Recycling infrastructure for engineering thermoplastics: a supply chain analysis

Several years ago, the electronics supply chain was making substantive progress in establishing programs and partnerships to demonstrate the recovery, identification and sorting of plastic from electronic equipment; and making inroads in the design community to gain acceptance of recycled-content resins in new products. Many of these entrepreneurial efforts hit major roadblocks due to the lack of consistent, quality supply and insufficient demand. Technology is no longer the major challenge. Recyclers and equipment manufacturers have demonstrated recovery processes that achieve high quality recyclate that can even meet the demanding specifications for cosmetic parts in electronic applications. Industry now faces the economic, institutional and political realities of making plastics recycling work