Dive Summary:
- University of Alicante (Spain) researchers say they have developed a method of removing printed ink from plastic films, making it possible to recycle plastics with printed ink on them.
- As it severely reduces the viscosity of the plastic, plastic with printed ink cannot even be used to make recycled plastic.
- Andrés Fullana Font, a professor at the University of Alicante Department of chemical engineering and part of the research team, said, "The most important advantages of removing ink are, on the one hand, increasing the value of engineered plastic, achieving to match the quality of the new plastic with a virgin one, and on the other hand, the selling price of recycled plastic compared to virgin plastic."
From the article:
Another important aspect of the technique is that during the process no organic solvents are used to perform the ink removal and the cleaning solution employed in the process is reused, which makes it more favorable economically and environmentally.
"Therefore, we obtain a higher-quality recycled material than can be applied to a printed product already used by the end user, or in print materials made up from production losses" Andrés Fullana adds.
