According to one aspect, a recycled asphalt shingle pellet can include a core including a recycled asphalt shingle waste and a softening agent; and a shell including no greater than 5% recycled asphalt shingle waste. The recycled asphalt shingle pellets can be a part of a batch of recycled asphalt shingle pellets having a large fiberglass sieve factor, F.sub.L, of at least 98.2 wt. %. The batch can also have a small fiberglass sieve factor, F.sub.S, of at least 99.1 wt. %.

A method for recycling polyester containers, in particular PET containers, said method including the following method steps: sorting the containers, comminuting the containers to produce flakes, friction washing the flakes, sorting the flakes, and extruding and granulating the cleaned flakes. The flake-sorting process is used to separate flakes which have a foreign polymer that is different from the polyester, and the flake-sorting process is a combination of a color-sorting process, a screening step, and an optical polymer-sorting process.

The invention comprises methods of robotically separating unwanted heteroatom-containing materials from a plastic mixture and catalytically pyrolyzing the resulting mixed plastics to obtain olefins and aromatics. Systems and compositions useful in the catalytic pyrolysis of plastics are also described.

Methods and systems presented herein are designed for processing waste material to extract plastics. These methods and systems encompass comminution and various stages of gravity separation. For comminution, a ball mill or a rod mill can be employed. The waste material can be or can include automobile shredder residue.

The present invention relates to a process for preparing a recycled raw material composition using depolymerization of waste polyester. The preparation process comprises (1) pretreating a waste polyester with an apparent density of 0.1 kg/L or less to have an apparent density of 0.5 kg/L or more; (2) depolymerizing the pretreated waste polyester; and (3) purifying the reactant obtained through the depolymerization.

A method for sterilizing and decontaminating post-consumer absorbent products polluted with organic compounds derived from human metabolism including drug residues, the post-consumer absorbent sanitary products comprising fractions of plastic, super-absorbent polymers (SAP), and optionally cellulose, the method including at least the steps of: sterilizing (SR) the absorbent sanitary post-consumer products by heating to a temperature equal to or less than 140 C., and to a pressure lower than 4 bar, decontaminating (DC) the post-consumer absorbent sanitary products of organic compounds by treating with an oxidizing composition comprising at least one compound selected from the group consisting of hydrogen peroxide, sodium percarbonate, potassium percarbonate, sodium perborate, potassium perborate, potassium monopersulfate, ammonium persulfate, sodium persulfate, potassium persulfate, and ozone. The at least one compound is contained in the oxidizing composition in an amount equal to or greater than 2% by weight with respect to the dry weight of the post-consumer absorbent sanitary products.

The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a recycled polyester yarn using waste fabric. The method includes steps of: adding a predetermined chain extender to a polyester resin in which waste fabric woven with polyester yarn is melted to prevent the viscosity of the melted recycled polyester resin from dropping, and by adding a low melting point alloy agent having low melting point and low crystallinity, thereby improving extrusion (workability) in a process of melting and spinning the recycled polyester yarn and having physical properties equivalent to virgin polyester yarn.

An automatic kitchen countertop device for converting recyclable bottles into redeemable coins or tokens includes a housing having an outer sidewall and an inner wall which defines a heating chamber for melting the recyclable bottles, a base mounted on a lower portion of the outer sidewall, a cover hingedly affixed to the outer sidewall, a heating element which provides heat to the heating chamber and a coin or token tray which receives molten plastic from melted bottles placed in the heating chamber, the molten plastic solidifying in the coin or token tray to form a coin or token which may be removed from the tray and redeemed for cash or credit.

A method for cleaning pre-comminuted plastic waste includes pretreating pre-comminuted plastic waste using a pretreatment apparatus. The pretreating includes at least one of (i) heating the pre-comminuted plastic waste with a heating apparatus of the pre-treatment apparatus to a cleaning temperature, and (ii) adding at least one cleaning additive and mixing the plastic waste with the at least one cleaning additive by the pretreatment apparatus. The pre-comminuted, pretreated plastic waste output from the pretreatment apparatus is cleaned in a cleaning apparatus. The cleaning includes directing the pre-comminuted, pretreated plastic waste together with a cleaning liquid through a working gap defined between mutually facing working surfaces of two cleaning tools that each include a plurality of cleaning teeth. The two cleaning tools are rotatably driven relative to each other to remove impurities from the pre-comminuted plastic waste. The cleaned, pre-comminuted plastic waste is then dried by a drying apparatus.