TOMRA Systems ASA is a Norwegian-based company and a world leader for reverse vending machines and recycling technology. Confronted with the challenge of industrial black plastics, TOMRA has developed an innovative initiative called Retility focused on material recycling from decommissioned RVMs in order to further advance circularity.
The Issue of Black Plastic Recycling
Black plastics are also widely used industrially for computer and mobile technology, besides automotive parts. These materials, due to their dark coloring-usually imparted by carbon-based pigments-cannot be sorted readily using typical sorting technologies. Because of this fact, they often go to incineration rather than being recycled, further contributing to pollution and waste.
This is exactly what Tomra’s Retility program attempts to achieve by closing the loop on black plastic recycling. The company takes from decommissioned RVMs black plastics that could have otherwise been sent to incineration and transforms them into productive use, reusing it for making new components of its products.
A Circular Approach to Recycling
The launch of Retility is part of Tomra’s wider strategy of increasing the amount of recycled materials within its products and supporting the use of circular economy practices. It has targeted that by 2030, 90% of materials used in new products shall come from sustainable sources while 50% of its products shall be fully circular.
Actual recycling of the Retility program involves labor-intensive disassembly of the retired RVMs, sorting the parts made from black plastic by polymer type. Delivered to Polykemi, a Swedish plastic compounder, these materials are reprocessed into high-quality recycled plastic. T OMG’s injection molding partners use this material to fabricate new components for the company’s products, ensuring the standards for plastic performance.
Partnership with the European Recycling Platform
Tomra, in this respect, has collaborated with the European Recycling Platform in Norway in the responsible retirement of its RVMs. Together, they handle the sorting and disassembling process whereby black plastic parts are identified and separated into a recyclable stream. This is about making certain that materials are handled responsibly from an environmental point of view, and that would parallel other manufacturers in their own path to circularity and sustainability.
The Retility program benefits not only Tomra but also acts as a model for other industries dependent on black plastics. Given that Tomra is actually proving that this hard-to-process material is recyclable, it is optimistic that more and more manufacturers will come into play and fall in line accordingly.
Sustainably Supporting Global Goals
The initiative is one of the major areas of Tomra’s commitment to resource conservation and sustainability. For several years, Tomra has been at the forefront in encouraging recycling and limiting waste through their reverse vending systems, whereby consumers return used beverage containers for recycling. Now, with the Retility initiative, Tomra is extending its commitment to sustainability by turning its attention to the materials it uses in its products to ensure they can be recycled and reused in a closed-loop system.
Mari us Fraurud, chief of Tomra Collection said that achieving these goals involves collaboration: “We invite all relevant producers to become part of this network and to move the resource revolution forward,” he said. “We welcome any opportunity to share our experience with this project and facilitate any links between parties that prove needed”
Black Plastic Packaging Unlocks Value
Christina Ek, head of sustainability at Tomra Collection, said the Retility program has the potential to divert large volumes of valuable black plastic from incineration. “We hope this will unlock greater access to recycled content for our peers across the technology and manufacturing industries,” she said. Ek also elaborated on how the Tomra philosophy of “no such thing as waste” is at the heart of the Retility program in a bid to actualize such a belief by turning what otherwise would have been regarded as waste into tangible resources.
Besides the environmental advantages, there are quite a few economic pluses of the Retility program. By consistently supplying quality recycled plastic, Tomra will reduce demand for virgin materials, something that is often more expensive and damaging to the environment. This allows Tomra and other manufacturers to reduce production costs while shrinking their ecological footprint.
Overcoming the Technical Challenges
There are, however, some technical difficulties associated with recycling black plastics. Different variants of plastics are used for different applications, and their composition needs to be carefully documented to ensure that the performance standards of the plastic that is recycled are met. In the case of black plastics, carbon pigments that give them color interfere with traditional sorting technologies, making separations difficult to do for recycling.
To this effect, Tomra has designed integrated sorting technologies capable of sorting black plastics according to polymer type. This will ensure that materials remain pure and can be reproduced into new products without compromising quality or performance.
Outlook
The Retility program at Tomra marks one of the most important milestones in the world’s struggle for a circular economy and consideration of waste minimization. Tomra opens a more ecological future for manufacturing and technology industries by solving the problem of black plastic recycling. The dream of a world without waste could be closer and closer to reality with every new company embracing circularity and adapting to the most advanced recycling solutions.
The success of the Retility initiative may encourage similar initiatives in other industries and further accelerate the pace toward a greener and more circular economy.
Source: Recycling Today