Extrusion International USA 1-2022

37 Extrusion International 1/2022 The result: the construction of a new fully automated mixed waste sort- ing plant consisting of new facilities for plastics reprocessing and paper sorting, as well as the elimination of the separate plastics collection in that region. Previously collected separately, plastics are now also dis- posed of in the grey bin and recov- ered in the new facility. As a conse- quence, only the plant’s residues are transported to the waste to energy plant and used for the production of electricity and energy for remote heating systems. In short, the materi- als discarded by the municipality are turned into value again in the most optimal way. In late 2014, the plant building proj- ect began with Sutco Recycling Tech- nik chosen as a plant supplier for IVAR’s combined residual waste and paper sorting plant. Sutco, in turn, selected TOMRA Recycling as project partner for sorting equipment. Since the new facility started operation in January 2019, 22 of TOMRA’s state- of-the-art AUTOSORT ® sorting units ef fi ciently andeffectively sort plastics (PET, PS, LDPE, HDPE, PP) and paper (mixed paper, cardboard, beverage cartons) out of the residual waste (grey bins) collected curbside. In ad- dition, metals (aluminum, steel) are recovered from the residual waste. “Wehavebeendelighted tobegiven the opportunity to consult with IVAR in the planning of the new plant, provide our latest sensor-based sort- ing equipment and accompany such an exciting and game-changing proj- ect,”, comments Oliver Lambertz, TOMRA Recycling’s Vice President and Head of Business Development. By combining the most advanced processes, plant equipment and sort- ing technologies, the waste sorting plant has set the following targets: sort nearly all PE, PP, PS or PET plastics suited for (mechanical) recycling; sort 95% of the fractions identi fi ed; and realize purity rates of 95 to 98%. From mixed waste to recyclable mono fractions The residual waste generated by the municipalities IVAR serves contains a large amount of valuable and recy- clable materials, which in their pur- est and homogenous form, can be further processed, recycled, and re- introduced into the market as high- quality recyclates. Today, IVAR pro- cesses 40 tons of MSWper hour from which paper, plastics, metals, and residues are separated in numerous steps: Presorting Once the collected material is fed into the plant, items > 350mm are sorted by a fi nger screen and shred- ded into smaller pieces before two drum screens separate the material into three target sizes: 0-60mm; 60- 150mm; and 150-320mm. In a sec- ond step, TOMRA’s AUTOSORT ma- chines recover 90% of the mid-sized (60-150 mm) and the large (150-320 mm) plastic fractions before they ex- tract mixed paper. Finally, magnets and eddy currents remove both the non-ferrous and ferrous metals. Plastics and paper recovery After plastics have been presorted, they are further sorted by material type. First, ballistic separators sepa- rate plastic fi lm and rigid plastics. Af- terwards, 14 AUTOSORT ® machines undertake the separation of rigid plastics into PP, HDPE, PS, PET and create a clean fraction of LDPE plastic fi lm. To further increase purity levels, these clean material fractions under- go a second sorting step, also carried out by AUTOSORT ® machines, to re- move the remaining contaminants. The high-quality PS and PET end fractions are then packed into ma- terial-type-speci fi c bales and sent to different mechanical recycling plants in Europe. LDPE, HDPE and PP are washed, dried and pelletized in the Forus plant and sold as pellets. When starting operations in 2019, IVAR set an overall goal to recover nearly all plastic types (PE, PP, PS, PET) and a more concrete target to realize purity rates of 95 to 96% in LDPE, PP, HDPE, PS and PET sorting. Thanks to the ultraprecise sorting machines, the plant’s goal soon be- came reality, with purity rates of up to 98% achieved. As for paper, sort- ing studies have shown that more than 85% of all beverage cartons in the residual household waste have been successfully separated from the household waste stream. A new life for plastics After extraction of recyclables from the infeed material, the sorted frac- tions undergo an extensive recycling process on-site. Whereas homog- enous PET and PS bales as well as both ferrous and non-ferrous met- als are sold to European recyclers, Polyole fi ns (LDPE, HDPE, and PP) are shredded into fl akes, hot washed, dried and pelletized on-site before these are sold as industrial commodi- ties. Thousands of tons of PE and PP recovered from MSW have been di-