RECYCLING OF POLYPROPYLENE WASTE

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
This study focuses on the opportunities to identify and
recycle a greater number of plastic applications from the
WORLD waste stream. Polypropylene packaging has
been identified as one such source that has greater
potential for recycling from the commercial sector.
This study assesses the viability of collecting and
reprocessing it.
The use of plastics has grown substantially over the last
50 years and today plastics are found in a wide range of applications, both domestic and
commercial, encompassing a wide variety of polymer types.
India has witnessed a substantial growth in the consumption of plastics and increased
production of plastic waste. The plastic waste is now considered as environmental hazard due
to the "Throw away culture". The hazards plastics pose are numerous.
The land gets littered by plastic bag garbage presenting an ugly and unhygienic seen.
The "Throw away culture" results in these bags finding their way in to the city drainage
system, the resulting blockage causes inconvenience, difficult in maintaining the drainage
with increased cost, creates unhygienic environment resulting in health hazard and spreading
of water borne diseases.

PLASTICS CONSUMPTION IN INDIA.

S.NO YEAR CONSUMPTION

(Tones)
1 1996 61,000
2 2000 3,00,000
3 2001 4,00,000
4 2009 8,50,000

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1.1 Aims and objectives

The aim of this project is to assess the viability of establishing the recycling of
polypropylene packaging & other waste’s.

The objectives are to:

1. Identify major users of polypropylene products and establish whether it is possible to set
up a suitable collection mechanism that would yield credible volumes for recycling.
2. Assess the products for contamination and ease of collection.
3. Evaluate the cleaning and reprocessing of collected products to determine the efficiency
of the procedure.
4. Evaluate the re-use of the reprocessed material to manufacture new products.
5. Assess the commercial implications of the entire process, as this will determine the
acceptance to increase current activity in this area.
6. Reduces the waste, without affecting of environment.

CHAPTER 2

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BACKGROUND

2.1 POLYPROPYLENE
Like many of today’s polymers, polypropylene is derived from oil by-products which would
otherwise be flared off on extraction or simply used for fuel (figure)

Crude oil is made up of hydrocarbons, which need to be separated to produce the many
biproducts required for today’s society. The separations of the petroleum gas and naphtha
fractions are those of consequence for the production of olefin polymers such as polyethylene
and polypropylene.
The different hydrocarbon elements, determined by their molecular chain lengths, have
varying boiling points; this property is used to distil the various fractions from the crude oil.
Once separated the basic raw materials can then be processed through polymerisation to
make the basic polymers used today.

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Polypropylene was first polymerised by Professor Natta in 1954, and commercialised in

1957.
Since then its use has grown rapidly to become one of the most widely used thermoplastic
polymers, with usage growing between three and four percent annually.
Structurally polypropylene is a vinyl polymer, similar to polyethylene, but with a methyl
group attached to every alternate carbon atom in the backbone. It is made from the
polymerisation of propylene by Ziegler-Natta polymerisation, or more recently by
metallocene catalysis polymerisation.

POLYMERISATION OF PP

Polypropylene can be found in three forms: isotactic, syndiotactic, and atactic. The crystalline
properties of the essentially linear isotactic form make it the most commercially attractive
with a melting point of around 165°C. This form of polypropylene has all the methyl groups
arranged on the same side of the chain:

It is the lightest of the major plastics used for packaging, with a specific gravity of 0.905; its
high crystallinity imparting high tensile strength, stiffness and hardness. Moulded products
usually have a high gloss and have a high resistance to marring. Because of its high melting
point, polypropylene is suitable for applications requiring sterilisation, although its low
temperature impact strength make it somewhat sensitive under these conditions, due to a

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phase transition around 0°C. To overcome this brittleness wide use is made of random and
block copolymers, combining propylene and ethylene (or other olefins), which affect the
transition temperature and impart more rubber like properties.

Polypropylene has excellent electrical properties and exhibits chemical and moisture
resistance typical of hydrocarbon polymers, and is completely free from environmental stress
cracking. It is however, susceptible to UV degradation. This can be significantly reduced by
the use of carbon black in small quantities as filler, but obviously this affects the colour of the
product.

Polypropylene is widely used in many applications, both in films and for rigid items such as
closures, tubs, crates, battery cases, bottles, etc. Like polyethylene and PET bottles, many of
these polypropylene containers can be readily recycled providing the criteria for control,
quality and cost can be satisfied.

