For over ten years, the owner-managed company Inoplast Kunststoff GmbH has specialized in the recycling of a wide range of plastics. The environmentally conscious family business focuses on the purchase and sale of plastic waste, regranulates and regrind but also offers its customers contract processing. 15 employees take care of the entire recycling process: from the purchase of plastic waste, through professional processing, to the sale of the high-quality plastic regranulate. And with success: At the end of June 2019, the operation was significantly expanded. A production hall, warehouses and an office building were built on 10,000 m2 in Windischeschenbach, Bavaria. The course is set for the future.
Shredding tear-proof airbags without a problem
 |
| Material before the recycling process |
Before the actual recycling process, the delivered plastic waste is checked for impurities as well as foreign objects and, if necessary, pre-sorted according to type. By doing so, Inoplast can guarantee the purity and high quality of the regranulate.
The material recycled at Inoplast reflects almost the entire spectrum of plastics. For example, polyethylenes such as HDPE and LDPE, polypropylene hard plastics, but also many other polyamide polyester-based fibers and textiles in various shapes and sizes are recycled. In the past, the complex recycling of PA airbag laminate posed a great challenge at Inoplast. To protect vehicle occupants in accidents, the material is extremely tear-resistant and therefore very difficult to shred. With WEIMA, the Bavarian recycling company finally found a competent partner to jointly find a solution for this technically demanding application.
As an experienced developer and manufacturer of a wide range of shredders for the most diverse materials and tasks, WEIMA offers comprehensive testing and development capabilities. After joint test trials in the show room of the shredding specialist, an individual solution could finally be developed. Two specially manufactured WEIMA WLK 15 Jumbo single-shaft shredders are now expanding the fleet of machines at Inoplast Kunststoff GmbH.
 |
| WEIMA WLK 15 Jumbo |
WLK 15 Jumbo: High-throughput heavyweight
The machines of the WLK Jumbo series have been setting standards for years in terms of stability, functionality and throughput capacity. A large number of sizes and options guarantee individual customer solutions for almost all applications. The WLK 15 Jumbo is available with two different drive variants: with a robust electromechanical drive or a flexible hydraulic drive. After extensive material tests, the high-throughput hydraulic drive was ultimately chosen. It is particularly insensitive to foreign materials and provides high torques without currency peaks and can be used in flexibly adjustable speed ranges.
Extensive material tests in the show room for an optimal adaptation
In close cooperation with Inoplast, the equipment of the shredder was modified and optimally adapted to the application. With a working width of 1,500 mm and a rotor diameter of a whopping 500 mm, the WLK 15 Jumbo shreds not only airbags but all kinds of plastic waste with ease. The shredding of polyamide airbag laminate requires a particularly precise cutting gap. The F-rotor, specially developed for shredding films and fibers, ensures optimum cutting geometry with maximum throughput and energy efficiency.
Economic AND Ecological
 |
The raw material is fed into the hopper via a tilting system. After shredding, a conveyor belt with an integrated magnetic drum for FE-impurity separation discharges the shredded material from the machine onto the feed belt for the extrusion line. There the material is melted, homogenised and, if necessary, degassed. The melted plastic is cooled in strands in a water bath, cut into the desired granule size and then dried. The resulting regranulate can finally be returned to the raw-material cycle. The customers of Inoplast Kunststoff GmbH are thus able to significantly reduce the proportion of new plastic in production and replace it with recycled material. Consequently, new products can be manufactured economically and in a resource-saving manner. And life-saving airbags are given a second life.
