Especially printing ink binders and pigments are decomposed during plastics recycling conditions and are forming volatile organic compounds which can partly even cause severe odours. Other decomposition products remain in the plastics granule. But as they are not miscible with the plastics matrix they tend to migrate to their surface. To avoid any human health risks the upcycling process needs to separate or bond and inertize these substances sustainably and recycling save. Total VOC emissions are constantly measured inline with M2Watch tool (s. solved problems).
All regranulates from the whole upcycling process comply with REACH and are investigated regularly on this subject. For this reason they can be reused inside EU for circular applications again.
Our research projects still have raised interesting questions how to modify printing ink systems to make them more compatible with circular applications. There are good contacts already to ink producers and new developments can be expected soon in sense of Design4Recycling.