Homopolymers are used for applications where good optical properties are required, along
with good stiffness, such as thermoformed food trays, caps and closures.
Block (or heterophasic) copolymers with regular groups of ethylene in the chains (5-15%),
have a balance between good stiffness and impact performance, and are used for a large
range of applications from injection-moulded pails and thin walled tubs, to thermoformed
containers and blow-moulded bottles.

Random copolymers, including irregular groups of ethylene in the chain, are used primarily
for extrusion blow moulding, thermoforming, and thin wall injection moulding of contact
clear packaging where the optical performance is of prime significance.
Many other specialised forms of polypropylene now exist due to the ability to tailor materials
using metallocene and other new catalyst systems. This large diversity however, could also
be seen as a hindrance to practical reprocessing on a large scale.

2.2 RECYCLING PROCESS & TYPES

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Plastic recycling process consists of two essential and necessary steps. One is an automatic
identification tool for sorting the plastics and the other is characterization of the regenerated
products. The former is due to the fact that recycling of a mixed plastic waste makes a
product with inadequate and poor properties. And the later is due to information about the
quality of the regenerated product which has to be delivered to the end user.
In the near future the plastic waste recycling processes will be expanded to approach the
theory of “inverse manufacturing”, which means waste and used materials will be used to
produce end products instead of virgin materials.

METHOD OF RECYCLING OF PLASTIC MATERIAL

Category Method of recycling Method of

recycling
Category
Material Recycling t make : mechanical
recycling plastic raw materials recycling
plastic products
Chemical Monomerization Monmerization
recycling Blast furnace recycling agents feedstock
Coke oven recycling recycling
Gasification Chemical feedstock
liquefaction Fuel
Thermal Cement kiln Thermal
recycling Waste power generation recycling
RDF *1 RPF *2

＊1：Refuse Derived Fuel (solid fuel made from burnable waste, plastic waste, etc.)

＊2：Refuse Paper & Plastic Fuel (high-calorie solid fuel made from waste paper and plastic)

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RECYCLING TYPES
(A) MECHANICAL RECYCLING
Mechanical recycling is a physical method, in which the plastic wastes will be formed into
flakes, granulates or pellets of appropriate quality for manufacturing, where they would be
melted to make the new product by extrusion. The best results would be for plastic
wastes which contain just one kind of polymer, mechanical recycling is the better method for
recycling.
The process usually consists of contaminants removal, grinding or conversion into flakes and
pellets, washing, drying and melting.

(B) CHEMICAL RECYCLING

The other recycling method, chemical or feedstock recycling can be used with mechanical
recycling as a complementation.
In this procedure the polymers are chemically converted to monomers through a chemical
reaction. These monomers then can be used for new polymerizations to reproduce the original
or a related polymeric product.
Chemical recycling is a burdensome method that needs a lot of investment and expert
personnel; so it is not developed completely yet and only a few companies work on it.
Some chemical reactions used for decomposition of polymers into monomers are:
• Glycolysis
• Pyrolysis
• Ammonolysis
• Hydrogenation
• Hydrolysis
• Gasification
• Cracking
• Methanolysis

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1. GASSIFICATION PROCESS

◆Plastics are converted to gas for use as a raw material in the chemical industry
Plastics are composed mainly of carbon and hydrogen and therefore normally produce carbon
dioxide and water when combusted. The gasification process involves heating plastics and
adding a supply of oxygen and steam. The supply of oxygen is limited, which means that
much of the plastics turn into hydrocarbon, carbon monoxide and water. Sand heated to 600-
800℃ is circulated inside a first-stage low-temperature gasification furnace. Plastics
introduced into the furnace break down on contact with the sand to form hydrocarbon, carbon
monoxide, hydrogen and char. If the plastics contain chlorine, they produce hydrogen
chloride. If plastic products contain metal or glass, these are recovered as non-combustible
matter.
The gas from the low-temperature gasification furnace is reacted with steam at a temperature
of 1,300-1,500℃ in a second-stage high-temperature gasification furnace to produce a gas
composed mainly of carbon monoxide and oxygen. At the furnace outlet, the gas is rapidly
cooled to 200℃ or below to prevent the formation of dioxins. The granulated blast furnace
slag also produced is used in civil engineering and construction materials. The gas then
passes through a gas scrubber and any remaining hydrogen chloride is neutralized by alkalis

