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Content archived on 2024-05-07

Automated process for unpacking and recycling of cds and recovery and reuse of polycarbonate in cd manufacturing

Objective



Early in the 1980's European and the Japanese introduced the world to the Compact audio Disc. Nowadays the CDs production in Europe represents 2 billion units and continues to grow thanks to new developments like CDs ROM and DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) for example. The main problems of these recent products are the generated wastes which are currently dumped or put in waste disposal after destruction of information stored on the Disc. It is difficult to put all wastes generated by this production in one category because in fact you have two different products which need two different treatments: - unsold CDs coming back from shop. These CDss are packed in jewel box so you must separate the polypropylene foils, the polystyrene box and the CDs for further treatment, -on line rejects: CDs rejected at different stages of the production line (going from pure polycarbonate to CDs that is PC polycarbonate +ink+varnish+metal). Together these products represent a market of 400 million items per year and more than 9000 Tons of polycarbonate dumped or reused in lower added value products. The polycarbonate used in CDs manufacturing is expensive because of its high optical characteristics and therefore there is a real need for a method enabling the recovery of polycarbonate for reuse in CDs manufacturing. The main goals of our project are consequently to: - decrease the waste spreading and the CDs waste disposal - allow a valorisation of all wastes generated by CDs either internally or by specialised companies - allow the recovery and reuse of polycarbonate in CDs manufacturing This will be done in several steps: - separation of CDs and packaging - recycling of each compound with a special attention paid to polycarbonate - separation of metal, ink, varnish and PC if necessary - recovery of PC with characteristics enabling its reuse in CDs manufacturing - reuse of PC in the CDs production. The impact of such a process will be very interesting especially for environment because it will lead to an important decrease of waste disposal and spreading or dumping. Furthermore, the industrial partners will find a new way to buy PC at lower price with the same optical characteristics and granulates size than raw materials for a possible reuse in manufacturing. The final results will be: - the development of an automated process for unpacking and recycling of CDs coming either from unsold CDs or on line rejects - the development of a recycling process of polycarbonate allowing its reuse in CDs production

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Call for proposal

Data not available

Coordinator

Compagnie Française d'Automatismes
EU contribution
No data
Address
126,Route du Chapeau Rouge 126
59229 Teteghem
France

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Total cost
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Participants (8)