1 Chair of Waste Processing Technology and Waste Management, Montanuniversitaet, Leoben, Austria.
2 Chair of Mineral Processing, Montanuniversitaet, Leoben, Austria.
Waste Manag Res. 2018 May;36(5):445-453. doi: 10.1177/0734242X18764294. Epub 2018 Mar 24.
In recent years, an increasing number of studies have revealed that plastics and their components (e.g. plasticisers) pose an environmental risk. However, it is hard to imagine how our industrialised society could do without these materials, since the fields of application are manifold. One possible approach to tackle this mounting problem is the implementation of a comprehensive and well-functioning collection and recycling system. An international comparison shows that only a small proportion of the total plastics in circulation is collected and recycled. The investigations conducted under the present research project, 'Plastic Reborn', focused on both identification and analysis of the discharge paths of polyolefin-rich waste streams, under the Austrian waste management system. Another objective was determining the utilisation potential of the output fractions of these polyolefin-rich waste streams, generated from a wet mechanical processing pilot plant. Experiments have shown that the polyolefins are successfully separated from the waste streams and that a total polyolefin potential of 429,000 t y remains unexploited in the Austrian waste management system. Thus, these separated plastic fractions can make a significant contribution to the implementation of the European Circular Economy Directive. The residual fractions meet the legal and company-specific requirements for their use as solid recovered fuels in co-combustion plants.
近年来，越来越多的研究表明塑料及其成分（例如增塑剂）对环境构成风险。然而，如果没有这些材料，我们的工业化社会很难想象如何运作，因为它们的应用领域非常广泛。解决这个日益严重的问题的一种可能方法是实施全面且运作良好的收集和回收系统。国际比较表明，只有一小部分流通中的塑料得到了收集和回收。本研究项目“塑料重生”下进行的调查集中在识别和分析奥地利用于管理系统下富含聚烯烃的废物流的排放路径，另一个目标是确定这些富含聚烯烃的废物流的输出部分的利用潜力，这些废物流是从小型湿式机械加工中产生的。实验表明，聚烯烃已成功地从废物流中分离出来，奥地利用于管理系统中仍有 429,000 吨聚烯烃未被开发利用。因此，这些分离的塑料部分可以为实施欧洲循环经济指令做出重大贡献。残留部分符合作为固体回收燃料在联合燃烧厂中使用的法律和公司特定要求。