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and removed from the synthetic gas. This synthetic gas is used as a raw material in the
chemical industry to produce chemicals such as

2. MONOMERIZATION

FROM PET BOTTLES TO PET BOTTLES

While PET bottles can be recycled to make textiles and sheeting, they cannot be used to make
PET drinks bottles. This is because used PET bottles are unsuitable for use as raw materials
for soft drink, alcohol or soy sauce bottles for reasons of hygiene and smell. However,
converting PET bottles back to an earlier state of processing is a more economic use of
resources than making PET resin from scratch out of petroleum and naphtha.

A "bottle-to-bottle" scheme to make recycled resin equivalent to newly made resin suitable
for drinks bottles started in 2003 on this basis. The method chemically decomposes the used
PET bottles into their component monomers (depolymerization), and they are made into new
PET bottles from this stage.

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3. ENERGY RECOVERY

◆ FROM WASTE PLASTIC AND LANDFILL TO THERMAL RECYCLING

Waste plastics are currently collected and processed differently by different municipalities,
but the Ministry for the Environment is unifying the previously separate categories of waste
into one ("burnable"), with an amendment to the Waste Disposal Law on 26 May 2005 which
changes its basic policy to state that "first, emission of waste plastic should be reduced, after
which recycling should be promoted; any remaining waste plastic should not go to landfill as
it is suitable for use in thermal recovery". In a similar move, the Tokyo municipal area, which
had since 1973 been putting household waste plastics into landfill as non-burnable garbage,
set a goal in 2008 of sending zero household waste plastic to landfill and instead using it for
incineration and thermal recycling by default.

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CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

3.1. MECHANICAL RECYCLING PROCESS

Remelted to make products

Plastic waste pp from sorted household & industrial waste are collected, compressed and
packed by municipalities for transportation to plants operated by recycling businesses. At the
recycling plant, the waste is sorted to remove impurities, and the remaining waste then
shredded and cleaned, foreign bodies are non-resins are removed and the remainder turned
into flakes and pellets (granules made from flakes, thermally processed by a granulator) for
recycling. The recycled materials are then sent to textile and sheet-making plants, where they
are again melted down to make into textile and sheet products. Mechanical recycling of other
plastic waste follows the same basic process.

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Resin Molding Techniques

(1) Extrusion molding : Resin is melted and continually extruded through a mold by a screw
to form a molded product. Products include pipes, sheets, film and wire covering.

(2) Injection molding : Heated melted resin is injected into a mold and solidifies to form a
molded product. Products made this way range from washbowls, buckets and plastic models
to larger products such as bumpers and pliers.

(3) Blow molding : A parison obtained by extrusion or injection molding is clamped into a
mold and inflated with air to make bottles for all kinds of uses, such as shampoo bottles. PET
bottles are made by stretch blow molding so as to make them less likely to rupture.

(4) Vacuum molding : A heat-softened sheet is sandwiched in a mold and the space
between the sheet and mold sealed and evacuated to form products such as cups and trays.

(5) Inflation method : This is a type of extrusion molding where a melted resin is inflated
into a cylinder to form a film. This method is used to make products such as shopping bags.

3.2) IDENTIFY THE SOURCE OF COLLECTION

Firstly the waste plastic needs to be collected by the recycling company.
The main sources of plastic waste are the two:-
(a) Household wastes
(b) Industrial wastes

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3.3) SORTING

Once the plastic arrives at the recycling plant the

second stage is sort the plastic in to the specific
types, plastic recycling is more complex than that of
metal or glass recycling due to the many different
types of plastic and more importantly mixed plastic
cannot be used in manufacturing without delivering
poor quality products, hence why plastic recycling
companies need to be thorough when it comes to
sorting the waste plastic in to the different forms
according the table.

