Syklo, a Finland-based waste sorting company, is partnering with UK-based Impact Recycling to build Finland’s largest plastic recycling plant.
The planned facility will have capacity to process 50,000 tonnes of mixed plastic waste a year. It will be built in the southern city of Hyvinkää and commissioning is expected in 2025.
The plant will use Impact Recycling’s technology to separate different plastic types from post-consumer mixed waste plastic streams into high-quality and recyclable products with an ‘exceptionally high yield’, according to Syklo.
Impact Recycling, established in 2014, has developed a plastic recycling technology which separates post-consumer mixed plastic waste to recover two consistent streams of post-consumer resin, polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), each with a 98% purity. Called Baffled Oscillation Separation System (BOSS), the technology separates the ‘hard to recycle’ stream of mixed waste plastics by amplifying slight differences in relative densities between polymers through the manipulation of fluid dynamic principles of water. The company’s patented system uses oscillation to generate specific flow patterns in the water, which affect different polymer types in different ways.
Syklo’s planned facility will distil and reuse the wastewater used during the recycling process. The sludge containing microplastics will be dried, preventing the release of any microplastics into water bodies, the company said in a statement.
“Our new facility enables the recycling of plastics 20% more efficiently compared to current plastic recycling methods,” said Teemu Koskea, Syklo’s CEO. “This plant will increase Finland’s recycling rate of plastic packaging by up to 20%. The scale of the project is significant as we plan to expand our operations to other Nordic countries, the Baltics, and the rest of Europe,” he added.
Impact Recycling already operates a PE and PP separation technology plant in Newcastle, England, since 2018. With an annual capacity of 6,000 tonnes, it recycles mixed rigid waste plastic feedstock and produces recycled PE and PP post-consumer resin.
The company is also building a new plant in Durham, which is expected to be operational in later summer 2024 with an annual capacity of 25,000 tonnes.
Source: sustainableplastics.com
