WHAT MATERIAL RECYCLING MEANS
The recycling of waste is the process that allows recovering and reusing a material that, at the end of its life cycle, is considered waste. Literally, it means making it usable again.
It is possible to give new life to something that has been used, discarded, and now, through recovery or recycling, can become useful again for other activities or new by-products.
Proper waste management is an increasingly important issue today, as it has been recognized that conscious waste management can bring significant benefits in terms of environmental sustainability.
The recycling of waste fits into a modern context where the recovery of materials, which were previously considered only as waste, is becoming more common worldwide, allowing the creation of new products that were unimaginable just a few years ago.
This concept is truly extraordinary because it goes against the laws of life for living beings, as it enables something to be reborn and reused… Amazing…
But how is it possible to implement this concept of waste recycling and apply it to the reality of materials we use daily, often just once before discarding them?
The process is not as simple or obvious as it might seem and involves many aspects related to the material itself, its use, and how objects are manufactured.
More and more often, people are paying attention and asking how certain objects are made and what they are used for; one of the key starting points is precisely this: the birth of an object.
Until a few years ago, an object was created to perform a task; whatever it was, it had to be simple, functional, and offer the best quality-price ratio, without much consideration for its future life in terms of recovery or recycling.
Neglecting the crucial aspect of waste recycling for years has led to overflowing landfills and disposal plants that often struggle to manage materials that, due to their original design, are difficult to recover.
This makes us realize that if we analyze the situation on a global scale, we understand that many everyday objects could be made with more compatible materials that are easier to separate for a much broader recovery approach.
Only in recent years, as mentioned above, have we seen awareness campaigns in this direction, which have then translated into real actions of production strategy changes that are more eco-friendly, using materials that are more compatible with a circular economy based on the principle of recovery.
Before delving into the journey each material takes, it is important to specify that some materials are recyclable and regenerable, meaning they can always return to their original state. Think, for example, of aluminum, glass, and metals in general.
Other materials, however, can be recycled, but they will never return to their initial state and will be recovered as by-products, such as paper, wood, and many others.
Therefore, we can identify two main categories: recyclable materials that maintain their properties and recyclable materials that generate by-products or different products.
MATERIAL RECYCLING: THE PROCESS STARTS WITH COLLECTION.
All materials and objects we use daily will eventually become waste or scrap and will be subject to the fundamental collection phase, after which they will be sent for different treatments depending on the type of waste and the applicable recovery process.
The main difference between separate collection and mixed waste collection is related to the principle of environmental sustainability concerning recycling activities. While separate collection allows for partial recovery of some raw materials that constitute waste, mixed waste collection does not allow any kind of material recovery.
In 2005, the European Commission initiated the process of reforming waste regulations, which led to Directive 2008/98/EC and in 2014 to Regulation 2014/955/EU.
The European Union has helped define a legal framework aimed at controlling the entire waste cycle, from production to disposal, with particular attention to recovery and recycling.
Within this framework, a principle has been established to determine the level of priority that must be assigned to the various phases that revolve around waste disposal.
The priority level is determined based on the environmental sustainability of treatments, which are identified as follows:
a) prevention
b) preparation for reuse
c) recycling
d) other types of recovery, such as energy recovery
e) disposal
The prevention phase is of great importance and must be implemented by promoting the reduction of waste production and its hazardousness, helping to facilitate reuse, recycling, and other recovery operations. Landfill disposal corresponds to the last step of this scale and is conceived as a final option that should aim to be eliminated over time.
Understanding the methods and types of materials that can be subject to recycling practices is of fundamental importance. It is also essential to implement all the practices to promote the prevention process to be adopted in terms of waste recycling.
Therefore, it is crucial to bring about behavioral changes, both at the individual level and at the group level.
There are many actions individuals can take daily to prevent waste production, such as:
- buying durable items instead of disposable ones
- choosing products with minimal packaging or with packaging that is easy to recycle
- avoiding disposable shopping bags and opting for reusable bags
- preferring refillable products, such as bulk detergents now available in many stores
- drinking tap water instead of bottled water
- reusing organic waste by composting
- avoiding the use of paper napkins and tissues
The necessary change to adopt behaviors aimed at preventing waste accumulation does not concern only individual users but also small, medium, and large commercial companies.
RECOVERY AND RECYCLING OF MATERIALS: THE ROLE OF GHIRARDUZZI SRL
Materials that maintain their original characteristics
In this sector, the company Ghirarduzzi has been operating for several years. Being involved in environmental ecology, air treatment, and purification, it is often in close contact with industrial entities that produce raw materials or semi-finished products.
