The Dutch waste management company Renewi has officially opened a new sorting plant for rigid plastics. Located in Acht within the city of Eindhoven, the Netherlands, the plant is to sort, grind and wash around 24,000 tonnes of plastic waste each year, Renewi announced. It replaces an older facility with a capacity of 12,000 tonnes.
Vivianne Heijnen, the Dutch State Secretary for Infrastructure and Water Management, and Rik Thijs, Alderman for Climate, Energy, Land and Greening at the Municipality of Eindhoven, attended the opening ceremony in early March.
Renewi noted that rigid plastics were used in a wide variety of products, including children's toys, garden furniture, electronics, cars, buckets, crates and containers. The new plant would allow Renewi to recycle not only separately collected plastics, such as a hard plastic mix from recycling centres, but also more contaminated material from construction and demolition waste.
The plant will sort the plastics into up to 18 different fractions. Polypropylene (PP) and polyethene (PE) would be the main streams. The addition of sorting and cleaning steps and use of advanced technology meant that the purity rate for both types of plastic reached at least 95 per cent, increasing the number of high-quality products in which this recycled material can be used, Renewi pointed out.
Renewi said that the simultaneous sorting of the waste into recyclable monostreams limits contamination of the regrind. A spokesperson for the Dutch plant equipment supplier Bollegraaf confirmed that the company was the supplier for Renewi's new mechanical sorting installation.
A panel discussion also took place at the opening ceremony. At this event, Renewi said that it backed the introduction of minimum recycled content targets for products by law to stabilise and increase demand for recycled plastics.
