Five complementary research groups wish to group their scientific infrastructure and expertise
group in order to to develop a completely new plastics refinery concept in line with the oil refineries developed more than a century ago. To this end, the project will focus on seven sorted streams that come from, among others, the Flemish blue bag and commercial sources that are currently not yet recycled in a closed system. We will develop new high-performance solutions for each stream, which in most cases means optimizing demonomer production. These waste streams are: HDPE bottles and trays, PP bottles and trays, PE and other films, mixed polyolefins and a polyolefin-rich residue. Although the waste collection and sorting are strongly country-specific, the modular plastic refinery concept is completely flexible to be integrated into alternative sorting installations, similar to the classic petroleum refineries, where there is no single gold standard.