In Europe, we produce 24 million tonnes of plastic waste every year and most of it is not recycled. The result is that only 5% of new plastic products in Europe are made of recycled plastic. (Plastic recyclers Europe)
ecoBirdy has come up with a solution to recycle post-consumer plastic products and contributes in this way to a circular economy generating less plastic waste.
In 2016, we looked into existing recycling processes and started to make a plan for our own process. The main objective was to overcome barriers of recycling mixed plastics, especially waste from plastic toys, which are considered difficult to recycle. We found the solution in a combination of manual sorting together with technology.
Thanks to advanced sorting technologies, we are able to produce recycled plastic with similar qualities to virgin plastics. The sorting process is labour-intensive, but the ecological benefits make it worthwhile.
The plastic waste goes through several stages.
- The collected plastic waste is brought to our partner, a professional recycling centre.
- Every single object is manually checked.
- The volume is ground to smaller fragments and washed.
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Precise sorting is conducted automatically.
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Lab quality control is carried out.
Throughout the whole production process, the material is checked by people as well as machines to avoid contamination.
