Empowering local stakeholders for higher valorisation of plastic wastes through transfer and adaptation of chemical recycling technology

Project lead

© B. Lammel | Bundesfoto GbR

Prof. Dr. Johannes A. M. Awudza,
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST),
Department of Chemistry,
Kumasi, Ghana
in cooperation with

© B. Lammel | Bundesfoto GbR

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Stephan Scholl,
TU Braunschweig,
Institute for Chemical and Thermal Process Engineering,
Braunschweig, Germany

Project description

Plastic waste is one of the world's biggest environmental burdens. In most countries of the global South, rising prosperity is accompanied by a waste problem that is almost impossible to control. Plastic waste in particular is a burden on nature, on land, in the air and in water. At the same time, many people make a living from waste, for example by collecting it, sorting it and selling it on as secondary raw materials.

In Ghana, plastic waste is collected and sorted either by commercial or municipal systems or in the informal sector by recyclables collectors and cooperatives. Clear PET beverage bottles in particular can be mechanically recycled and processed into new bottles. Plastic waste that is not suitable for mechanical recycling, such as coloured PET bottles or multilayer materials, is often incinerated or sent to landfill and is thus lost to the material cycle. With the innovative revolPET® chemical recycling process developed in Germany, these waste streams can also be recycled and returned to the cycle. This is precisely where the PlasticWasteRecycle cooperation project comes in by developing an integrated recycling concept for plastic waste in Ghana that combines complementary recycling technologies with the local collection and sorting systems. To this end, waste streams are being analysed in order to develop three alternative recycling routes: mechanical recycling, the revolPET® process and the pyrolysis process. By transferring and adapting a new type of recycling technology, the aim is to open up a new, marketable recycling stream for recyclable material collectors and cooperatives operating in Ghana and thus create a new, environmentally friendly business segment.

The results of the project will benefit municipal and commercial recyclables collectors who, thanks to the integrated recycling concept, will be able to sell the high-quality plastic waste to recycling companies at a better market price. This provides an incentive for private and public investors to enter the business field with innovative revolPET® systems by setting up companies that handle everything from the collection to the pre-processing of plastic waste.

Mr Johannes Awudza receives the German-African Innovation Award (GAIIA) for his excellent research in the field of catalytic polymerisation in combination with a convincing proposal for a German-African cooperation project that further develops these research results into user-oriented solutions.

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