Recycling Industrial Plastics May Become More Water Efficient

Plastic recycling normally uses lots of water, but new technology may be able to help the industry conserve.

Ak Inovex of Mexico has "developed a new green technology that doesn't require liquids, and has the capacity to process materials such as styrofoam, polystyrene and ABS (Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) using the same type of customizable machinery," according to Investigación y Desarrollo, a project of the Mexican company Consultoría en Prensa y Comunicación, which specializes in science journalism, per Phys.org.

The technology was developed by Marco Adame, the founder of Ak Inovex. The effort aimed to make the technology compatible with as many kinds of plastic as possible.

It can now "process more than 90 percent of any type of plastic, avoids water waste and reduces production costs by half without reducing the quality of the pellets (small beads of recycled plastic) by avoiding stages with severe changes in temperature," the report said.

Skipping several steps in the normal recycling of plastic, materials go "directly to the formation of recycled beads. As a result, the energy consumption is reduced by half, plus the physical space required to perform the operation is reduced because the system is smaller. Similarly, the pellets are of better quality, which makes the recycling process more profitable," the report said.

Plastics are big business. They constitute the third-largest manufacturing industry in the U.S., according to the Plastics Industry Trade Association.

According to the American Chemistry Council, about 1,800 US businesses handle or reclaim post-consumer plastics.

According to the EPA, "The recycling rate for different types of plastic varies greatly, resulting in an overall plastics recycling rate of only 9 percent, or 2.8 million tons in 2012. However, the recycling rate for some plastic products is much higher."