Recycling Today’s Plastics Recycling Conference: Sorting Stations

Automation and technology are beginning to gain ground in the difficult race to make the recycling of collected mixed plastics possible, according to a trio of panelists at Recycling Today’s Plastics Recycling Conference, held in late June in Chicago.

In a session entitled, “On the Job: Sorting Trends, Challenges and Applications,” moderator Lisa White of SP Recycling Corp., Atlanta, offered a presentation on the challenges faced by processors of plastic containers collected through municipal recycling programs.

Single-stream collection “decreases the cost of collection, plain and simple,” White acknowledged. The challenge, though, is to then separate materials to produce quality shipments of both paper and plastic.

White described some of the newest sorting equipment as “automated human eyes with arms,” and noted that SP Recycling has been using optical equipment made by MSS (a subsidiary of CP Manufacturing, National City, Calif.) to increase its sorting accuracy while reducing the use of manual labor.

“This technology allows SP to handle more and different types of tons,” said White, who added that the “initial capital investments save money in the long run.”

Another recycler of municipal materials that has made a similar commitment is TFC Recycling, Chesapeake, Va. The company’s Chris Pulley remarked, “TFC has made a total commitment to optical sorting.”

TFC is in the process of converting each of its four main materials recovery facilities (MRFs) into single-stream facilities using optical sorting. Pulley used a series of slides to “walk” attendees through TFC facilities in Chester and Chesapeake, Va. Both facilities use mechanical screens and optical sorting before leading to high-volume baling machines such as two-ram machines made by IPS Balers Inc., Baxley, Ga., or Bollegraaf extrusion balers installed by Van Dyk Baler Corp., Stamford, Conn.

Darren Arola of MBA Polymers, Richmond, Calif., offered a look at how technology is addressing a different mixed plastics stream: the shredded plastics produced by the destruction of electronic goods and appliances.

MBA has set up plants in China and Austria (and a pilot plant in California) that use a series of mechanical and chemical sorting steps to produce plastics flakes, pellets and extruded products that can be used as secondary resins by manufacturers of finished goods.

“Closing the loop is a priority for OEMs,” noted Arola, who noted that MBA is able to sell most of the secondary plastics products it makes in China to manufacturers in the same province.

The challenge for all plastics recyclers, Arola noted, is meeting the narrow purity specifications required for plastic manufacturing applications. The marketing of secondary resins “can be almost as difficult as the sorting,” he stated.

Recycling Today’s 2006 Plastics Recycling Conference & Trade Show was held June 25-27 in Chicago. Next year’s conference will be June 10-12, 2007, in Orlando.