Advanced Recycling Feeds
Feedstocks for Advanced (Chemical) Recycling
Residential and commercial waste collected curbside contains an entire array of materials, including various plastic sheeting and rigid plastic containers, such as HDPE, LDPE, PP, PVC and PS, cardboard and metals, including aluminum foil. These are taken to materials recovery facilities (MRFs) where they are sorted into generic groups that typically comprise plastics, cardboard (OCC), glass bottles, newspaper/magazines/paper and metals, such as aluminum and steel cans. Each group is packaged for sale to downstream customers. These plastics recyclers then separate the waste by type as much as possible (PET, HDPE and PP for mechanical recycling and LDPE, LLDPE and PS for advanced recycling). The latter category may be contaminated with PVC, which creates high chlorine levels in pyrolysis plants that may induce corrosion in metal piping and reactors. At present, there is no cost-effective way to separate PVC from post-consumer waste, and CPRI minimizes the amount of post-consumer waste incorporated into its feedstocks.
Feedstocks for Advanced (Chemical) Recycling
Post-industrial waste is typically residual scrap material from manufacturing (by injection molding or blow molding, among others) and is typically cleaner than post-consumer waste. This material can be collected more easily and then blended with virgin feedstocks using minimal effort. Other post-industrial waste – agricultural films, drip tape and polypipe, among others – are typically single polymers but may be heavily contaminated with dirt, crop residue, pesticides, fertilizer and moisture, making them more difficult to recycle.