Spain’s RepescaPlas project has developed a management and recovery system for plastics recovered at sea and an industrial process for mechanical or chemical recycling of the materials.

Now in its fourth and final year, the project has studied the collection, classification, and recycling of marine litter in several phases (see Plasteurope.com of 30.11.2018). Spanish plastics technology centre Aimplas (Valencia; www.aimplas.es), one of the country’s organisations involved in project coordination, collaboration, and development, says the project succeeded in expanding knowledge about various types of marine litter and their location to create a complete fishing strategy and management system.

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The newly created management system involves a cooperation with the fishing industry, which recovers plastics waste while working its nets. After weighing and labelling, the waste is temporarily stored in containers at port, and it is classed by type in a laboratory according to the Marnoba method of classification developed by the Spanish environmental research group Asociación Vertidos Cero (Madrid; www.vertidoscero.com).

Recovered material is shredded, washed, and dried at a recycling plant for recovery. Mechanical recycling is said to allow recovered plastics to be used to make new products of commercial value at an industrial level. Chemical recycling using pyrolysis for mixed waste materials can make products or fuel for the fishing vessels. A flowerpot, clipboard, and paper bin were developed as demonstration products.