The automotive recycling industry faces significant hurdles in creating a circular value chain for plastics, mainly due to the complexity of polymer types and the need for economically viable solutions. The RACE project addresses these issues by establishing a partnership enabling closing the recycling loops of plastic materials from end-of-life vehicles (ELVs). This is done by identifying recyclable plastic components and fostering collaboration across the value chain. This initiative aims to enhance recycling efficiency while ensuring technical and financial sustainability for all stakeholders.
The Challenges
One challenge is to ensure enough volume of similar plastic type meets the requirements of the automotive industry for integrating recycled content into the plastic components for vehicles. RACE will map the different kinds of plastic from ELVs and identify the most significant common fraction, focusing on creating a value chain for this, thereby also aiding the car dismantlers in concentrating on only removing plastic components that genuinely have a chance for a circular life and thereby creating the economical basis for removing and sorting these components.
Another challenge is the large variety of polymer types in ELVs, including all the different additives and fillers added to the plastic. By including a pyrolysis partner in the value chain project, there might also be a recycling route for the plastic components, which cannot be recycled mechanically.
Creating a value chain that is also economically viable is a considerable challenge. There needs to be an economic gain for all partners in the value chain, and the automotive industry (and other sectors) needs to be willing to invest and support it economically. At the same time, the use of recycled content is more complex and complicated than the use of virgin plastic. The driver for this is the ELV directive, combined with the requirements of ESG reporting and sustainable ambitions from the industry. The RACE partnership is open about this issue and will first demonstrate what is technically feasible, focusing on how to make it economically viable.
Ensuring Compliance with the New ELV Directive: The Role of the RACE Project
The closed loop for plastic from ELVs to new plastic components in new automobiles does not exist today. This is a requirement for the new proposed ELV directive. The RACE project creates this semi-closed loop where plastic components are removed from ELVs by dismantlers, sorted, and sent to mechanical recycling. Thereby, traceability is ensured: from automotive plastic to automotive plastic.
The RACE project will document and create awareness about the huge diversity of plastic types used in cars, addressing the problems this generates for recycling. When the automotive industry needs to enable its own feedstock of recycled plastic, it needs to investigate how to reduce the complexity of the materials used and the number of different plastic types.
Collaborative Innovation in Plastic Recycling: The RACE Project’s Key Partnerships
Collaboration across the value chain is essential for all partners to understand technical barriers and requirements and what enables the economic basis for each partner in the value chain. For instance, it only makes sense for a recycler to mechanically recycle the plastic if the dismantlers know and understand which components should be removed and how they should be sorted.
Certain economic structures may need to be adjusted, such as the payment model for car dismantlers handling vehicles sent for recycling.
Collaboration is crucial for enabling the recycling of PUR from car seats. Partners must work together to determine the best methods for dismantling the seats and separating the foam. This process is then followed by chemical recycling and the production of new seats incorporating recycled content.
Strategies for Overcoming Financial Barriers in Automotive Plastic Recycling
First of all, being totally transparent about the economic issues in the partnership is essential. Therefore, all partners understand each other economic drivers in the value chain. Otherwise, it is, of course, important that the car dismantlers are able to remove a high volume of the right plastic type in as short a time as possible. The mechanical recycler, of course, needs to define the requirements for the car dismantlers and how the fractions should be sorted, thereby ensuring as few pre-processing steps as possible in the mechanical recycling process. This will also ensure the cleanest fraction of recycled plastic from the recycler, making the introduction of recycled content easier for the automotive industry.
Tackling Technical Challenges in Automotive Plastic Recycling: The Role of Education and Awareness
In RACE, we are starting to map all the different plastic types at car dismantlers and which parts can be removed. The plastic, which makes sense, is sent directly to the mechanical plastic recycler. We are aware that not all plastic can / will be removed by the dismantler, but some will still be present in the car sent to the car recycler. RACE will map the different sorted output fractions from cars containing plastic. Here, we will identify the fraction that can be chemically recycled by the pyrolysis partner in the project.
When plastic is removed, it will create awareness of both the amount and the huge diversity of types. This data and awareness will hopefully contribute to a necessary change in the design and use of plastic in the automotive industry.
PROJECT RACE
RACE (Recycling of Automotive plastic in a Circular Economy, 2024-2027) is supported by The Ministry of Environment’s Environmental Technology Development and Demonstration Program and is a collaboration between CircleX (pyrolysis), Evonik (PU additives), Hammershøj Autoophug, Ørbæk Autogenbrug, Semler Gruppen (car repair shops), Tryg Forsikring, Volvo Cars, Adient (car seat manufacturer), RC Plast (plastic manufacturer), Stena Recycling (recycling) and Teknologisk Institut (knowledge partner and project manager).
