Demonstration of waste status termination for plastics
Poliakova, Valeria (2019)
2019
Materiaalitekniikka
Tekniikan ja luonnontieteiden tiedekunta - Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences
This publication is copyrighted. You may download, display and print it for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.
Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2019-02-06
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tty-201901251166
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tty-201901251166
Tiivistelmä
Global pollution of land and ocean associated with unmanaged plastic waste is one of the drivers behind emerging of the circular economy. Recovered plastic waste serving as a raw material can be circulated in the industrial system, generating economic, social and environmental benefits.
Recovery of the waste results in the waste serving a useful function. At some stage during recovery process, the waste can be shown to achieve sufficient properties to be used for a certain application in a safe for health and environment manner. That stage of the process is a point of recovery. Termination of a waste status of a material requires from the manufacturer of that material documented demonstration that the produced material is safe for health and environment, has an existing market, fulfills technical requirements for an application and meets product regulations and standards.
In absence of EU-wide or Finnish national methodology for assessment of material status of the plastic waste, the author reviewed technical guidelines, standards and scientific articles for establishing the criteria for the assessment. Waste and chemical regulations, products standards and industrial reports were used for providing the background information for the assessment. Material statuses of PE pellets, produced in Finland from post-consumer industrial/commercial and construction and demolition wastes, were assessed. The author suggested that only waste status of pellets produced in Finland from transparent packaging could be terminated. The detailed assessment and list of documentation used are presented in the work.
Termination of the waste status was demonstrated through evaluation of the information collected about recyclate against criteria developed during preparation stage of the work and documentation of the whole process.
The main expected benefit of the material status assessment and terminated waste status is increased level of knowledge about the properties of the recovered material resulted in in-creased demand for the recyclate and its widespread recirculation in industrial system.
Recovery of the waste results in the waste serving a useful function. At some stage during recovery process, the waste can be shown to achieve sufficient properties to be used for a certain application in a safe for health and environment manner. That stage of the process is a point of recovery. Termination of a waste status of a material requires from the manufacturer of that material documented demonstration that the produced material is safe for health and environment, has an existing market, fulfills technical requirements for an application and meets product regulations and standards.
In absence of EU-wide or Finnish national methodology for assessment of material status of the plastic waste, the author reviewed technical guidelines, standards and scientific articles for establishing the criteria for the assessment. Waste and chemical regulations, products standards and industrial reports were used for providing the background information for the assessment. Material statuses of PE pellets, produced in Finland from post-consumer industrial/commercial and construction and demolition wastes, were assessed. The author suggested that only waste status of pellets produced in Finland from transparent packaging could be terminated. The detailed assessment and list of documentation used are presented in the work.
Termination of the waste status was demonstrated through evaluation of the information collected about recyclate against criteria developed during preparation stage of the work and documentation of the whole process.
The main expected benefit of the material status assessment and terminated waste status is increased level of knowledge about the properties of the recovered material resulted in in-creased demand for the recyclate and its widespread recirculation in industrial system.