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J Mater Cycles Waste Manag (2014) 16:398414 DOI 10.1007/s10163-014-0244-z
SPECIAL FEATURE: REVIEW Chemical Feedstock Recycling 10
Recycling plastics from automotive shredder residues: a review
Alfons Buekens Xujian Zhou
Received: 11 November 2013 / Accepted: 24 January 2014 / Published online: 20 March 2014 Springer Japan 2014
Abstract Automotive shredder residue (ASR) is an inevitable by-product of car recycling, i.e. removal of all liquids and hazardous or valuable components from the car and shredding of the hulk, followed by the recovery of steel, iron, and non-ferrous scrap. The European Union (EU) ELV Directive requires attaining higher recovery and recycling rates, resulting in a reduction of the amount of ASR going to landll. The most plausible methods to achieve a considerable reduction of ASR are as follows: either recycling of separated materials and dismantled bulky parts, such as bumpers, dashboards, cushions, and front and rear windows, or else systematic sorting of the commingled and size-reduced materials, resulting from shredding. After a brief comparison of the actual situation in the EU, the USA, and Japan, the characteristics of actual ASR are reviewed, as well as some of the most prominent efforts made to separate and recycle specic fractions, such as polyolens, ABS, or polyurethane. Attention is paid to some major players in the EU and to some of the pitfalls that besiege these ventures.
Keywords Automotive shredder residue Car recycling
Treatment methods Mechanical recycling Emission
control
Structure of this review
Since more than 50 years end-of-life vehicles (ELV) have rst been scrutinised as source of spare parts and then
shredded to recover their metal content. Today shredding is an energy-intensive, environmentally sensitive, mature industry, as explained under the heading Scope and denitions.
About 75 wt% of ELVs is recovered as metal, leaving the automobile shredder residue (ASR) as a balance that is difcult to separate and process to useful materials or to valorise. With the growing number of cars in use such ASR has evolved into a major waste stream that attracted the concern of environmentalists and legislators. Notwithstanding obvious technical and economic complications, the EU ELV-Directive made mandatory materials and energy recycling a priority, as discussed for the EU, Japan, Korea, and the USA in Legal status.
As a next step, the present techniques used in shredder...