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Recycling of Plastics
Recycling of Plastics
INTRODUCTION
but also reduces the pollution of the environment. Different processes for
recycling of plastics are described in this topic. The method of recovery of plastics
for their indestructible nature. It is not surprising not learn that the overall growth of
solid wastes. Presently it is estimated that the generation of solid waste per capita
recyclable waste is collected by the rag pickers at source from the garbage
being 0.92 Mt and imports were 0.52 Mt) Besides 0.13 Mt plastics wastes was
reprocessed (amounted to 0.53 Mt) in India during 1993. This, the total
consumption of plastics in India during 1993 was around 2 Mt. It is predicted that by
the year 2000, consumption of virgin plastics will be 3.3 Mt and reprocessed plastics
involved and around 20000 units all over the country are engaged at present in
waste will be available by 2000. The polymer - wise share of plastics waste is
PVC - 45%, LDPE - 25%, HDPE-20%\ PP - 7.6% and others like PS-2.4%.
pollution of air, water and land, and how to conserve raw materials. The planned
currently believed to be the most acceptable route to solve the above problems in the
long run.
requirement of plastics raw materials and reduce the import of plastic raw materials
in the country.
Figure 1 shows the flow of materials from the polymer producer until
it reaches the waste dump. This shows that primary as well as secondary raw
materials are absorbed, resulting from in-plant recycling and reclaiming. Plastics
reclaimers obtain their raw materials in the form of wastes from polymer producer,
Polymer Producer
Reprocessing
Commercial
Reclalmers Plastic Processors and Industrial
Waste
Reprocessing
Repeated Reuse
recovered raw materials. There are three processes available for recycling of
plastics.
a) Direct recycling
b) Indirect recycling
This would imply the use of the recovered or salvaged material for the
c) Thermal recycling
c) Cleanliness, because contaminants such as dust, stray matter, oil etc. would
shown in Fig. 2
Virgin
Material
Processing Good
Machine Product Product
Processing
Cooling Waste Rejects
Regular
Granules Rechip
Extrude Recompound
lies in remixing or reextruding the rechipped material, so that it may then be cut
always been a regular part of industrial practice and is one of the main reasons from
economical point of view for plastics with respect to other materials. In-plant
recycling is easy, the nature of the material is known an any defective products can
be internally recycled in the works provided that mixing of different wastes does not
occur.
wastes for the manufacture of products having a less demanding specification than
that of the original product. In the case of plastics wastes the importance of
then be compacted into granules and fed to a processing machine for the production
of the final product. The general sequence can be represented by flow diagram as
shown in fig. 3.
Waste
Material
Granulator or
Shredders
Compounding
Ingredients Mixture
Extruder
Regular
Granules
Processing
Machine
Product
plastics:
Incineration
(around 7000 C) in the presence of the requisite amount of oxygen. Since the plastics
present in waste consist mainly of carbon and hydrogen, the product obtained after
with generation of steam and the output to be controlled to suit customer demand.
combustion for long term use, the incineration may be a favored and economical
method to dispose of all the plastics exclusive of PVC from the incinerator to
safeguard it from the problems associated with evolution of HCI, the other plastics
could be readily utilized as a high energy fuel, because they have considerably
Pyrolysis
products formed may be used for producing fuels, energy and primary chemicals.
satisfactory, because there is not yet, sufficient information about the reactions
which take place during pyrolysis. It has, therefore, not yet been possible to control
Hydrolysis
hydrolysis. The breaking down of plastics into their constituent raw materials
by hydrolysis, is, of course, possible if the plastic contains that groups which can
plastics which can be hydrolysed are all those made by condensation. Whether
reaction of the water molecule at the point of linkage with the starting materials (this
is the reverse of the reaction that produced the polymer originally), so that the
starting materials used originally are recovered directly. The groups of plastics
mentioned above as being hydrolysable are all resistant to hydrolysis under normal
Depending on the types of plastics waste, the processes available for the
polymer producer as well as from the plastic processor. The waste is homogeneous
in nature unless it is allowed to mix with other types of plastics. Recovery at this
during polymer production or plastics processing and blend them with virgin
material. If these waste are allowed to become mixed and/or contaminated, they may
be of little value and find their way into industrial wastes. Where such wastes are
available in bulk quantities, it may be more economical to sort and grade them and
sell to reclaimers.
of the five most important thermoplastics -LDPE, HDPE, PP, PS and PVC. A scheme
of separation for the five components has been shown based on the sink-float
method. This scheme relies on the use of fluids differing in composition and density.
washing throughly with running water to eliminate dust and external contamination.
CONCLUSION
quality and not higher in cost than the virgin raw material. These two constraints
contaminated, while at the end of the user chain, the reverse will be true. At every
waste, for the purpose of recycling and a rise in the cost of reclaiming.
REFERENCES
1) Engineering Chemistry
R. Gopalan
D. Venkappayya
S. Nagarajan
2) Organic Chemistry