SEMEC PILOT PROJECT: MECHANIZED RECOVERY OF GRANULATED PLASTICS FROM PACKAGING

This paper describes a project under development in Portugal aiming the design of a pilot plant that will be used in the mechanical separation of granulated plastics from packaging waste. The objective of the project is to minimize or, if possible, to eliminate the current practice of manual sorting. The flow-sheet will use mineral processing based techniques, namely gravity concentration and froth flotation. The project also seeks the development of a procedure for the quick and inexpensive analysis of plastics mixtures allowing the future automation of equipment and process control.