Separation plant
Ad Rem has built an efficient plastic separation system for Stena Technoworld to recover plastics from WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment).
Client
Stena Technoworld
Stena Technoworld in Halmstad (Sweden) strives to find the most efficient method to achieve the highest value from end-of-life appliances and to increase the share that can be reused as new raw material.
Challenge
The ever increasing pile of WEEE (Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment) not only contains many recoverable metals, but also thousands of metric tons of plastics. Due to higher landfill costs, stricter legislation and decreasing access to Asian export markets, the demand for plastic recycling in Europe is on the rise. In their new plant in Halmstad, Stena Technoworld aims to recover as much of the plastics’ value as possible.
Solution
Ad Rem tackles this problem head-on with the most efficient plastic separation system on the market. It is able to separate a plastics mix originating from WEEE into three fractions: chlorinated plastics, RDF plastics (fuel) and recyclable plastics (mix of PE, PP, ABS and PS). This is done by separating the plastics based on several densities in a specially developed separation tank.
The medium used in the separators to achieve a specific density is water with a pH-neutral additive that is environmentally friendly. By using this additive instead of salt, negative environmental effects are avoided while creating a very stable medium. Furthermore, the additive can be fully recovered from the medium for re-use.
The facility at Stena Technoworld processes up to 10 metric tons per hour of plastics this way.
By separating plastics on the Ad Rem plastic separation system, the amount of non-recyclable plastics that end up in landfills is reduced by two thirds. Plastics that are not recyclable, but can be used for thermal recovery, are used as fuel in waste-to-energy plants. And, most importantly, up to 45% of the plastics are re-used in new automobile parts, fridges, and countless other applications.
Result
1 kg of plastic recycling conserves enough energy to power a vacuum cleaner for 34 hours. In total, the WEEE recycling operations at Stena Technoworld are responsible for a reduction of 1.3 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year. This is the equivalent of 200.000 flights around the world.
Why Valtech Group?
With Ad Rem, we are able to rely on several sister companies to deal with our overhead, enabling us to fully focus on our projects. Furthermore, the cross-fertilization resulting from exchanging knowledge is a key factor in innovation, and it is the reason why Ad Rem is continuously succeeding in delivering the most efficient solutions on the market.
