Amount of Fill Product Residues in Plastic Packagings for Recycling

Konstantin Schinkel, Bastian Küppers, Sven Reichenbach, Teresa Rohrmeier, Kajetan Müller, Tanja Fell and Sven Sängerlaub ()
Additional contact information
Konstantin Schinkel: Department for Technical Systems, Processes and Communication, Munich University of Applied Sciences HM, Lothstraße 38, 80335 Munich, Germany
Bastian Küppers: STADLER® Anlagenbau GmbH, 88361 Altshausen, Germany
Sven Reichenbach: PreZero Recycling Süd GmbH, 75248 Ölbronn-Dürrn, Germany
Teresa Rohrmeier: Department for Technical Systems, Processes and Communication, Munich University of Applied Sciences HM, Lothstraße 38, 80335 Munich, Germany
Kajetan Müller: Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Applied Science Kempten, Bahnhofstraße 61, 87435 Kempten, Germany
Tanja Fell: Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV, Giggenhauser Straße 35, 85354 Freising, Germany
Sven Sängerlaub: Department for Technical Systems, Processes and Communication, Munich University of Applied Sciences HM, Lothstraße 38, 80335 Munich, Germany

Waste, 2023, vol. 1, issue 4, 1-18

Abstract: Fill product residues in packagings are equivalent to product losses. They are washed out after sorting and before commencing recycling processes. Not much data have been published about how much fill product is still present in packagings dedicated for recycling. Results are often from laboratory trials. Therefore, several hundred packagings from a sorting plant of a dual system in Germany were analysed to determine the amount of fill product residues. Approximately 10 wt. % of highly viscous fill products in tubes were lost as residue. In the case of packagings that were easy to empty, such as cups, and in the case of low-viscosity fill products, such as water, less than 1 wt. % of the fill products remained in the packagings. The mean amount of residue in relation to clean packaging was 0.9 g residue in 1 g of packaging material (without residue) in tubes and 0.07 g in PET bottles. These values were significantly lower for low-viscosity fill products compared to high-viscosity fill products, as expected.

Keywords: recycling; emptying behaviour; food residue; fill good residue; packaging waste (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q16 Q18 Q2 Q20 Q23 Q24 Q25 Q28 Q3 Q31 Q38 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2813-0391/1/4/52/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2813-0391/1/4/52/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jwaste:v:1:y:2023:i:4:p:52-918:d:1255978

Access Statistics for this article

Waste is currently edited by Mr. Sumail Li

More articles in Waste from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().