ALPLA Videobot - mechanical and chemical recycling

A distinction is made between mechanical and chemical recycling. Mechanical recycling is the processing of plastic waste into secondary raw materials or products, in which the chemical compounds of the plastics are not broken down. The waste is mechanically shredded, washed and melted by an extruder. Plastic pellets are then produced again in the same process. Chemical recycling enables the recovery of a wider range of plastics to complement traditional mechanical recycling. For example, the process can be used to process plastics that are multilayered or made of multiple materials. Chemical recycling is able to fully separate the components after several downstream cleaning steps. Since this process of chemical recycling does not yet work sufficiently well, at ALPA we rely on mechanical recycling.