DRIVING WITH POLYURETHANES

DRIVING WITH POLYURETHANESIntegrated Waste ManagementScrap seatsSource : MavelISOPA supports an integrated approach to wastemanagement for all plastic products. To achieve themaximum environmental and economic benefits fromplastics, ISOPA supports an integrated approach to wastemanagement for all plastic products. This means choosingthe most appropriate combination of waste managementoptions, adapted to the individual local and regionalconditions, with the overall aim of preventing plasticsproducts from going to landfill at end-of-life. The optimalroute for re-use, recycling or recovery will be different foreach of the various polyurethane application areas in carsand may vary for different regions in Europe. The mixbetween materials recycling and energy recovery,therefore, must be flexible and adjusted to the local andregional circumstances.Life-cycle analysis studies of cars indicate thatthe biggest environmental impact comes from theuse-phase of the car. Therefore, simply focusing on thewaste treatment, without taking the whole life cycleinto consideration, may not always be beneficial to theenvironment.Energy recovery provides an attractive alternative tothose quantities of polyurethanes that cannot berecycled as a material in an ecologically sensible way.It would not be ecologically sensible, for example,if a front seat cushion made from rebonded foam,weighing approximately 2 kg - which represents anincrease of approximately 50 per cent above anequivalent seat cushion from virgin foam - would beapplied just because dismantled foam from ELVs mustfulfil a certain recycling quota. In this example, recyclingmay have saved approximately one kilogram of resourcesduring the production of one car. But during the use ofthe car the additional resource consumption may amountto three kg - a net wasting of two kg.Mechanical recycling costs are significantly highercompared to the thermal recovery costs of polyurethanesin multiple material parts, such as dashboards. In thesecases, energy recovery is the most effective way ofdisposing of the ASR which remains after all therecyclable plastic parts have been removed from thevehicle and otherwise would have been sent to landfill.The disposal of polyurethane products through controlledlandfill is considered by the polyurethanes industry as alast option if there are no possibilities to viably recoverresources.9