Evaluation of technologies for the recovery of fluorescent markers (tracers)

Packaging waste can be technically separated according to the type of plastic and reintroduced into the material cycle as secondary raw material. Today's sorting technologies cannot separate plastic packaging according to its original purpose, which means that recycled plastics can have different levels of contamination. As a result, the use of such plastics for strictly regulated materials such as food contact materials is not possible and only allows the use of virgin material. Recycled plastics are therefore used for inferior applications or are incinerated as substitute for fuel. A promising way to circumvent this problem is to provide packaging with a tracer and sort it according to its application (e.g. food, cosmetics, etc.). Suitable materials based on Y- and Gd-oxides are investigated in the MaReK project. These materials are to be incorporated into labels and enable technical separation through fluorescence properties. In Recov-trace, recovery options of the valuable tracer materials from waste streams of the recycling processes for plastics are investigated.