Using equipment worth over £300,000, Axion's laboratory service can establish the presence of different elements within the material and measure the physical properties of samples as small as one kilogram.
As a result, it is expected to help recycling firms to provide technical information to their customers.
Roger Morton, Axion's commercial director, said: “With the plastics sector now more technically advanced, recycling and waste management companies are looking to recover new materials. So they have a real need to accurately identify them, particularly the composition of complicated mixtures to improve efficiency and recycling rates. This also helps extract more value from the materials and consequently better paybacks.”
He added: “The sale of recycled plastics is changing from an environment of 'buyers beware' to one where the customer has the right to demand a detailed specification and material data sheets relating to the product supplied. The supplier has a legal obligation under REACH to provide this data and also specify the safe application for the material.”
Testing
The service performed at Axion's £3.5 million Manchester facility offers polymer type identification by FTIR, analysis of additives by X-ray, tensile and impact testing, sieve, melt-flow and density analysis, sample compounding, ash content study and manual sorting.
The range of testing methods available has been introduced following REACH imposing a legal obligation on suppliers to be able to provide material data sheets and specify the safe applications for the plastic.
Mr Morton added: “It is no longer acceptable to market goods with a rough verbal indication of the polymer type or to claim ignorance about levels of any undesirable additives.”
Last October, Axion developed technology that allowed it to separate plastics from small electrical items to add to its existing work with larger WEEE components at its 40,000 square feet Salford premises (see letsrecycle.com story) .
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