ADItech is the organisation responsible for coordinating the Piroplax project, which is revolutionising plastic recycling and leading the sector towards a greener, more sustainable and resilient future.

Recycling plastics is essential

With the aim of improving the plastic recycling rate, the agents of the Navarra R&D&I System, SINAI: National Centre for Renewable Energies (CENER) and the Public University of Navarra (UPNA), are developing the Piroplax project, which seeks to curb plastic pollution and accelerate the transition towards a circular and resource-efficient economy.

Currently, only 57% of the plastic produced is collected; and of this, only about 17% is recycled into new products. The main way of recycling is through mechanical techniques, which require prior separation tasks between different types of materials. This makes it clear that there is a need to find new alternatives to facilitate this process.

For this reason, the teams led by Ana María Hernández Giménez from CENER and Sophia Korili from UPNA are implementing a chemical recycling system for plastic waste mixtures based on pyrolysis technology. This method will allow all the material collected in the yellow container to be used as raw material in the recycling process.

With this solution, not only will the proportion of recovered waste be increased, but new plastics and other chemical compounds such as resins and solvents, among others, can also be obtained.

ADItech coordinates the different agents that are developing the Piroplax project, whose main objective is to make the plastics sector more sustainable.