Fluorescent ink can improve recycling of food-grade plastics

In an effort to boost recycling of food-grade PET, HDPE and PP, the United Kingdom's Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has published a report about research into the use of fluorescent marker technology to enable high speed automatic sorting and recycling.
The addition of UV illumination to existing full scale sorting equipment was used to sort packaging with a range of fluorescent pigments. The project was able to demonstrate yields in the range of 88% to 96% and purity levels up to 100% in a single pass. Additionally, the fluorescent labels and inks were removed efficiently without any residues during the simulation of recycling operations (Recycling Laws International, 18 July 2016).
Click here for the WRAP report (2.53 MB).

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