Metal production in Europe is an excellent example of a circular economy linked to recovery and recycling.
Today, metal production is primarily based on the remelting of scrap and industrial waste. Very few production facilities use raw minerals as a starting material for their processes.
This is because mineral deposits are not always geographically available. Additionally, mining has become a relic of an old economy that is no longer manageable or economically viable.
Another crucial aspect is the enormous energy cost required to obtain raw materials from minerals, which is significantly higher and has a devastating environmental impact on the territory.
All this has led industrialized countries to develop a recovery and recycling system that has always existed for certain materials, such as metals.
The difference between the past and present lies in technology, which has enabled significantly higher efficiency and quality results than in the past.
Simply put, in the past, only the easiest materials were recovered, whereas today, extreme recovery efforts are made to maximize efficiency and quality.
Specifically, one of the largest sources of metals comes from automobiles and objects and containers we use daily.
Even if these materials are well-separated by type, they often consist of multiple components with different compositions, frequently containing plastic-metal combinations or other elements that “contaminate” the recycling process.
For this reason, most of these materials must be shredded and broken down into smaller parts to facilitate the separation of different materials bonded together.
Only by breaking them down into small pieces can the various materials be freed from each other, allowing them to follow different processing paths based on their recoverability.
From this point on, various separation technologies begin to work together to reassemble small clusters of sorted materials from what was initially a single object.
The better these technologies are, the greater and higher the quality of the final result.
This step helps us understand why an object should be designed with recycling in mind. Clearly, separating 10 different materials is easier than separating 100.
Ghirarduzzi has been operating in this sector for over 40 years, facing new challenges daily, with the sole objective of continuously improving its separation technologies within a global recovery approach.
It is evident that achieving 100% material recovery, fully separating all its components, has not yet been possible. There are still variable quantities of contaminated materials that, unfortunately, cannot yet be recovered.
Thanks to process improvements, the percentage of waste has been decreasing over the years, and it is hoped that in the future, it will reach negligible levels.
Materials that do not retain their original characteristics, generating by-products or other products.
This applies to the recovery of paper, wood, certain types of plastics, rubber, and all those products that, once regenerated, can no longer serve their original function.
These materials differ from the previous category not so much in how they are recovered but in how they will be used in their new life as regenerated products. This does not imply a negative perception or a lower economic value.
Often, these products, due to their physical properties or the recycling process, cannot return to their original state.
This is the case with recycled food-grade plastics, paper, and many other materials, which sometimes give rise to new by-products that are even more valuable than their originals, such as microfibers, new technical yarns, and high-performance industrial fabrics.
Ultimately, the principles applied to these processes are the same: different technologies are used to achieve the result, but the essence remains giving new life to something that is no longer useful to us now but may be useful in another form tomorrow—saving resources, reducing waste and pollution, and transforming materials.
“Nothing is created or destroyed, but everything transforms and recycles.”
This may still seem like a futuristic concept, but significant progress is being made in this direction, and in the coming years, we will achieve impressive recovery levels.
However, all this must be viewed in a global context of citizen awareness, product design that considers recycling and second life, and the continuous development of increasingly sophisticated and productive recovery and separation technologies.
PLANTS AND MACHINES FOR RECYCLING
Before starting the recycling process for any type of material, proper screening is essential.
The company Ghirarduzzi manufactures screening plants for waste and other materials such as wood, plastics, metals, compost, and many others.
https://www.ghirarduzzi.it/en/rotating-screens/
https://www.ghirarduzzi.it/en/screening/
Recycling also means separating and enriching materials. The company Ghirarduzzi manufactures various types of separators suitable and functional for separation based on differences in specific weight.
Density separation with table
https://www.ghirarduzzi.it/en/densimetric-separation/
https://www.ghirarduzzi.it/en/densimetric-separators/
Aerodynamic gravitational separation
https://www.ghirarduzzi.it/en/aeraulic-separation/
https://www.ghirarduzzi.it/en/zig-zag-separators/
Metal enrichment and separation
https://www.ghirarduzzi.it/en/metal-separation/
https://www.ghirarduzzi.it/en/magnetic-separators/
Rubber granule and PFU separation
https://www.ghirarduzzi.it/en/pfu-edpm-separation/
These are some examples of applications developed and tested by Ghirarduzzi for recycling materials of various shapes and origins. Our development project allows for the installation of various pilot plants through which functional tests can be conducted directly with your own material.
Contact us by filling out our form, and one of our consultants will get in touch with you as soon as possible.