The future needs experts – plastics recycling in Romania

The Romanian recycling business Expert Recycling offers numerous services around the disposal and recycling of post-consumer and post-industrial plastic waste. A W5.18 single-shaft shredder from WEIMA is used for processing PET, PP, PS, PE, DHPE and PELD material streams. With its help, the company produces high-quality regranulates, films, and waste bags, which it then sells itself.

WEIMA W5.18 with wide inspection flap for the maintenance or removal of any impurities
© Chorus

Nowhere else in the European Union is so little waste produced annually per capita as in Romania. Also true is that the country's recycling rate is only just ahead of Malta, which is in last place. Expert Recycling, located two hours north of Bucharest, has recognized this need to catch up since it was founded in 2007 and, according to its own figures, has processed over 7000 tons of waste to date.

  First step: The plastic shredder processes a wide range of materials into homogeneous flake sizes
© Chorus

Achieving the Zero Waste goal with strong partners

The circular economy is the focus for Expert Recycling. Together with strong partners, the Zero Waste ideal goal for Romania is to be achieved. Owner Dan Ana explains how: "We want to make an important contribution on the way to a circular economy. One person's waste should be another person's raw material. Expert Recycling wants to support a society focused on sustainability with state-of-the-art technology that is not only safer but also more efficient than before. Ultimately, we need to significantly increase the recycling rate."

To achieve these ambitious goals, Expert Recycling relies on shredding technology from WEIMA in Germany – distributed by the Romanian dealer Chorus Engineering from Bucharest and co-financed by funds from the European Union.

  High-quality regranulates at the end of the recycling line
© Chorus

WEIMA shredder as the central component

In the first step of the recycling process, the WEIMA W5.18 plastic shredder W5.18 processes a wide variety of films, packaging and more to a homogeneous flake size, which is ideal for further processing.

The WEIMA shredder as the central component of the recycling line has a working width of approx. 1800 mm, with a rotor diameter of approx. 500 mm. It is driven directly by a Hägglunds Bosch Rexroth hydraulic power drive train, without gearbox or frequency converter, which allows consistently high throughput rates to be achieved. The drive is extremely robust with regard to foreign objects and features variably adjustable rotor speeds with constantly high torque – even under full load.

Shredding technology from WEIMA: Simple condition of the shredder
© Chorus

The material is fed via infeed conveyor belt. The compact swing-arm ram installed inside the shredder presses the material to be shredded against the rotor in a load-dependent and fully automated manner. Due to the wide opening of the inspection flap, the removal of any impurities or the maintenance of the cutting geometry is conveniently possible at any time.

After shredding, the flakes are washed, followed by extrusion using a solution from Erema. The products, various regranulates and film products, are of the highest quality, confirms Dan Ana: "We collect or buy post-consumer as well as post-industrial plastic waste from our numerous partners. All our products, granules, household waste bags and films, are made of 100 percent recycled material and comply with all EU regulations, including CE marking for full transparency in national and international markets. At Expert Recycling, we have a comprehensive technology park for end-to-end recycling. This includes sorting, separating, washing, shredding, baling and extruding. And we're pretty proud of that."

www.weima.com