The know-how for recovering ABS and PC of high quality includes the exact adherence of the cut-point, the process control and the management of the production as well as the cleaning work between the recycling processes.

Out of 444 tons of LEGO’s production waste ATP returns c. 326 tons of ABS (~73%) and c. 40 tons of PC (~10 %) into the resource cycle by means of a 4-staged recycling process for recovering products of high quality.

With developing the dry mechanical processing and the selective density separation of PC from a compound of 5 components (incl. 15% PSU fibres) ATP has an unique know-how determining the state-of-the-art technology for recycling plastics from complex production waste.

The know-how for the cleaning regime of technical units enables offers for producers to recover transparent PC of high purity. In 2017/2018 350 tons input material were processed to 185 tons PC with a purity of >99.99%. Extensive fundamental research is still required for recycling PSU fibres.

With developing the dry mechanical processing of triple-layer compounds and the selective density separation of PPGF20 and PVC as well as PPGF20 foamed from PVC (lightweight material) the production site with a 2-staged processing plant (shredder, mill, metal separation, classifier) was set up in Hoppegarten.

Compounds need to be completely decomposed for the 1-staged separation process of PPGF20 and PVC. The developed process control and the traceability of the 8-staged recycling process guarantee the recovery of PPGF20 with a purity of >99.98% for the direct reuse in the production of dashboards.

Until 2017 up to 2,600 tons were processed per year.

The development of the separation media and process technology for plastics with a density of >1.20 g/cm³ as well as of its separation media cycles was initiated for waste from the production of mobiles to recover PC/ABS with a purity of >99.96%.

Based on this technology development regrind of PC/ABS from the automotive industry were then returned into the production of dashboards.

The know-how includes the development, the project planning and the set-up of a density separation plant, extended by colour sorting and electrostatic separation.

The know-how includes the density fraction analysis of fibres in the centrifugal field. The method development for determining the disintegration degree of the PA 6.6 fibres, the sample preparation as well as the determination of the reproducibility of the analysis methods are still not state of the art.

The methodic know-how for controlling the processing of fibres as well as testings justify the expectation of a high innovation potential especially for the textile industry.

ATP can make a significant contribution with future technology developments for recycling fibres such as from worn clothing (cellulose, PA/PET fibres) and technical products (aramid, PSU-PES fibres).

The know-how includes the 2-staged density separation process (centrifuge float-sink separation) and the defelopment of coupled separation media cycles.

The recycling teechnology was optimised by developing and setting up a post-digestion process for the centrifugal separation of plastics and the integrated metal splitting.

3,000 tons PS compounds were annually recycled from the processing of cooling units. In 2011 ATP sold the technology, the know-how and the plant engineering to Czech Republic in order to keep the focus on technical plastics from production waste.

The know-how includes the development of separation media (density range of <1.10 g/cm³) and separation media cycles, of the engineering-based variation of the sink-float basin for the selective separation of PS from PVC as well as of the stability of the recycling process.

With the technical implementation of the selective separation of PS from cups ATP became the only company being able to recover PS free from PVC. The qualities of the cup fractions, of PP as well as of PS enabled the processing of higher-valued products such as of thin-walled products or assembly parts.

From 1996 to 2007 ATP annually produced c. 12,000 tons PS from cups first by float-sink and later by centrifugal processing.