WEEE & ELV Working Group

This Group consists of companies concentrating on the recovery and reuse of the polymers from the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment and End Of Life Vehicles. In both of these high volume sectors, European Directives have established national legislative frameworks to deliver increased levels of material recycling and recovery over the next few years. The targets set by the UK government are creating technical and commercial challenges for the industry to tackle in terms of improving the collection, separation and resource recovery from the respective waste streams.

With regard to WEEE, there are more and more polymers being used in electrical goods and less metal, resulting in a need to separate the plastics before destruction to ensure a higher quality, purer stream of used plastics to aid downstream re-processing. The Working Group members believe that increased co-operation between the collection agencies, primary treatment facilities and materials recycling plants is important to optimize the level of both the material and value which can be reclaimed from end-of-life electrical products.

In ELV there is considerable work going on to recover the increasing proportion of plastics present in automobiles in order to support growth and development in the UK plastics economy. Deadlines for target achievement in the UK and increasing landfill tax costs, are proving to be effective drivers in encouraging large-scale investments in new technologies to extract materials from the complex non-metallic waste stream, commonly known as ‘shredder fluff’ or ASR.

All these materials can be used again in various applications to reduce the use of virgin feedstock and there are many good examples of closed-loop recycling taking place with plastics recycled by BPFRG members. There is a need for the plastics industry in the UK as a whole to take on board the benefits and potential contribution that can be achieved by the use of Post-Consumer Recycled plastics generated from the WEEE and ELV recovered streams.

The potential of these massive markets is significant for the reuse of the recovered plastics as Post-Consumer Recycled Products in closed-loop applications. Furthermore, the huge benefits to be gained in terms of Carbon Emissions reduction by using recycled polymers to substitute for oil-based virgin plastics will promote wider use of these materials as the UK economy shifts towards annual Carbon Reporting for businesses.

Contact The BPF Recycling Group Management Committee

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