PLASTIC IDENTIFICATION CODE

Plastic Type of
Common
Identification Plastic. Properties Description Recycled Products
Applications
Code Polymer

Clarity, Usually clear Soft drink, water Fiber fill for

Polyethylene
strength, or and salad dressing sleeping
terephthalate
toughness, green, sinks bottles; peanut bags, carpet fibers,
(PET, PETE)
barrier to gas. in water, butter and jam jars ropes, pillows etc

Water pipes, hula

Stiffness,
hoop rings, five Flower pots, trash
strength,
Slightly gallon buckets, cans, traffic cones,
High-density toughness,
opaque, low milk, juice and detergent bottles,
polyethylene resistance to
gloss, crackly water bottles; soap cases, other
(HDPE) moisture,
film grocery bags, some household items,
permeability to
shampoo / toiletry etc.
gas.
bottles

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Blister packaging
for non-food items;
cling films for non-
Versatility,
food use. Not used
ease of . Semi-rigid,
Polyvinyl for food packaging Footwear, irrigation
blending, glossy,sinks and other drainage
chloride(PVC) as the plasticisers pipes, mats, etc.
strength, in water
needed to make
toughness.
natively rigid PVC
flexible are usually
toxic.
Ease of
processing, Frozen food bags;
strength, squeezable bottles, Grocery bags,
Low-density
toughness, Flexible, not e.g. honey, shelter films,
polyethylene
flexibility, crinkly mustard; cling household items,
(LDPE)
ease of films; flexible etc.
sealing, barrier container lids.
to moisture.
Reusable
Strength,
microwaveable
toughness,
ware; kitchenware;
resistance to
yogurt products;
heat,
Polypropylene Semi-rigid, margarine tubs; Plastic lumber,
chemicals, household goods,
(PP) low gloss microwaveable luggage, etc.
grease and oil,
disposable take-
versatile,
away products;
barrier to
disposable cups;
moisture.
plates.
Egg cartons;
packing peanuts;
Versatility,
Polystyrene Often brittle, disposable cups, Plastic lumber,
clarity, easily cassette tape boxes,
(PS) glossy plates, trays and flower pots, etc.
formed
cutlery; disposable
take-away products
Beverage bottles;
Dependent on baby milk bottles. Recycling of these
Other (often polymers or Non-packaging high value plastics
--------
PC or ABS) combination of uses for are special in
polymers polycarbonate: nature.
compact discs;

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"unbreakable"
glazing; electronic
apparatus
housings; lenses

 SORTING BY THE OF BURNING TEST

Test PE PP PS PVC*
Water Floats Floats Sinks Sinks
Burning Blue flame with Yellow flame . Yellow, sooty Yellow, sooty
yellow tip, melts with blue base. flame – drips smoke. Does
and drips not continue
. to burn if
flame is
removed

Smell after Like candle wax. Like candle wax Sweet Hydrochloric
Burning – less strong acid
than PE
Scratch Yes No No No

3.4) SHREDDING

The shredding stage is the cutting stage where the material is cut into the small pieces.

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When the waste plastic is sorted out than taken waste plastic products and loaded on to
conveyor belts or directly in to huge hoppers that funnel the clean scrap towards rotating
metal teeth that rip the plastic in to small pieces called the flakes.

3.5) WASHING THE PLASTIC WASTE

Once the waste plastic has been identified and separated in to one of its many forms the
cleaning process can begin, this usually starts with washing to remove paper labels, adhesives
and other impurities, all the labels on your plastic products, bottles and even your wheelie bin
need to be completely removed as these will lower the quality of the finished recycled plastic.
Once the shredded plastic has been bagged it is then chemically tested and labelled as to its
exact specification, this Grade plastic can be used as is by adding to a mix of virgin plastic in
a manufacturing run, alternatively the Grade plastic can be further recycled.

3.6) PELLETIZNG

This is done by melting the chips and extruding them out first
through a fine grill to remove any solid dirt or metal particles that
have made it through the treatment thus far and then through a
die of small holes. If the plastic was simply allowed to extrude
from these holes it would come out as spaghetti-like strings and
quickly tangle together. However, it is sprayed or quenched with
water as it comes out (to prevent the plastic from sticking

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together) from the die holes, rollers pullthe material into the Pelletizer machine the strings
cut-off by rotating knives to give small, oval pellets.

This is the final stage in recycling plastic, this involves melting the clean shredded plastic and
extruding in to the form of pellets which then go on to manufacture the next lot of plastic
products.

