Plastic has become one of the most common materials in use since the 1950s. Unfortunately, what makes it so useful, namely its durability, light weight and low cost, also makes it problematic when it comes to the end-of-life phase. In 2012, 25.2 million tonnes of post-consumer plastics waste ended up in the waste upstream in the EU. Of this, only 6.6. million tonnes was recycled and rest was disposed of in landfills or recovered in energy from waste plants. Another issue with plastic waste is the plastic floating in oceans. It is estimated that up to 12.7 million tonnes of plastic waste ended up in the oceans in 2010.
Plastic waste can be economically recycled into new products using mechanical processes such as extrusion or injection moulding. However, this method is suitable only for single streams of clean plastics. Recycling Technologies have developed a technology, the WarwickFBR™, which can recycle end of life mixed plastic waste using pyrolysis. The output from the technology is a machine, the RT7000, that can convert the waste, into a valuable hydrocarbon product we call Plaxx™. Plaxx™ can be used as a substitute for Ultra Low Sulphur Heavy Fuel Oil, wax and as a polymer feedstock for plastic manufacturing. The technology is in the ‘demonstration to market’ stage. The key objective of this action was to engage with key stakeholder to assess the feasibility of our technology.