The plant’s advanced suite of technology represents “a new era for plastic recycling,” according to Swedish Plastic Recycling CEO Mattias Philipsson. | New Africa/Shutterstock
Swedish Plastic Recycling plans to open its largest and most advanced plastic sorting and recycling facility on Nov. 15 in Motala, Sweden.
The $91.6 million plant takes up about 60,000 square meters and has a receiving capacity of 200,000 tons of mixed plastic packaging annually. It can sort about 1,000 items per second, including rigid PP, rigid HDPE, flexible LDPE, PET trays, transparent PET bottles, colored PET bottles, flexible PP, EPS, PS, PVC, two grades of mixed polyolefins, metals and non-plastic material.
It accomplishes these feats with the aid of 60 near infrared (NIR) sensors, laser and camera technology. The output will be sent on for chemical recycling or to make composite products, a press release noted.
Mattias Philipsson, Swedish Plastic Recycling CEO, said in the press release that the facility “delivers far beyond expectations, and it represents a new era for plastic recycling.”
“Sweden will now be the driving force for a transition that needs to be made all over the world to reduce climate impact and the need for fossil plastic raw materials – and make plastics part of the circular economy,” he added.