Page 48 from: Recycling International November/December issue | 2022
48
Recyclers want big bite
of e-plastics cake
Around 20% (by weight) of the 50 million tonnes of e-scrap produced around the
world each year is plastics. This waste stream is a hot topic for recyclers these
days, not least because big brands are expected to boost the percentage of recy-
cled content in their products by 2025.
interruptions across the industry value
chain, including at BoMet. It doesn’t
help that plastics and discarded elec-
tronics have gained a bad reputation.
Zhou’s team is hopeful that increasing
awareness about recycling will encour-
age more science and research-based
education and erode the practice of
‘trial by media’.
Ensuring OEMs set recycled plastic
standards to boost demand is seen as
another priority. ‘Are they not paying
attention?’ she wonders. ‘I don’t
understand: how are you letting plas-
tics disappear right in front of your
face? They have to see the bigger pic-
ture and do their part to ensure a
strong plastic recycling sector.’
THOUSANDS OF PLASTIC SHEETS
Her call was echoed by Megan Tabb
of Synergy Electronics Recycling,
based in North Carolina. ‘We need to
recycle as much material as we possi-
bly can, obviously. It is a struggle,
however, to add value and find outlets
for recovered e-plastics. Most people
are after the metals.’
Tabb estimates that around 50-60% of
household and IT appliances are now
plastic. ‘They are carefully disassem-
bled by our team and fed through our
big shredder,’ she says. ‘We have as
few processing steps as possible. We
do density sorting and metal sorting,
of course, but the rest is very straight-
forward. We don’t target specific
polymer types.’
Synergy manufactures what Tabb
describes as ‘sturdy’ plastic sheets,
similar to plywood. ‘We started mak-
ing these after our team figured: “We
ship plastic scrap all over the world
before we do anything with it. Can’t
we handle more volume domestical-
ly?” So we launched a new site in
Madison, where we now make about
100 000 sheets per year.”
The recovery percentage rate is in the
high 90s. ‘We follow the guidelines on
pollutants and chemicals of concern
outlined by the EU,’ Tabb notes, add-
ing that the plywood products market
is a multi-billion industry with lots of
potential for recycled content. ‘We
want a piece of that cake.’
‘The typical feedstock we receive is
nice and clean but not all e-scrap plas-
tic looks beautiful owing to contami-
nation by things like plastic film,’ says
Mei Zhou, co-founder and managing
director of BoMet Polymer Solutions.
Her 100% women-run business is
based in Ontario, Canada. ‘We pro-
cesses around 55 tonnes of material
per hour’, she shared with delegates
at the annual E-scrap Conference in
New Orleans.
The recycling line includes flotation
and optical sorting separation steps,
running two shifts five days a week.
‘We are aware that only about 10% of
e-scrap plastic in the US and Canada
is recycled,’ Zhou says. ‘Meanwhile,
the volume generated is enormous. It
totalled around 13 million tonnes in
the US alone last year.’ This is up
notably from 2018 levels, she added,
when it was at roughly 2.5 tonnes. ‘Of
course, the figure has been impacted
by China’s import bans.’
DON’T LET IT DISAPPEAR
BoMet achieves a recycling rate
between 90-95%. ‘This way, we hope
we will be able to help make a differ-
ence,’ Zhou adds. ‘The next step for
us will be to scale up our operations in
the very near future.’
She labels the recycling infrastructure
in North America as ‘inadequate’ and
laments that the pandemic caused
A U T H O R Kirstin Linnenkoper
^ Around
50-60% of
household and
IT appliances
are now plas-
tic.
48-49_plasticssp_e-scrapplastics.indd 48 09-11-2022 11:45
