Method for recycling electronic waste are included that enable electronic waste separation and recycling to a high level of separation efficiency and end product purity which are improvements over prior methods. In preferred methods, separated electronic waste which has been subjected to magnetic separation to remove ferrous materials and shredded to an average width of less than about 40 mm is provided and then introduced to a first water tank treated so as to have a specific gravity of about 1.20 to about 1.30 and allowing a first portion of the electronic waste to float in the first water tank and a second portion of the electronic waste to sink in the first water tank; and the second portion of the electronic waste is introduced to a water vibrating table, wherein the remaining second portion of the electronic waste leaving the water vibrating table yields at least about 98% sorted recovered materials comprising pure and clean copper, aluminum, wire, circuit boards, stainless steel and mixed plastics. Other preferred embodiments employ use of a horizontal friction dehydrator in secondary separation, use of color sorting of various plastics, employing fresh-water fed vertical dehydrators at end steps of separation and use of a high purity electrostatic separation process for final products.

A system and process for separating organic material from solid waste such as material recovery facility (MRF) fines is disclosed. The fines are treated in a press, in which the fines are compressed against a wall having a set of holes. The fines are mixed with a substantial amount of water before being pressed. The water increases the amount of organic matter that is recovered from the fines. A wet fraction, extruded through the holes of the press, may be treated in an anaerobic digester.

The invention provides a method for identifying plastics and/or the additives therein, wherein at least some of the plastic material is irradiated with light of at least one wavelength, at least some of the light reflected by the plastic material is detected and analyzed, and the plastic material and/or the additive therein is/are identified on the basis of the result of the analysis. The disclosed method utilizes a fluorescence decay time constant of the intrinsic fluorescence of the plastic material and, if applicable, of the additive(s) therein, which is determined on the basis of the detected light, and the plastic material and/or the additive(s) therein is/are identified on the basis of the determined fluorescence decay time constant.

A method of manufacturing bulked continuous carpet filament that includes providing a polymer melt and separating the polymer melt from the extruder into at least eight streams. The multiple streams are exposed to a chamber pressure within a chamber that is below approximately 5 millibars. The streams are recombined into a single polymer stream and formed into bulked continuous carpet filament.

Mixed-plastics polypropylene blend including mainly polypropylene being benzene free with defined CIELAB color.

A process for the segregation, sterilization, and purification of recycled plastic medical waste with the subsequent production of plastic products made therefrom is disclosed. Also disclosed is a method for the front-end segregation of recycled plastic medical waste into a polypropylene waste stream and a mixed plastic waste stream. These segregated streams are further purified through a processing method that removes contaminating fibrous, metal and other waste products. Polypropylene and mixed plastic streams isolated using these methods yield a homogenous material that can be blended with other materials for the production of raw plastic or for extrusion to form commercial plastic products. A method for tracking regulated and non-regulated medical waste stream production kinetics and chain of custody from discrete waste disposal sites is also disclosed.

A method may include determining a first dry mass flow rate of a wet paper material stream based on a first amount of contaminants, a first moisture content, and a first wet mass flow rate of the wet paper material stream, determining a second dry mass flow rate of a wet plastic material stream based on a second amount of contaminants, a second moisture content, and a second wet mass flow rate of the wet plastic material stream, calculating, using the first dry mass flow rate and the second dry mass flow rate, a paper/plastic ratio of a combined stream of the paper material stream and the plastic material stream, and adjusting, a flow rate of paper into the paper material stream and a flow rate of plastic into the plastic material stream such that the calculated paper/plastic ratio of the combined stream equals a target paper/plastic ratio.

Even in a case of a waste plastic whose use history is unknown, blending of an additive for recycling into a recycled plastic having a desired physical property can be estimated with high accuracy. A plastic recycling supporting apparatus 100 that supports plastic recycling in which a plastic is blended with an additive and is recycled into a recycled plastic having a desired physical property includes: a physical property and deterioration estimator 140 configured to estimate, using a physical property and deterioration estimation model, a physical property and a deterioration degree of the plastic based on a texture structural feature extracted from surface analysis data of the plastic; and a blending estimator 150 configured to estimate a physical property of the recycled plastic based on the physical property and the deterioration degree of the plastic and a blending condition of the additive using a physical property recovery model.

A method of manufacturing bulked continuous carpet filament that includes providing a polymer melt and separating the polymer melt from the extruder into at least eight streams. The multiple streams are exposed to a chamber pressure within a chamber that is below approximately 25 millibars, or another predetermined pressure. The streams are recombined into a single polymer stream. Polymer from the polymer stream is then formed into bulked continuous carpet filament.

Images depicting items in a waste flow on a conveyor belt are provided to two analysis systems. The first system processes images to decode digital watermark payload data found on certain of the items (e.g., plastic containers). This payload data is used to look up corresponding attribute metadata for the items in a database, such as the type of plastic in each item, and whether the item was used as a food container or not. The second analysis system can be a spectroscopy system that determines the type of plastic in each item by its absorption characteristics. When the two systems conflict in identifying the plastic type, a sorting logic processor applies a rule set to arbitrate the conflict and determine which plastic type is most likely. The item is then sorted into one of several different bins depending on a combination of the final plastic identification, and whether the item was used as a food container or not. A variety of other features and arrangements are also detailed.