The ALL-IN for Plastics Recycling (PLASTin) project started last spring. PLASTin is the first outcome of the 4Recycling innovation ecosystem targeted at solving the plastic challenge.
PLASTin was established to support the plastic industry actors to develop systemic, and environmentally optimized recycling concepts.
This is achieved with the new knowledge gained about recycling processes and technologies such as sorting, pre-treatment, mechanical and chemical treatment and reject handling. System-level understanding enables companies improved business opportunities internationally.
PLASTin explores particularly challenging plastics streams including plastics from liquid packaging board (LPB), and plastics from waste electronics (WEEE).
Customer acceptance and regulatory aspects are the key drivers for realising the opportunities.
The two-year project has progressed rapidly. The first results are already visible, says Professor Mika Horttanainen, Scientific Director of PLASTin from LUT University.
The future plastic waste material flows has been studied by VTT and the report will be published soon. LUT has studied the life-cycle environmental impacts of different recovery options (energy, mechanical recycling and chemical recycling) of liquid board packaging repulping reject and especially plastics. The study has been conducted as a master’s thesis and a scientific article has been prepared and submitted to review process.
International co-operation has been started by collecting information on LPB recycling in European countries from collaboration partners abroad.
The co-operation between companies and research institutes has worked excellently from the beginning, says Tiina Malin from Kuusakoski Oy, the chairman of the project Steering Group.
“Sharing knowledge and expertise between partners, producing new information in collaboration and learning together will ensure that we reach the high goals set for the project”, she adds.
PLASTin will continue until next spring, when we will tell you more interesting results. This newsletter describes the first remarks and results of PLASTin’s regulatory study.
PLASTin is a Business Finland funded co-innovation project.
The industrial partners, called as core partners, include BMH Technology Oy, Borealis Polymers Oy, Fortum Waste Solutions Oy and Kuusakoski Oy.
The industrial partners, called as collaborative partners, include Neste Oyj, Griffin Refineries Oy, Rosk’n Roll Oy, Muovipoli Oy and Suomen Uusiomuovi Oy.
The research organisations taking part in the consortium are Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (LUT), Tampere University (TUNI), VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) and Arcada University of Applied Sciences (Arcada).
Project is coordinated by CLIC Innovation.
More information: Pirjo Kaivos, pirjo.kaivos@clicinnovation.fi, +358 40 540 1796.