Plastics Industry Association releases results from its End-of-Life Vehicles Project

The Plastics Industry Association (PLASTICS), Washington, has released results from Phase I of its End-of-Life Vehicle (ELV) Recycling Demonstration Project. The results demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of collecting and reprocessing certain plastic auto parts so they can be put back to use in automotive applications or reborn as new products, the association says. Work continues through Phases II and III of the project.

“The ELV project is one of many demonstration projects that PLASTICS is leading to develop long-term, sustainable ways to give plastics a new life through recycling,” says the association’s President and CEO William R. Carteaux. “These initial results are a promising indicator of the potential value that exists in recycled plastics from sources that haven’t been tapped yet.”

For the PLASTICS-led ELV project, 19 companies and organizations set out to create a model for how to create new sources of recycled plastics from old, scrap automobiles. The project focused specifically on plastic car bumpers, chosen for their homogeneity of material and for their relative abundance.

Recyclers and processors participating in the project were able to convert bumpers made of thermoplastic polyolefins (TPO)—a broad category of durable plastic materials—into raw plastic materials that possessed many of the same qualities as virgin TPO, PLASTICS says.

“While the recycled material could not directly replace virgin TPO in a high-demand application, we found that the material was very strong and could be used for less-intensive applications on vehicles or serve as a feedstock for products in other sectors,” says Kendra Martin, PLASTICS’ vice president of industry affairs. “These results are extremely encouraging for our ultimate goal—to create a large-scale recovery model for automotive plastics—and marks an important step in the plastics industry’s work to make sure all plastic materials—including bumpers—are put to their highest and best use.”

A full copy of the report is available at http://plasticsindustry.org/sites/plastics.dev/files/PLASTICS_ELVPhaseITechnologyPackage_Jan2018.pdf. To learn more about the ELV project and PLASTICS’ other sustainability programs, visit www.plasticsindustry.org/supply-chain/recycling-sustainability.