EREMA is supporting a process developed by Cadel Deinking from Spain that is capable of removing printed ink from plastics. The technology was on display during an Open House in Spain in December. One of the demonstrations was red in-house film scrap material turned into natural pellets.

Why is ink removal a potential key process to enhance circular economy models for plastics?

If ink is not removed prior to recycling the material, the resulting pellets of the recycling process, especially when various colors are present, tend to turn out as a greyish pellet. While the mechanical qualities of such a recycled plastic can be very good, the cosmetic / marketing appeal is greatly reduced. The resulting greyish color reduces the value of the recycled plastic material because its applications are limited.

The promise of a de-inking process is to be able to turn printed (not colored) plastic materials back to original products – closing the loop.

Cadel Deinking’s process removes printed ink from the surface of plastic packaging materials such as film or rigid parts. Processors of the recycled material can replace virgin resins with natural colored resins, in some cases up to 100% rPlastics.

Cleaning chemicals, that are neither solvents nor environmentally hazardous materials, are used in the process. The associated water treatment system works in a closed loop, recovering the chemical agents that remove the ink.

The process can be applied to a wide variety of plastic materials and inks such as PE, PP, PET, water-based, solvent-based, UV and Electro beam inks. The process can be applied to post consumer materials or as  part of in-house recovery of production scrap. EREMA’s technology and products efficiently enhance the Cadel Deinking process to produce a secondary raw material ready to use.