Overview
By 2050, the mass of plastic materials in landfills and in nature is estimated to reach 12,000 tonnes worldwide. These plastics will be removed from the material cycle and will lose value and quality if landfilled for a longer period of time. In order to make landfill remediation more economically viable, a new area of application is needed for contaminated materials as an alternative to incineration. The Tännlimoos landfill site is operated by JURA and contaminated fractions are currently being remediated. During the remediation of the landfill site, 7000 tonnes of combustible material are sorted out each year and then incinerated in a waste incineration plant. A proportion of this combustible material consists of plastics, mainly from the construction industry. These plastics cause high costs for JURA, as the calorific value of the fraction is not ideal. This is partly due to mineral contamination, but also to the high proportion of flame retardants. In this project, JURA wants to find out whether these plastic materials could be recycled.
The aim of this feasibility study is to investigate whether the production of high-quality recycled materials from landfill plastics is feasible and viable. In this project, plastic materials from the contaminated sites of the Tännlimoos landfill are to be processed in such a way that they can be reused technologically.