Sweden boosting plastic recycling with giant plant

MOTALA (AFP) — Discarded crisp bags, ketchup bottles and Tupperware containers speed along conveyer belts at a massive high-tech sorting plant dubbed “Site Zero,” which Sweden hopes will revolutionize its plastic recycling.

Infrared lights, lasers, cameras and even artificial intelligence are used to sort the piles of plastic waste, Mattias Philipsson, CEO of Swedish Plastic Recycling, a non-profit organization owned by the plastic industry, explains as he gives a tour of the plant.

Located outside the town of Motala, some 200 kilometers southwest of Stockholm, the site has been in operation since late 2023 and is described by the organization as “the world’s largest and most modern facility for plastic recycling.”

Capable of processing 200,000 tons of waste a year, the fully automated plant can isolate 12 different types of plastic, compared to only four in conventional facilities.

Its operator hopes upcoming European Union legislation requiring new packaging to include a certain amount of recycled plastic will give a boost to the recycling industry.

“We receive all the collected plastic packaging which people have sorted in Swedish households,” Philipsson told Agence France-Presse at the site, adding that they “have the capacity to handle the equivalent of all of Sweden’s plastic waste.”

Thousands of plastic items make their way through an intricate maze of different machines which identify and separate the items into distinct categories, called “fractions.”

On one of the conveyor belts, infrared light is used to scan the packaging as it zooms past, and a strong blast of air whooshes the pieces in different directions depending on the type of plastic.

Among other things, the facility is able to sort out PVC (polyvinyl chloride) and polystyrene, two fractions that have not previously been able to be reused in new products as such.

“The idea is to be part of a circular economy and to reduce the use of fossil fuels,” Philipsson says.

“With our old sorting plant, over 50 percent of the plastic packaging was eventually incinerated because it couldn’t be sorted. Now it’s less than five percent,” he adds.