Source sorting of plastic waste in the manufacturing industry

Although large quantities of plastic waste arise from the manufacturing industry, most initiatives around a more resource-efficient management of the resulting plastic waste have focused on the plastic waste that has arisen in connection with consumption.

The purpose of this project (Barriers and opportunities to increase the source sorting of plastic waste from the manufacturing industry) has been to identify and evaluate the obstacles to increased sorting of plastic in the Swedish manufacturing industry and to propose how the sorting of plastic waste can increase.
 

Method 

The project results were based on a survey among companies supplemented with interviews with waste and recycling operators. A clear conclusion is that there is great potential to increase source sorting and thus recycling. More than a tenth of companies today do not have any sorting of waste plastic waste, although plastic waste is produced in their production.

However, the industrial companies that sort the plastic waste have a high degree of source sorting where smaller amounts of the plastic waste go to incineration. Both for plastic packaging and production waste, four out of five companies sort out about 70 percent of the plastic. However, the level is lower for other process material.

The survey is not comprehensive, but shows that the most important obstacles to increased source sorting are the presence of pollution, the complex material composition and that manufacturing companies cannot guarantee that the material fills a sufficiently high quality.

Recommendations 

In summary, the project recommends a number of measures for increased source sorting and recycling of plastic waste in the manufacturing industry:

• To a greater extent use conventional goods transport for the return logistics of the resulting plastic waste.
• Increase collaboration between waste and recycling players in the collection of plastic waste.
• Increase collaboration between players in the value chain.
• Take advantage of the possibilities of chemical recycling of plastic waste.
• Reduce the number of plastic types for packaging and process materials.
• Information efforts for production personnel.
• Goals - which are followed up - for the company's waste management.