Figure: RECYCLING OF PLASTIC WASTE BY EXRUSION

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QUALITY IMPROVEMENT
The quality of the pellets and thus of the final manufactured products can be improved
by adding the following steps:
• Virgin plastic pellets may be added at a ratio depending on the desired quality of the end
product. The higher the percentage of virgin material, the higher will be the quality.
• If shredded rigid plastics are pre-heated in a drying installation, the resulting pellets will
be higher in quality.
• If the quality of the pellets is not high enough for the manufacture of consumer articles,
the pellets may be extruded a second time through a finer filter screen. This reduces the
moisture content of reprocessed pellets that have been cooled in a basin of water and
therefore increases its quality.

• An extruder equiped with a ventilator to release humid hot air, reduces the porosity of the
pellets and thus improves their quality.

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CHAPTER 4
SWOT ANALYSIS

STRENGTHS: a. Unutilised source of material that is relatively straight forward

to recycle and is currently going to landfill.

b. A range of second use markets already exist for recycled

polypropylene.

c. Pails allow for high recovery density through inter-stacking

(nesting of products).

d. Material from closed loop systems is of high quality

WEAKNESSES: a. Requirement for storage and washing.

b. If different types of polypropylene are mixed together during

re-Processing, the properties and potential secondary uses of
the recycle will be affected.

c. Mixed colours of polypropylene pail will produce a lower value

finished grey material.

d. Collection of non-tapered (i.e. non-stackable) pails would yield

relatively low tonnage per unit volume.

OPPORTUNITIES: a. Necessity to meet packaging targets.

b. High tonnage of consistent material available from specific
sources.

c. Current annual increase in polypropylene use of

approximately 5% growing availability of polypropylene to
supply reprocesses.

d. Improvements in recycling technology likely to maintain, or

improve, competitiveness of material.

e. Avoidance of landfill tax and other waste disposal charges.

. f. Enables the catering sector to improve environmental

performance.

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THREATS: a. Low oil prices making recyclate uncompetitive with

virgin material.

b. New materials may reduce the demand for polypropylene.

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CHAPTER 5
CONLUSIONS

 We worked on the Recycling of the Polypropylene waste.

 In this project work, we have investigated the following areas of the Mechanical
recycling & study the process.

 Mainly five steps is involved in the process :

Collection
Sorting
Shredding (Cutting)
Washing & drying
Pelletizing by Extrusion

 We study the following methods of sorting :

By Plastic Identification Code
By Burning Test
By Density
By Solvents (chemical)

 Checking the pellets size, shape, colour, gloss, MFI.

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CHAPTER 6
REFERENCES

1 EC Directive 94/62/EC on Packaging and Packaging Waste

2 Recoup and Wastewatch (2002) Plastics in the UK economy, Wastewatch

3 Recoup and WRAP (2005) UK Plastic Bottle Recycling Survey 2005, Recoup and
WRAP

4 RMIT, Montell and Repeat Plastics (1999) Post Consumer Polypropylene Waste
Recycling, RMIT with Montell and Repeat Plastics

http://www.ecorecycle.vic.gov.au/asset/1/upload/CSMD_RMIT_(with_Montell_and

Repeat_Plastics)_Post_Consumer_Wa.pdf

6 Wellmark, inc. (1996) Recycling Polypropylene Dye Tubes to Use as Feedstock in

Manufacture of Plastic Injection Molded Products, Pacific Pollution Prevention Resource
Center http://www.pprc.org/pprc/rpd/statefnd/nc_owr/polypro.html.

7 ASTM D883-08 Standard Terminology Relating to Plastics, ASTM, 2008.

8 Safe Use Of Plastic Food Packaging And Products".

9 Holt Chemistry (Florida edition). Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. 2006. p. 702. ISBN 0-
03- 039114-8. "More than half the states in the United States have enacted laws that
require plastic products to be labeled with numerical codes that identify the type of plastic
used in them."

10 Aguado, J. and Serrano, D. (1999). Feedstock Recycling of Plastic wastes. RSC Clean
Technology Monographs. Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge.

11 Association of Plastics Manufacturers in Europe (APME) (2002-2003). Plastics in

Europe-An analysis of plastics consumption and recovery in Europe.

12 PLASTIC WASTE MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE (JAPAN).

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13 BURNING TEST. Source Vogler. 1984

14 Equipment KUN SHENG COMPANY.

15 Selinger, Ben; Chemistry in the Marketplace (3rd edition); Harcourt Brace \Jovanovich;
1986.
16 CAPS (1992). Recycling Activities in Metro Manila. WAREN project WASTE
CONSULTANTS, The Netherlands.

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