Plastic waste from cables - Borealis

Plastic waste
from cables
Introduction
As with all industrial activity, waste is generated during the
manufacturing of cables and when cables are scrapped. For
economical and environmental reasons recycling or recovery
of the material components from this waste is essential. The
need for effective recycling solutions is based on the increasing
scarcity of natural resources and the need to reduce the
environmental burden – including the generation of greenhouse
gases.
Borealis and Borouge are the world’s leading providers for
innovative, value-creating plastics solutions for the wire and
cable industry. Our philosophy is to provide innovative materials
that allow for the problem free operation of cables over very long
time spans. Long life, without the need to frequently scrap and
replace cables, is an effective way to limit the environmental
burden.
Even so, we understand our responsibility to deal with issues
related to cable waste, and have been, for many years, active in
research with industry partners to further develop the recycling
technology.
Cable waste
Cable waste comes from
• cable production
• end of the functional life of the cables
• scrapped cables when there is no need.
The waste can comprise of a multitude of components such as
metals, plastics, rubber, paper and glass fibres.
Driving force for cable waste recycling
The main driving force to recycle cable waste is to recover the
valuable metals such as copper and aluminium.
Recycling of plastic components is encouraged by authorities in
Europe as disposal in landfills is not accepted. Disposal by other
means are associated with costs and therefore the industry is
encouraged to find new cost effective solutions for the handling
of cable waste.
Cable plastic waste management
Waste that is generated during cable manufacturing is sorted
at the source and either reprocessed or recycled for alternative
applications. Waste from end of life and scrapped cables that are
collected from different sources constitute a broad mix of cable
types and material components. A pre-sorting of these cables
is made as a first step, then granulation and separation of the
plastics from the metal occurs.
Separation of the plastics is made by a sink / float technique
where heavy plastics sink in water and lighter plastics float.
A new technology that combines the sink / float techniques with
a gravimetric separation allows for a further separation of metal
from the light plastic making a total separation yield of 99–99.9 %
metal. This means that the purity of the light plastics is high and
attractive for energy recovery or recycling.

WC HO 501 GB 2012 02 BB
Recycling of cable plastic waste
The main plastic components in cable waste from cables recycled today are PVC and
polyethylene, either in crosslinked (XLPE) or thermoplastic (PE) form.
The separation technique in use today enables effective separation of the two main types.
The PVC fraction can be re-melted and processed to new products.
As the separated components are less clean than virgin material, the recycled material is
typically used in applications with lower quality requirements.
XLPE from cable waste can be recycled
XLPE waste is crosslinked and it cannot be reprocessed as a 100% ingredient. However, it
has been shown that a mix between virgin PE and up to 60 % XLPE waste gives a mixture
that can be reprocessed. This results in a material with good mechanical properties that can
be used, for example, in injection moulded articles. As the market for moulded products
based on recycled polyolefins represents several thousand tonnes per year in Europe, this
offers many opportunities. Recycle of waste from cables in certain cable applications is also a
possibility such as cable jacketing (figure 1).
Another option is to recover the energy of PE and XLPE. These materials originate from
hydrocarbons and carry an energy capacity similar to oil. As the new technique for cable
waste separation produces a very clean light fraction, it can be used in such applications as
complementary fuel in district heating plants or in cement kilns.
Production waste
XLPE/LLDPE recycled
compound
Figure 1: Recycling of XLPE into cables
Granulated XLPE
Extrusion cable jacked
Grounded XLPE
Cable with inner-jacket of
recycled compound
References
• „Environmental considerations for
end of life disposal of cables”
B. Helmesjö, B. Hagström.
Jicable 2003. B.4.2 p. 421– 426
• „Electrical insulation systems
and assessment methodologies
for energy technology and clean
environment”.
R.N. Hampton. Nord-IS 2005.
Invited paper
• „Development of recycling
technology of XLPE”.
Sekiguch et.al. Jicable 2007.
C.5.1 p 599 – 604.
• „Recycling of XLPE insulations”.
A. Boss, B. Hagström.
NordIS 2009
• „PlastSep- A new technology
for sorting and recycling of
cable polymers”.
E. Rasmussen,
A. Boss NordIS 2009