The pitfalls of collecting rigid plastics

MGG Metran employee Daniel Forstner reported on the current status of the “Bobby-Car” project in a lecture at the ASZ training course 2019 for the district of Amstetten. The main focus was on the question: What belongs in the collection of rigid plastics and what doesn’t? To this end, the training participants were able to take a look behind the scenes at the plastics recycler MGG Polymers of the Müller-Guttenbrunn Group.

Everyone in the crowded hall pricked up their ears when Daniel Forstner began his lecture. Armed with the now well-known Bobby Car and a few other utensils, the process development expert of MGG Metran appeared in front of his audience. His audience consisted of 65 employees from the waste collection centres (ASZ) in the Amstetten district (GDA). As an external speaker, Forstner was invited to speak about the separate collection of rigid plastics, with the project name „Bobby Car Project“.

The 40-year-old MGG Metran employee briefly explained the Bobby Car project, which has been running for two years: Old consumer products made of both rigid plastics in combination with some metals are now collected separately in order to be recycled. So far, these valuable resources have unfortunately been incinerated together with other bulky wastes.

Why skis and furniture do not make us happy?
The employees of the waste collection centers were particularly interested which products should now be collected separately in the containers provided for this purpose and which not.  Garden furniture, children’s toys such as Bobby Cars, plastic tubs and barrels are all welcome and can be processed without any problems, explained Daniel Forstner. However, he added: „Unfortunately, we still receive a lot of waste deliveries in which we find plastic films, PVC pipes, old skis, furniture or buckets with impurities. These do not belong in this collection, because they are very obstructive for this rigid plastic recycling process.“

Daniel Forstner also provided information about the quantities collected in the six participating GDA collection centers. In 2018, a total of 103 tons were received from the collection centers in Amstetten West and East, St. Valentin, St. Peter/Au, Hollenstein and Haag. „We were able to recover over 60 tons of plastics from fire death,“ laughed Forstner, pointing out that 63 tons could be recycled as secondary raw materials. He – and probably his listeners – hope that by 2019 there will be many more tons of these rigid plastics that can be recycled at MGG Metran and MGG Polymers in the interests of environmental protection. Only in this way scarce resources and CO₂  can be saved.

Old material from the federal capital

In addition to collection points in Lower and Upper Austria, solid plastics with metal content are now also being collected in greater Vienna for the first time. „There is a lot of potential there for the next few years,“ says Daniel Forstner, seeing many opportunities for further volumes of Bobby Car materials to be recycled.

After a short break, half of the participants in the ASZ training course went on an excursion to MGG Polymers, the plastics recycling experts in the Müller-Guttenbrunn Group. The participants also pricked up their ears here, because Arthur Schwesig explained to the visitors what happens to old vacuum cleaners, video recorders, coffee machines, radios & Co. at the MGG Polymers plant: from transport, through the shredding process and the separation of the individual components (metals, plastics, and impurities) to the extrusion and compounding of the recycled plastics. The GDA group was astonished at how new plastic granulates for the manufacture of new products is produced from old electrical appliances.  GDA employee Birgit Baier, who coordinated the training event together with her colleague Roland Poxhofer, said: „The tour was very informative for us, because now we understand some points better that are essential for the recycling processes. In future we will be able to focus on these important details when collecting the “Bobby Car” wastes.”