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Does adding calcium carbonate to polymers help in increasing the recyclability of the polymer?
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Karl Meyer
Does adding calcium carbonate to polymers help in increasing the recyclability of the polymer?
The question is, “Does adding calcium carbonate to polymers help in increasing the recyclability of the polymer?” The quick answer is no.
Consider that, one of the most recyclable plastics (maybe *the* most recyclable) is PETE (or PET = Poly(ethylene terephthalate), which is No.1 plastic in the recycling code). For the most part, PET plastic bottles are purely PET (at least when I learned about them). The caps and labels may be different plastics, but they are easily separable.
If the bottle itself was a blend of PET resin and calcium carbonate additive (just as a hypothetical example: this is not not a recommendation :) ) then recycling will need to have an extra step of separating the resin from the additive, before the resin can be recycled.
Now, it’s possible that there are applications in the future that is massive in volume and where the resin/additive composition is exactly the same. Then, it might be possible to recycle such materials. In practice, the resin/additive formulations are very diverse, and so such recycled materials do not get used in higher performance end-use (and might get used in, for example, plastic park benches).
Reference on plastic resin ID numbers: See this from Wikipedia.
The question is, “Does adding calcium carbonate to polymers help in increasing the recyclability of the polymer?” The quick answer is no.
Consider that, one of the most recyclable plastics (maybe *the* most recyclable) is PETE (or PET = Poly(ethylene terephthalate), which is No.1 plastic in the recycling code). For the most part, PET plastic bottles are purely PET (at least when I learned about them). The caps and labels may be different plastics, but they are easily separable.
If the bottle itself was a blend of PET resin and calcium carbonate additive (just as a hypothetical example: this is not not a recommendation :) ) then recycling will need to have an extra step of separating the resin from the additive, before the resin can be recycled.
Now, it’s possible that there are applications in the future that is massive in volume and where the resin/additive composition is exactly the same. Then, it might be possible to recycle such materials. In practice, the resin/additive formulations are very diverse, and so such recycled materials do not get used in higher performance end-use (and might get used in, for example, plastic park benches).
Reference on plastic resin ID numbers: See this from Wikipedia.
The question is, “Does adding calcium carbonate to polymers help in increasing the recyclability of the polymer?” The quick answer is no.
Consider that, one of the most recyclable plastics (maybe *the* most recyclable) is PETE (or PET = Poly(ethylene terephthalate), which is No.1 plastic in the recycling code). For the most part, PET plastic bottles are purely PET (at least when I learned about them). The caps and labels may be different plastics, but they are easily separable.
If the bottle itself was a blend of PET resin and calcium carbonate additive (just as a hypothetical example: this is not not a recommendation :) ) then recycling will need to have an extra step of separating the resin from the additive, before the resin can be recycled.
Now, it’s possible that there are applications in the future that is massive in volume and where the resin/additive composition is exactly the same. Then, it might be possible to recycle such materials. In practice, the resin/additive formulations are very diverse, and so such recycled materials do not get used in higher performance end-use (and might get used in, for example, plastic park benches).
Reference on plastic resin ID numbers: See this from Wikipedia.
The question is, “Does adding calcium carbonate to polymers help in increasing the recyclability of the polymer?” The quick answer is no.
Consider that, one of the most recyclable plastics (maybe *the* most recyclable) is PETE (or PET = Poly(ethylene terephthalate), which is No.1 plastic in the recycling code). For the most part, PET plastic bottles are purely PET (at least when I learned about them). The caps and labels may be different plastics, but they are easily separable.
If the bottle itself was a blend of PET resin and calcium carbonate additive (just as a hypothetical example: this is not not a recommendation :) ) then recycling will need to have an extra step of separating the resin from the additive, before the resin can be recycled.
Now, it’s possible that there are applications in the future that is massive in volume and where the resin/additive composition is exactly the same. Then, it might be possible to recycle such materials. In practice, the resin/additive formulations are very diverse, and so such recycled materials do not get used in higher performance end-use (and might get used in, for example, plastic park benches).
Reference on plastic resin ID numbers: See this from Wikipedia.
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