General concept Production process
 
 
General concept
     
 
Plastic waste, selectively collected via container parks or door-to-door collections, is stored in a storage hall protected from wind and rain.

The waste is reduced to the size of a fist and conveyed via an intermediate silo to the first purification stage. In this first stage, gravity is used to separate plastic from heavier impurities such as stones, metal, glass, etc. A magnetic belt recovers the magnetic metal from the heavy stream.

In the second purification stage, paper and (in)organic contamination of the plastic is removed by means of a friction washer. The impurities remain behind in the process water, which is sent to the water treatment plant.

After a second size reduction stage, the washed plastics are brought to a separation tank. On the basis of density differences between the various plastic types, two plastic streams develop: a heavy (sinking) stream which primarily includes PET, PS and PVC, and a light (floating) stream which primarily includes PE and PP.
Both streams are evacuated separately from the separation tank and dried centrifugally.
The heavy stream undergoes an additional deferrization, is ground down to 8 mm and is stored in silos.
The light stream is further dried thermally and divided in an air separator into a hard stream (primarily HDPE) and a soft stream (primarily PE films). The soft stream is agglomerated into rough granules. Both streams are stored separately in silos.


 
From the silos with the three different plastic types, mixtures are prepared for the purpose of the different production lines.

EKOL has two extrusion lines for the production of relatively thin-walled linear products (continuous extrusion: cover plates, hollow profiles) and one extrusion line for the production of thick-walled, non-linear products (batch extrusion or intrusion: street furniture, traffic technology applications, noise-protection walls).

The processing waters which are generated at the various stages are purified with mechanical and physical-chemical techniques and re-used 100% in the washing process.
  EKOL produces long-lasting products by processing plastic waste in an ecological manner. The plant in Houthalen is particularly environmentally-friendly in design, construction, operation and production process.
 
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