Plastics products and packaging, based on fossil carbon, have a considerable CO2 footprint. Besides, the separate collection of plastics packaging is a costly operation for a municipality.

IVAR, a Norwegian waste management company, manages all residues and waste collection from 10 Norwegian municipalities. With its advanced municipal solid waste sorting plant in the industrial district of Forus, in Stavanger, it recovers high volumes of recyclable materials before incineration, reducing CO2 emissions and the global dependency on virgin material by supplying high-quality recycled content for new products and packaging. Plastics and paper, which were previously collected separately, are now automatically separated, and recovered from mixed municipal waste, while are used to produce electricity and energy for remote heating systems.

The facility increased recovery rates from 28% to 82% and achieved recycling rates of 56,4%, thus meeting the EU’s 2025 recycling targets ahead of time, with less plastics being incinerated. Moreover, the high-quality of recycled plastics reduces the need for primary production. This business case is thus a proof that sorting prior to disposal can preserve recyclable materials previously incinerated and that circular economy can strongly contribute to climate protection, resulting in a decrease of 33,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions a year (equivalent to taking 20, 000 fossil fuel cars off the road). The success of this business case lies in the complementarity between the use of this recent technology and the existing local separate waste collection system. By going hand in hand, mixed waste sorting and recycling can have the biggest impact on how much we recycle.

Photo by John Weaver on Flickr