The current Waste is something humankind worries about more and more, and the solution to this issue is becoming increasingly urgent. Various waste management programs are being developed, and measures to reduce emissions and ensure that waste is separated, recovered or disposed of are being taken.
Strict rules for separation, collection and related waste registration apply at Chemosvit. The companies of the Chemosvit Group generate a lot of waste during the production process and ancillary activities. Chemosvit Environchem was a company tasked with collecting and recovering waste from individual subsidiaries.
The waste collected was sorted in the past. Part of it was processed, part was incinerated, and part was handed over for further recovery or disposal. A waste incineration plant was used for waste disposal of hazardous waste. Over time, we have abandoned this technology and demolished the incineration plant. A second, more modern line for the regranulation of plastic waste has been installed in its place.
TATRAFAN, s.r.o., division ENVIRO has currently one mill, two agglomeration lines, two regranulation lines and four injection moulding machines.
The process by which Chemosvit has reached its current level of waste separation and labelling has taken quite a long time. It was about mutual communication with the production, where the technological waste was produced. The following technologies are currently used in waste separation and disposal:
- Mill: We use this facility to crush, e.g. plastic melt in the form of cubes from the manufacture of yarns or films, including plastic moulding parts, which cannot be otherwise processed. By this, we get a fraction of small fragments, which we further process with the regranulation line and injection moulding machines.
- Agglomeration lines: Only printed polypropylene film waste is processed on them. We receive waste in the form of pressed edge cuts and wound in rolls. The rolls need to be cut into smaller pieces and the paper cores removed.
- Regranulation lines: We use them mainly for polypropylene and polyethene waste processing. Waste received is thoroughly sorted by waste producers into several groups and is thereby separately processed into regranulate. The problem is the processing of PP films with a high application of paints, where melting results in the paint gasification, the granules are inflated and cannot be used for further processing. In that case, we use agglomeration. Regranulation technology has already advanced, and some lines have powerful vacuum zones ensuring the extraction of gases and thus the production of quality regranulates.
- Injection moulding machines: For higher recovery of agglomerates and regranulates, we obtained the technology for the production of PP boards by injection moulding. The boards are supplied to companies that weld them and produce a range of tanks, septic tanks, water meter shafts, etc. Careful sorting of the material is of particular importance here, as perfect weldability of material must be ensured. In addition to PP boards on injection moulding machines, we produce plastic packaging elements, sleeves for winding PP yarns, etc. Injection moulding machines, on which we can inject a mass of more than 25 kg, are relatively unique.
How Much Waste is Generated?
In 2019, we handled approximately 5,200 tonnes of various waste, of which we processed approximately 2,860 tonnes of plastic waste on our lines. The rest is waste, which we cannot recover here. Such waste is exported to waste recycling centres and is intended for, e.g., energy recovery (tubes, wood, particle boards, combined plastics, used oils, etc.), or recycling of ferrous and non-ferrous scrap (cans, barrels, copper, aluminium). It is also a waste not otherwise recoverable that ends up in a landfill. One of the long-term goals is to reduce the proportion of waste currently landfilled.
