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End-of-life appliance, automobile and mixed ferrous scrap shredder residue screened to pass 2.2 cm with a metal content of 12.9% was characterized and processed to yield organic- and inorganic-rich products. A combination of hydrocycloning, screening, rising current, wet tabling, magnet, and grinding technology was utilized to give ferrous and non-ferrous metal, organic, and inorganic/sand separations at four different size distributions. Economic modeling of the process showed that mechanical recovery of the metal and sand, based upon current market pricing of the constituents, may be viable, reducing landfill volumes and creating a new revenue stream for the shredding operation.

The United States Council of Automotive Research (USCAR) under the Vehicle Recycling Partnership (VRP) along with our collaborators Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), American Plastic Council (APC) and the Association of Plastic Manufactures in Europe (APME) has been conducting research on automated recovery of plastics from shredder residue. A Belgium company Salyp NV located in Ypres, Belgium has been contracted by the VRP to demonstrate a recovery process that can separate several plastic types including polyurethane foam out of the shredder residue waste stream. One hundred metric tons of shredder residue was supplied from three different metal recycling companies (shredders) including a US metal recycler as well as two different European metal recyclers/shredders. This shredder residue was evaluated and processed by Salyp. This paper explains the separation processes along with processing efficiencies, material characterization, mass balances and the amount of plastics recovered.

The American Plastics Council (APC), working with the automotive industry, is leading the plastics industry in a groundbreaking effort to expand the future use of plastics in passenger vehicles. As part of this effort, APC has developed Plastics in Automotive Markets Vision and Technology Roadmap. This document is based in large part on a workshop held in May 2000 in Dearborn, Michigan, which was attended by representatives of plastics producers, OEMs, Tier suppliers, academia and government. The workshop was a collaborative effort with the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Transportation Technologies. During the workshop, participants identified many of the critical technologies needed to expand markets for automotive plastics.

The life-cycle benefits of plastics in automotive applications are significant and continue to expand. Achieving cost-effective recycling of interior plastic components obtained from end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) remains a formidable technical and economic challenge worldwide. The American Plastics Council (APC) has pioneered large-scale process development work toward advancing environmentally and economically sound recovery technologies for plastics from ELVs. Groundbreaking studies have focused on the recovery of ABS and PP interior trim plastics. A combination of dry and wet processing of over 50,000 pounds of interior trim parts obtained through selective dismantling has been completed and streams of ABS and PP isolated. This work included the evaluation of fast mid-infrared plastics ID technology to facilitate the separation and purification process. Both sorted and unsorted trim was processed.

Following the recovery of resalable parts through selective dismantling of end-of-life vehicles (ELVs), the remaining automobile hulks are today shredded in hammer mills to facilitate the recovery of ferrous and non-ferrous metals. Large household appliances (white goods) and other light metal scrap are often co-shredded with ELVs. The residue from this industrial operation is called automotive shredder residue (ASR) and is predominately landfillled in Europe and the United States. In the present study, several real-world samples of ASR from automobiles-only and mixed-metal shredding were carefully hand-sorted into as many as 17 separate fractions and analyzed to ascertain the distribution of heavy metals and other materials. The study emphasized the plastic and rubber fractions with an interest toward increased recovery of these materials.

Research, development, and demonstration of environmentally and economically responsible and sustainable recovery options for plastics from end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) is an active area of study. The plastics industry has been researching a variety of mechanical recycling, feedstock recycling, energy/fuel recovery, and reuse options for post-use automotive plastics. This paper reports on recent commercial experience and test programs using automotive shredder residue (ASR) containing post-use automotive plastics as an environmentally sound energy source in modern waste-to-energy plants. Commercial experience in Europe, especially Germany and Switzerland, is highlighted. A major test program cosponsored by the Association of Plastics Manufacturers in Europe (APME) and the American Plastics Council (APC) has recently demonstrated that co-firing ASR with municipal solid waste (MSW) can be carried out in compliance with strict German air emissions and ash management regulations.

Much attention has focused recently on the recycling of automobiles. Due to the value of their metallic content, automobiles are presently the most highly recycled product in the world. The problem is the remainder of material that is presently landfilled. Automotive shredder residue (ASR, or “fluff”) is made up of a number of materials including plastics, glass, fluids, and dirt. The presence of this mix presents both a problem and an opportunity for the automotive and recycling industries. In order to determine how best to recover the materials that make up ASR, it is first necessary to understand the costs incurred in the present automobile recycling infrastructure: dismantling, shredding/ferrous metal separation, non-ferrous metal separation, and landfilling. Through a technique called Technical Cost Modeling, the costs of the present process are simulated.