A Houston electronics recycler has spent millions to upgrade plastics processing equipment — creating a new ability to separate different resins — in a move aimed at expanding domestic interest and creating new markets.
CompuCycle Inc. of Houston can now separate polyethylene, ABS, polystyrene and polypropylene through recently installed equipment.
Electronic waste, CompuCycle President Clive Hess explained, can be made of up to 75 percent plastic, depending on the component. As part of the company's IT recycling services, CompuCycle previously ground this into a mixed plastic product that was commonly marketed oversees for further processing.
The new equipment, which Hess would only say cost millions of dollars, uses both float-sink and electrostatic separation methods to separate the four common plastics from the larger overall stream of mixed plastics.
These four resins make up a significant portion of the CompuCycle plastics stream, and CompuCycle hopes to create both domestic and international demand for the material now that the company has taken the extra steps to create separate streams.
"CompuCycle now [has] that ability to take what you start out in the e-waste industry with as maybe 12 to 18 different types of plastics that are all mixed together coming from these different types of equipment and segregate them down to the point where you can segregate every individual polymer if you choose to do so," said Jim Cornwell, a consultant that helped with the recycling project.
"At this point, CompuCycle is focused on those four because they're the largest quantity of polymers within the e-waste stream," he said.
"So as we continue to develop, improve the process, and probably add more systems, we could literally go after every single polymer in the stream. But there's a realistic point of diminishing returns to chase after something that there's going to be 2 percent of the stream to try to recover it," Cornwell said.
The four resins CompuCycle is targeting for separation represent 60 to 70 percent of the plastics being handled by the company.
"I'd say the single largest is probably ABS followed by PS, and then the polyethylene and polypropylene are the final two," Cornwell said.
CompuCycle seeks to build relationships with original equipment manufacturers in the electronics space to find new homes for their segregated, recycled plastics.
These OEMs can be shy about using recycled content in high-priced electronic applications because of quality and consistency concerns. But CompuCycle believes segregation and consistency created by the new system will help alleviate those concerns.
"We're looking for domestic markets. Certainly if we can definitely provide plastics back to the OEMs to meet their sustainability goals, reusing the plastics, that is certainly a goal of ours," Hess said, as well as supplying other industries.
"The OEMs, the electronic manufacturers, they have large sustainability goals and the world is changing where consumers are starting to demand reused content and they want to see that when they buy the products," he said.
CompuCycle added about 10,000 square feet to house the new equipment needed to upgrade plastic recycling efforts.
"This closes the loop in really creating sustainable solutions," CompuCycle CEO Kelly Adels Hess said. "It gives us such great availability to help our customers and prospects."
"Making single polymer plastics that original equipment manufacturers can reuse to produce new electronics or other products, while adhering to international recycling standards, is a game changer for domestic companies and those that need their plastics shipped globally," she said in a separate statement.