The overall objective of NONTOX is to increase the recycling rates of plastics waste containing hazardous substances by developing and optimising recycling processes to produce safe and high quality secondary plastic materials and by optimising the overall process economics by integration. Increasing recycling rates is crucial for the implementation of a circular economy as clearly stated in the EU Plastic Strategy. NONTOX focuses on the removal of hazardous and undesired substances from plastic waste taking into account the whole value chain: sorting and pre-treatment techniques, recycling technologies but also post-treatment techniques. Valorisation of by-products and removed substances is also considered to enhance potential applications. NONTOX will target material recovery of plastics originating from WEEE, ELV and C&DW streams containing hazardous additives or undesired compounds such as flame-retardants, stabilizers, fillers, etc. Main secondary plastic outputs will include for example, ABS, EPS, PS, HIPS, PE, PP. The market for these polymers is massive as together they represent about half of the EU demand for plastics and yet a significant portion of these valuable plastics is landfilled or incinerated. NONTOX will further develop two different technologies (Extruclean and CreaSolv®) to remove hazardous substances from aforementioned plastic waste streams, allowing for increased recycling rates. NONTOX will also improve knowledge and state of the art concerning pre-treatment and sorting of plastic waste containing hazardous substances. Thermochemical conversion of non-target plastics and side streams from the main recycling processes will be investigated to increase system efficiency by integration and widen the range of final products and applications. NONTOX is conceived by a multidisciplinary consortium including internationally renowned RTOs, universities, key industrial partners and recyclers as well as product design experts.

1.2 Million tons of mixed plastics arise from Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) treatment in Europe and this quantity is still growing. WEEE plastics often contain undesired additives that hamper recycling in Europe. 75% of WEEE is currently exported to Asia where it is recycled to secondary plastics containing undesired (hazardous) substances or ending up in landfill where leaching occurs. Hence for WEEE plastics a closed loop solution is needed. PLAST2bCLEANED’s aim is to develop a recycling process for WEEE plastics in a technically feasible, environmentally sound and economically viable manner. To fulfil this aim, PLAST2bCLEANED addresses the recycling of the most common WEEE plastics acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and high impact polystyrene (HIPS) that contain up to 20wt% brominated flame retardants (BFR) and up to 5wt% of the synergist antimony trioxide (ATO). PLAST2bCLEANED will close three loops: (1) polymer, (2) bromine, and (3) ATO. Key technologies developed within the project are: (1) improved sorting of HIPS and ABS that contain BFR from other polystyrene and ABS fractions; (2) dissolution of WEEE plastics in superheated solvents; (3) separation of additives to concentrate BFR and ATO fractions for recycling; (4) energy efficient recovery of solvent and of polymer. The developed technology will be integrated in a pilot facility with capacity of 2 kg/hr (TRL 6) delivering polymer samples. The developed technology can be applied to similar waste streams from other sectors, e.g. automotive. The combination of improved sorting and use of superheated solvents offers an economic and environmental advantage. First calculations indicate a sound business case.The consortium is well equipped to develop this technology and consist of partners to cover the whole value chain.

The CloseWEEE project integrates three interlinked research and innovation areas for an improved, resource-efficient recycling of polymer materials and critical raw materials from electrical and electronics equipment (EEE): (1) Efficient and effective disassembly of EEE is key for high quality material fractions, separation of materials but also for reuse of components and parts. An information system for dismantlers will be developed, accessing webbased dismantling instructions, to ease the dismantling process, reduce destruction of reusable parts and components and to allow for a deeper dismantling level for better economics of the Recycling process. (2) Developing resource-efficient and innovative solutions for closing the loop of post-consumer high-grade plastics from WEEE, for new EEE through advanced recovery of valuable plastic streams which do not have a recycling system yet, and subsequent replacement of halogenated flame retardants by halogen-free flame retardants in new EEE. (3) Improved recycling of Lithium-ion batteries through increasing the recovery rates of cobalt and researching a recovery technology for the critical raw material graphite from those batteries. These technology innovations in the various stages of the EEE recycling value chain are complemented by research on reusing the recovered polymer fractions in new EEE, defining product design measures in favour of an optimised recycling eco-system, embedding related product design criteria in EU policy measures and global green procurement activities. These activities will support effectively the objectives of the European Innovation Partnership on Raw Materials.