the customers’ plants.
“The Duracircle re-compounding service is a clear departure from conventional recycling,” Polyplastics said in a statement. “It was named ‘re-compounding’ with the aim of application in horizontal recycling, which is considered difficult with engineering plastics since they need to be of the highest quality.”
The company said it will use pre-consumer materials as raw feedstocks in order to more easily control their traceability and thereby ensure the recycled material is not contaminated. “We are developing projects with post-industrial recycling processes at our customers’ [facilities], so we can mantain traceability. Potentially in the future we are looking at collection operations from multiple customers/factories or segments. In that case, we recognise that the mechanism for traceability is a separate issue for consideration,” a Polyplastics spokesperson told Sustainable Plastics.
Other features of the Duracircle re-compounding service will include quality assurance, technical services, and facilitation in obtaining applicable certifications.
Polyplastics said it will expand the recycling service beyond Japan, without stating to which markets. It operates plants in its home country, as well as China, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Germany. Going forward, the company also shared plans to extend its recycling technologies to post-consumer materials.
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