Tracer Based Sorting – Innovative Sorting Options for Post Consumer Products

Tackling plastic waste from packaging in Germany has become an important topic in recent decades. Starting in 1991 with a mere 1.6 million Mg, in 2013 already 2.8 million Mg or 77 % of plastic packaging waste was collected, although in the same period, the mean mass of plastic packaging dropped by 26 %. Future steps will be the development from a packaging to a secondary raw materials collection system and increased recovery rates: German packaging law requires 63 % (w/w) of all plastic packaging to be recycled by 2020. As the current recovery rate covers both material and energetic recycling, it reaches 99.6 % and this exceeds the current requirement of 60 %, but material recycling still needs to be improved. Out of these 99.6 % merely 41 % are material recycling, 57% energetic recycling and 1 % feedstock recycling. Thus the materials recycling quota of 36 % currently required by the German packaging ordinance is clearly met, but for meeting the requirements for 2020 and onward, actions need to be taken.