Recycling of Plastics as a Contribution to Environmental Protection.

This paper is concerned with the pretreatment of plastics recovered from domestic refuse which is the most difficult and comprehensive stage of process technology in the recycling of plastics. In cooperation with the ″Kunststoff-Rueckgewinnungsgesellschaft mbH (KRG)″ , an organization of the City of Vienna, a plant was developed which separates not only plastics from non-plastics but also heavy plastics (such as PVC) from light plastics (such as PE), making available both groups as materials suitable for reprocessing. After extensive preliminary trials with original raw material, a commercial plant with an annual capacity of over 15,000 tonnes is presently being constructed in Vienna.