ISO TR 16218

Description / Abstract: Several processes for chemical recovery of used packaging are considered to be material recycling. The focus of this Technical Report is for used packaging, although the processes described are not specific for used packaging and can be used for recovery of other materials of same type. Processes for chemical recovery of used packaging are applicable for plastic packaging or biomass-based packaging, which might be interpreted in two different ways:

— Processes to recover valuable chemical substances by chemical treatment of used packaging, for example, to recover monomers of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) by hydrolysis, glycolysis or methanolysis, to recover oil by catalytic reaction or pyrolysis, to recover valuable gases such as hydrogen by gasification, to recover coke, oil and gasses by cokefaction;

— Processes to directly substitute used packaging for natural resources without chemical pretreatment, for example, flakes of used plastic packaging may use in blast furnance in the place of coke as a reducing agent.

Examples and key characteristics of chemical recovery processes are given in Annexes A to E.

NOTE For the purpose of this Technical Report; "Chemical recovery" means the production of chemicals identical to or differing from, the starting raw materials that were used for the production of the packaging materials, or the direct substitution of natural resources by using used packaging. These recovered chemicals can be sued as such, or as reactants in further chemical syntheses; directly ‘in situ' or in another production process.