Mechanical recycling of polymers so that they can be used again for high value second life applications is really only possible when you have waste made from that polymer alone. The recycling of any specific polymer will be disturbed by presence of any other polymer. Fortunately, PVC material is very easy to separate from polyolefins (other plastics) by density difference, which makes separation into mono streams for efficient recycling possible. And,if separation is not practical, mixed plastics can be recycled into applications for which the purity is of less importance (e.g. traffic management devices, park benches).
An alternative to ‘Mechanical recycling’ is ‘Feedstock recycling’ which is well suited to the treatment of mixed plastics. The only requirement is that the installation must have a section to separate and recover HCl from the other gases, which is usually the case.
