Periodic Reporting for period 2 - INCREACE (INCREACE - INCREASING RECYCLED CONTENT IN ADDED VALUE PRODUCTS FOR A RESILIENT AND DIGITIZED CIRCULAR ECONOMY)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-12-01 al 2025-05-31
The European Strategy for Plastics, part of the CEAP, seeks to increase recycled plastics in new products. Currently, value-added products have minimal recycled content due to technical, material, and societal challenges. INCREACE addresses these issues with interdisciplinary solutions across the plastics recycling value chain in 5 business cases. 17 Partners collaborate on data-driven sorting, combined recycling technologies, and evaluate ecological and economic impacts. INCREACE assesses regulatory changes and contributes to standardization, policy-making and design guides to boost collection and recycling rates.
Development and testing of advanced sorting strategies (e.g. product-type based clustering and in-line state-of-the art sensor based sorting) to increase volume of recycled plastics and the yield or purity, impacting the quality of PCRs.
Testing of high-throughput, offline characterization protocol combining rheology, DSC, FTIR, XRF, and ash-testing to efficiently distinguish promising from non-promising plastic waste fractions.
Creation of Material Flow Analysis tool to simulate the behaviour of plastic waste streams under different sorting processes.
Deployment of GreenToken system for modeling PCR material flows and digital chain of custody simulation generating audit-ready documentation aligned with certification schemes.
Selection of feedstocks for BCs and production of small scale high quality recyclates via dissolution based recycling as well as preparation of compounding activities for mechanical recycled materials. Development of a cascading pathways for LHA feedstock combining all 3 recycling technoligies.
Overview and suggestion for EU- standardization and certification activities.
Development of a Recyclability Assessment Tool allowing analysis and improvent throughout the design phase.
Set up of LifeCycleAssessment Scenarios and evalutation of different recycling routes.
Positive results from rPP streams after decontamination and compounding; chemically recycled rPP for BC2 was prototyped and tested. rPP was successfully molded into ESD pallets with satisfactory results at the demonstrator level (BC3). Promising recycled PC-GF10 and PC/ABS have been identified for EEE components (BC4).
No leachable substances were released in cytotoxic concentrations for any of the samples studied, they also showed low concentrations of BPA.
The results of the co-creative design reserach on improving consumer acceptance of recycled plastics in EEE and divestment of WEEE will be used to develop guidelines and frameworks.
The regulatory analysis introduces advanced theoretical concepts for policy mix analysis beyond EEE. It provides an overview of the distribution of requirements and incentives across various value chain steps, covering key policy domains, including chemical and safety legislation, product legislation, and waste legislation. Backed by ecological and economic assessments it enables comparisons of environmental and economic performance of plastic recycling routes, addressing significant (data) gaps in existing techno-economic assessments (TEAs).
The quality of recycling framework is illustrated for rPP, matching quality of input (waste) and output (BC) based on different recycling configurations. The CE-framework is beeing operationalized to predict availabilty of secondary materials across sectors and Europe.
Testing of high-throughput, offline characterization protocol combining rheology, DSC, FTIR, XRF, and ash-testing to efficiently distinguish promising from non-promising plastic waste fractions.
Creation of Material Flow Analysis tool to simulate the behaviour of plastic waste streams under different sorting processes.
Deployment of GreenToken system for modeling PCR material flows and digital chain of custody simulation generating audit-ready documentation aligned with certification schemes.
Selection of feedstocks for BCs and production of small scale high quality recyclates via dissolution based recycling as well as preparation of compounding activities for mechanical recycled materials. Development of a cascading pathways for LHA feedstock combining all 3 recycling technoligies.
Overview and suggestion for EU- standardization and certification activities.
Development of a Recyclability Assessment Tool allowing analysis and improvent throughout the design phase.
Set up of LifeCycleAssessment Scenarios and evalutation of different recycling routes.
Positive results from rPP streams after decontamination and compounding; chemically recycled rPP for BC2 was prototyped and tested. rPP was successfully molded into ESD pallets with satisfactory results at the demonstrator level (BC3). Promising recycled PC-GF10 and PC/ABS have been identified for EEE components (BC4).
No leachable substances were released in cytotoxic concentrations for any of the samples studied, they also showed low concentrations of BPA.
The results of the co-creative design reserach on improving consumer acceptance of recycled plastics in EEE and divestment of WEEE will be used to develop guidelines and frameworks.
The regulatory analysis introduces advanced theoretical concepts for policy mix analysis beyond EEE. It provides an overview of the distribution of requirements and incentives across various value chain steps, covering key policy domains, including chemical and safety legislation, product legislation, and waste legislation. Backed by ecological and economic assessments it enables comparisons of environmental and economic performance of plastic recycling routes, addressing significant (data) gaps in existing techno-economic assessments (TEAs).
The quality of recycling framework is illustrated for rPP, matching quality of input (waste) and output (BC) based on different recycling configurations. The CE-framework is beeing operationalized to predict availabilty of secondary materials across sectors and Europe.
- New clustering and in-line sensor-based sorting show great potential to reduce waste heterogeneity and improve recyclate quality. The high-throughput characterisation protocol enables efficient screening of plastic fractions while the associated MFA tool provides a practical way to visualise how different input clusters behave across sorting stages yet we still need understand how factors such as darkness and (filler) additive content influence these efficiencies.
- dissolution-based recycling presents promising potential for obtaining high-quality recyclates by effectively removing impurities and harmful substances, amended by chemical pyrolysis, currently unused side streams turn into pyrolises oil.
- By integrating different recycling technologies the Recyclability Assessment Tool enables quantitative assessment beyond design guidelines.
- rPP properly sorted and cleaned could be successfully molded into ESD pallets, showing satisfactory results at the demonstrator level. Recycled PC and PC/ABS are promising alternatives to virgin polymers for EEE components, with no leachable substances detected in cytotoxic concentrations
- New tools and communication strategies for acceptance of recyclates with end- users and higher collection rates proved valuable.
- the regulatory and techno-economic analysis provide novel insights in levers and opportunities for business but also policy (how) to promote and profit from the transition towards r-plastics.
- understanding macro market movements in a CE framework renders plausible images of current and future activities and where to source secondary materials
- tailored exploitations strategies for the BCs accelerate market uptake for different sectors and application
- dissolution-based recycling presents promising potential for obtaining high-quality recyclates by effectively removing impurities and harmful substances, amended by chemical pyrolysis, currently unused side streams turn into pyrolises oil.
- By integrating different recycling technologies the Recyclability Assessment Tool enables quantitative assessment beyond design guidelines.
- rPP properly sorted and cleaned could be successfully molded into ESD pallets, showing satisfactory results at the demonstrator level. Recycled PC and PC/ABS are promising alternatives to virgin polymers for EEE components, with no leachable substances detected in cytotoxic concentrations
- New tools and communication strategies for acceptance of recyclates with end- users and higher collection rates proved valuable.
- the regulatory and techno-economic analysis provide novel insights in levers and opportunities for business but also policy (how) to promote and profit from the transition towards r-plastics.
- understanding macro market movements in a CE framework renders plausible images of current and future activities and where to source secondary materials
- tailored exploitations strategies for the BCs accelerate market uptake for different sectors and application